The League of Women Voters held a rare debate Wednesday for the congressional seat held by Vern Buchanan, who is retiring after serving 20 years on Capitol Hill.
In this year's redistricting, district 16 has been redrawn to include St. Petersburg, inland Sarasota County and Manatee, Hardee and DeSoto counties. The area has traditionally voted Republican.
Democrat Kelly Kirschner - who is a former Sarasota mayor - said health care for everyone would allow people to leave their jobs without fear of losing their employer-paid insurance.
"I am running on universal healthcare," he said. "I think health care is a right for people. I think it would bolster up the middle class if we had universal healthcare. And yes, I will tax billionaires to get it."
Republican Sydney Gruters is married to Joe Gruters, head of the national GOP. She has President Trump's endorsement. Gruters said she doesn't want nationalized health care.
"I do not want the government taking over my healthcare," she said. "We need to cut the government spending and stop expanding the government, get them out of our daily lives."
Mark Davis is a businessman and military veteran running in his first campaign on a no-party ticket. He wants Medicare for all and is painting himself as the outside candidate.
"I'm just a father. I'm just a dad, and I'm just a pissed off dude in the middle of red Florida," he said. "And this election is different, right? And I'm a different candidate. And we don't need the same old bought and sold politicians, and that's what both of these people are."
Kirschner differed with Gruters on everything from voter ID's to enforcement of immigration laws and limiting federal involvement in education and health care. Both want to put some limits on artificial intelligence research.
"I think these companies need to be held liable for some of the things that are going on right now," Kirschner said, "and we need to have an understanding on what happens to the dignity of work and the future of our economy as AI advances."
Gruters said consumers should not be forced to pay higher bills because of energy-intense data centers.
"Big Tech should pay their own way. They have the money. This should not be put on the consumers under any circumstances," she said. "They need to pay the energy costs. They need to pay for the water, and the local communities are the ones to decide whether or not they want that in their backyard."
Kirschner noted that Gruters has been endorsed by President Trump, who says there needs to be no guardrails on AI.
"Who has someone who's endorsing them that basically has said to rural communities like Arcadia and like Fort Meade - where we have two proposed AI hyperscale data centers," Kirschner said, " and that individual who happens to live in 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue says, suck it up, buttercup. This is coming, you need to accept it."
Gruters has also come out in favor of the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility - or SAVE - Act.
"I do support having to show voter ID. That's common sense. You have to show your voter ID for hundreds of thousands of things that are much less important than voting," she said. "And so I would say, at the very least, we should all be required to show our ID when voting in any election here in the United States."
Kirschner said the SAVE Act is a distraction from other issues Congress should be paying attention to.
"There has been an autopsy over and over again of the 2020 election, and was there voter fraud?" he asked. "I think the few examples of voter fraud actually would come from the other side that are the the ones that seem to protest the loudest. We need to have a system that makes it easy for people when they move to different homes."
On the immigration debate, Kirschner said ICE is spending huge amounts of money with very little to show for it.
"Right now, spending $75 billion and not having a national conversation on immigration reform is insane," Kirschner said. "If you think of this congressional district, six counties, what is the three-legged stool that this economy depends on? If you go out east in agriculture, immigrant labor. If you think of any construction site in this congressional district, who is working on that site?"
Gruters said she supports legal immigration, and backs the Trump administration's efforts to deport people in the country illegally.
"When you're letting people who come in here who are violent criminals, murderers, it affects all of us. And so I think we need to be more outrage on the victims of illegal immigration and those that are coming in here unlawfully," she said. "I don't think we need more laws in place. The laws are there. We just have to enforce them. I support our law enforcement, and we have to keep our community safe, and we can only do that through law and order."
Davis said ICE should be abolished.
"This is the same problem that Republicans want to drag in and blame it on brown people. The problem isn't brown people," he said. "The problem is billionaires."
In July, Davis was arrested for obstructing a police officer during a court-ordered welfare check of his children. According to a police report, Manatee sheriff's deputies went to Davis’ home in Parrish to conduct a child safety investigation.
After he was released on bond, Davis told ABC7 the DCF complaint was false, and was retaliation for his criticism of President Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis.
