CONCORD, NH – New Hampshire’s candidates for the 2nd Congressional District seat being vacated by Congresswoman Annie Kuster participated in a candidate forum in Concord Monday. Democrat Maggie Goodlander and Republican Lily Tang-Williams met in the studio of New Hampshire Public Radio (NHPR) for the last time before the November 5th general election.
This was the last of a series of candidate debates hosted by NHPR and produced with the member media partners of the Granite State News Collaborative. The Ink Link is a member of the collaborative. This forum moderators were NHPR’s Mara Hoplamazian and the Concord Monitor’s Michela Towfighi.
Tang-Williams won the coin toss so her opening statement was first and she began with a bit of biography that evolved into the themes she would repeat throughout the forum
“I came here with nothing 36 years ago, and with a big heart and hard work to achieve my American Dream, and I have lived my American Dream, but I’m running today to save that dream and keep that dream alive for my children and all you future children and grandchildren, and the border crisis is a joke, and the high inflation is hurting people. American dream is not affordable right now,” said Tang-Wililams.
Goodlander opened with a biography and reference to her resume of public service.
“I served 11 years as an intelligence officer in the Navy Reserve. One of the things I learned throughout my lifetime of service is that when you take the oath to serve our state and our country, you don’t take that oath as a Democrat or a Republican; you take it as an American.
And that’s the spirit that I’ve brought to everything I’ve done in my life, whether it was at the Justice Department, where I was taking on corporate monopolies that are jacking up costs for hard-working people in this state, at the White House, where I led the President’s unity agenda to tackle our opioid epidemic and help end cancer as we know it.” she said.
The moderators quickly moved through a series of questions about the economy, abortion, Israel’s wars, the housing crisis, Goodlander’s residency, and interpretations of what occurred on January 6th, 2021. The differences in policy approaches and perceptions of existing problems and conditions could not be more extreme. New Hampshire is being offered two distinctive options.
Tang-Williams advocated for tariffs on China for national security reasons and not for other countries because of her Libertarian philosophy. Goodlander referenced her Justice Department work in the Anti-Trust division taking on monopolies and whole-heartedly rejected Trump’s corporate tax cut package.
On the next topic, immigration, Goodlander was asked about her previous staff work with the “Gang-of-Eight” reform package in the Senate. That bill was blocked by then-Speaker Ryan.
Goodlander defended the value of it as a model for current legislation, saying, “It’s become a framework for the future. And what we have now is another bipartisan bill that both President Biden and Vice President Harris have said they would like to sign into law. It’s a bill that’s going to properly fund our immigration courts. And we’ve got 92 immigration courts around this country that have been chronically underfunded. I saw that firsthand working at the Department of Justice. It will fund our Border Patrol agents who are doing really hard work with not enough resources. And that’s why the Border Patrol has endorsed this bill. It’s going to help us update a vastly outdated system, this bipartisan bill.
On the need for comprehensive immigration reform Tang-Williams spoke about her and her brother’s immigration path.
“I’m an legal immigrant. I have credibility to speak on this issue that my brother did wait 13 years in line in China by having me as American sponsor, which is for the first five years, he and his family were not on the back of taxpayers, no public burdens,” Tang-Williams said. She went on to criticize the Biden administration for “open border” policies”and the “billions of dollars” spent, adding that she is for reform.
“We must secure our border first and stop federal government offering incentives on the back of taxpayers to get the people to come here illegally. It is a slap in the face for all the legal immigrants waiting in line with American sponsorship, about 5 million of them,” she said.
On climate change Tang-Williams did not actually acknowledge whether she accepted the science, rather she went on to protest “top-down” government interventions. On the insurance impact of climate disasters, she advocated “free market” corrections to the insurance market and took the chance to criticize government recovery efforts saying, “ We see what happened in Ohio, in North Carolina, and Hawaii. Our federal government actually failed to provide timely relief to those victims.”
Goodlander began with the national security implications of climate change and discussed the Biden administration’s policies and investment in clean energy technologies.
We’re behind when it comes to the transition (to clean energy). And I think my hope is that the Inflation Reduction Act, which is the most significant piece of climate legislation passed by any country on earth ever, will be a first step towards a clean energy future. What that’s going to do, and I know I’m running out of time, but what that’s going to do is it’s going to reduce energy costs, said Goodlander. We’ve got some of the highest energy costs in New Hampshire, in the country. It’s going to create jobs.”
The extremely contrasting views and solutions continued for the entire hour of the conversation The candidates were both civil in demeanor but could not be farther apart in perspective. No new ground was broken, just a retrenchment of known positions.
The entire broadcast can be replayed on the NHPR website
Eight more days to the election.