Chase Werden | Contributing Writer
On Thursday, October 23rd, 2014, Buena Vista University (BVU) hosted a congressional debate. The debate was between Steve King (R-Kiron) and Jim Mowrer (D-Boone). Both are seeking election into the United States House of Representatives. King, the incumbent, has held this position since 2003. Mowrer was deployed to Iraq in 2005 for twenty-three months, and has worked at the Pentagon for the Army Office of Business Transformation.
This debate was fiery from the get-go, with Mowrer taking shots at Congressman King every chance he got. The first question directed to Mowrer asked him how he would be an effective representative in Iowa’s fourth congressional district. The Boone Democrat responded with this, “Well, you know, I think right now in Congress the one thing that I hear the most when I travel throughout the 39 counties here in the 4th district is people understand that Congress is broken, it’s not getting the job done. And we have a representative who had a record of never working with anyone across the aisle to get the job done. We need to send more representatives who have a record of pragmatic results who want to get Congress moving again.” Jim Mowrer didn’t even answer the question that was asked of him. Instead, he decided to make baseless attacks against Congressman King’s record.
Immigration was a hot topic in Thursday night’s debate. The two opponents went back and forth on the subject, especially around what the solution to our broken immigration system ought to be. Mowrer supports “the comprehensive immigration reform bill that passed the United States Senate. It would put an additional 20,000 boots on the border,” but he couldn’t leave it at that. He added, “Congressman King doesn’t have any plans to fix our immigration system, he just has empty rhetoric.” Mowrer’s baseless attacks became customary throughout the fifty-eight minute debate, and we saw a lot more of them.
Congressman King responded by saying he supports, “Building a fence, a wall, and a fence along our southern border, not a full 2,000 miles, just build it until they stop going around the end. I’m the author of the most important piece of legislation we could pass and I generated the idea and wrote the bill. It is called the New IDEA Act, the New Illegal Deduction Elimination Act, which eliminates the federal tax deductibility for wages and benefits that are paid to illegals. That shuts down the jobs magnet and that helps us secure our borders.”
Ebola was also a subject that came up in Thursday’s debate. Congressman King disapproves of President Obama’s handling of the Ebola outbreak. President Obama decided to deploy troops to the three Ebola-infested countries. Congressman King said, “I don’t believe that they should be ordered in to face an unseen enemy that we don’t understand, the silent killer of Ebola. I think they should be volunteers. God Bless everybody that goes over there to try to put an end to Ebola.” Jim Mowrer disagreed with the Congressman, and responded with this disgusting, despicable, and incredibly disrespectful attack. “As a soldier I understand that you volunteer when you raise your right hand and you’re willing to sacrifice everything for this country. Soldiers follow orders. This is a job that needs to be done. That is why Congressman King never volunteered for the military.”
If that last sentence isn’t despicable, I don’t know what is; attacking a sitting United States Congressman for never joining the military—how disgusting.
Graphic by Justice Gage
