Debate includes talk on heath care, veterans
AUSTIN — The race for Texas’ 23rd Congressional District, as usual, is expected to be a tight contest this year.
There’s no incumbent for the seat after Rep. Will Hurd, R-San Antonio, announced that he would retire at the end of his term. Democrat Gina Ortiz Jones, a former Air Force intelligence officer who ran for the seat in 2018, is launching a second bid for the post, while Republican Tony Gonzales, a former Navy cryptologist, is hoping to keep the seat in GOP control.
Jones and Gonzales faced off in their first debate Thursday, discussing health care, veterans benefits and more during an hourlong matchup on San Antonio’s KSAT-12.
Didn’t catch the debate? No worries — we’ve got your recap.
On health care
If Jones had the floor, it was almost certain that she’d bring up the Affordable Care Act — even if the question had nothing to do with health care.
“This comes down to people having access to quality, affordable health care,” Jones said. “That’s why I support protecting and expanding the ACA and including a public option. My opponent wants to eliminate the ACA and its protections for people with pre-existing conditions.”
Gonzales does support rolling back the “broken” ACA, which includes policies preventing insurance companies from discriminating against people with pre-existing conditions. Gonzales, however, has said repeatedly that he wouldn’t eliminate those protections.
“Look, I have a pre-existing condition,” Gonzales said. “Why would I take that away from myself ?”
He said expanding the ACA would “strip away private insurance, (and) that is wrong.”
Gonzales, though, has not presented a replacement for the ACA or cited a specific plan he would champion. He said Thursday that he supports “the next version of the Affordable Care Act to have pre-existing conditions embedded in it,” as well as increased funding for community health centers and legal protections for private practices.
On veterans issues
Jones and Gonzales served in the military, and veterans issues were front and center during the debate.
Gonzales touted his work to help pass the Veterans Affairs Accountability Act and expressed support for increased mental health resources. He promised to always “be a voice
for veterans” and attacked Jones for referring to her military service as a “job.”
“Serving in the military isn’t a job, I’m afraid,” Gonzales said. “It is a duty. It is a service. … It’s not a job.”
Jones fired back, again circling back to health care and the potential consequences that repealing the ACA would have for veterans with pre-existing conditions. She said Gonzales was “silent” after the Atlantic reported last month that President Donald Trump allegedly called Americans who died in war “suckers” and “losers.”
“Excuse me if I don’t have faith in Tony Gonzales’ ability to stand up for our veterans when he can’t even stand up for our fallen heroes,” Jones said.
The fiery exchange ended with Gonzales, who was endorsed by the president in his primary run, breaking from Trump.
“I don’t always agree with the president, and I don’t appreciate the president attacking veterans,” Gonzales said. “I will always defend and fight for veterans.”
Both candidates said they would not support closing military bases, though Gonzales repeatedly criticized Jones on the subject. During her first run for the district in 2018, Jones told Hearst Newspapers that she would be open to another round of Base Closure and Realignment, commonly referred to as BRAC, but walked back that position the same year.
On residency
Gonzales has spent much of the race painting Jones as a candidate who spends little time in the district and resides in a Washington, D.C., condominium. (“She is a Washington bureaucrat that does not live here,” Gonzales said.)
The premise of the attack is false; while Jones does own property in Washington, she rents it out. There is no evidence that Jones is living anywhere but her childhood home in San Antonio, where she lists her current residence.
Gonzales also owns outof-state property, which he rents to tenants in Pensacola, Fla.
His campaign asserts that the issue lies in where the candidates pay property taxes.
Because Jones’ mother owns the San Antonio residence where she’s currently residing, she doesn’t pay property taxes in Texas — but that doesn’t mean she isn’t living in San Antonio. “My opponent has been lying about this,” Jones said, calling the attack “baseless.”
The residency issue was one of the first questions brought up in the debate, and the candidates later sparred over their in-person activity in the district.
Jones said she hasn’t hosted an in-person event since March — she cited the advice of medical experts — while Gonzales said he has visited 14 of the district’s 29 counties over the past week.
“I appreciate Zoom just as much as the next person, but you can’t Zoom your way to a food bank or a blood bank,” Gonzales said. “This district deserves more than a virtual representative.”
On immigration
The 23rd District stretches from San Antonio to El Paso and covers 800 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border. Both candidates, in different ways, are in favor of reforming immigration law.
Gonzales, who has said he would “finish the wall,” said he supports building a border wall “where it makes sense.” He would like to expand technological resources available to the agents who patrol the border and said he is in favor of legal immigration reform.
“I’d love nothing more than to move the conversation from, ‘Are you for the wall or against the wall?’ to ‘Are you for the American dream?’” Gonzales said. “And, oh, by the way, the American dream doesn’t always start in America.”
Jones criticized the border wall as a “$15 billion waste” that leaders of border cities do not support, adding that she would work to increase economic activity across the border. She separately touted support for the proposed Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act, or DREAM Act, which would grant legal status to undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children.
“We need to invest in our communities and make sure that we are working with law enforcement, with our Border Patrol, to make sure that our policies are as effective as possible,” she said.