Tuesday night’s 8th District congressional debate was a faceoff between two men who sparred over what it means to put Northeast Pennsylvania first.
The issues they discussed were, of course, often national and global in scale.
U.S. Rep. Matt Cartwright (D-Moosic) and Republican challenger Rob Bresnahan also seemed eager to convince voters that they won’t be rubber stamps for their parties’ national leadership, seeking to distance themselves from their parties on such hot-button issues as immigration and abortion.
The pair took questions from a panel of local journalists at King’s College, Wilkes-Barre, in a forum hosted by WVIA.
The 8th District, home to about 765,000 people, covers all of Lackawanna, Wayne and Pike counties; roughly the eastern half of Luzerne County, including Wilkes-Barre, Pittston and Hazleton; and all of Monroe County, except for Polk and Eldred townships and part of Ross Township.
Introductions
Cartwright, 63, who is a lawyer by training, emphasized his experience in getting bills passed in a deeply divided Washington as evidence of his bipartisanship. Cartwright, who is seeking a seventh two-year term, also stressed his track record in securing funding for the district — especially for police and public safety agencies — as well as his willingness to vote against his party and his president when he believes it’s best for the district and the country.
Cartwright said his efforts have included securing nearly $20 million for local law enforcement over the past three years alone, putting him in the top 1% of members of Congress for such efforts.
“For the last 35 years I’ve been here, I’ve been fighting, I’ve been standing for regular working people, against powerful forces that are always arrayed against them,” Cartwright said. “For the last 12 years I’ve done it as a member of Congress.”
That work, Cartwright said, included fighting for residents’ “wellbeing … for their access to health care, their individual rights, their labor rights, their voting rights, their reproductive rights … for public education.”
Bresnahan, 34, a businessman who lives in Dallas Township, Luzerne County, stressed his local roots and sought to tie Cartwright to the Biden Administration’s border policies.
“I was born in Northeastern Pennsylvania, I was raised in Northeastern Pennsylvania, I went to the University of Scranton. I reinvested in Northeastern Pennsylvania. I created jobs in Northeastern Pennsylvania. And I’m going to die and get buried in Northeastern Pennsylvania,” Bresnahan said.
He asked voters to question how they feel about the economy.
“From day one in this campaign my philosophy has been an economy that works, borders that are secure, and communities that are safe,” Bresnahan said. “But I’d like to ask you, are you better off today than you were four years ago? Let alone four, how about two?”
Cartwright spoke of how he fought against price gouging and to reduce the cost of pharmaceuticals, including insulin prices, as a major component in bringing down people's everyday expenses.
Bresnahan, meanwhile, said he was not an "extremist" who would look to cut Social Security, rather that he sees the rising cost of living as a factor cutting into the impact of Social Security payments.
Many topics covered
Tuesday’s debate, which was moderated by Tracey Matisak, featured questions from WVIA News political reporter Borys Krawczeniuk, WNEP-TV anchor Lisa Washington and Eyewitness News WBRE/WYOU investigative reporter Andy Mehalshick. Many topics were covered, but the sharpest exchanges involved bipartisanship, the border, and abortion.
Cartwright frequently pointed out that he’s had 16 bills passed during his time in office, something he said would not be possible if he hadn’t embraced bipartisanship. He said he has served under three presidents and at times broken with all three – including President Joe Biden, whose administration “did not move quickly enough” on immigration, he said.
“You cannot vote with your party, the Biden-Harris administration, 98% of the time, and pretend to be bipartisan,” Bresnahan replied.
Cartwright reminded Bresnahan that legislation originates in Congress, and that Republican President Donald Trump signed three of his bills into law.
“That doesn’t pop up in your metrics,” Cartwright said.
Securing the nation’s southern border was another of the night’s key themes.
Bresnahan criticized the Biden-Harris administration for spending “$150 billion per year” on migrants while Americans are struggling economically.
“Ten million illegals are being better taken care of than our veterans,” Bresnahan said.
Cartwright said he had broken with the White House over immigration and supported Republican Sen. James Lankford’s bipartisan border legislation, which he said was declared “dead on arrival in the House” by Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson.
“You know what that was? That was putting politics over people,” Cartwright said. “That was preferring rancor to solutions.”
When the question of supporting overseas wars was raised, Cartwright said he felt strongly that the U.S. should continue to support Ukraine in its battle to roll back Russia’s invasion — which, if successful, could put the rest of Europe and NATO in Russia’s sights.
Bresnahan chided Cartwright for not mentioning Israel, to which Cartwright quickly pointed out that he has been and continues to be a strong supporter of Israel.
Bresnahan said "what is happening in Ukraine is absolutely tragic," but said he wants to see accountability for U.S. funds sent to the Eastern European country, and that he does not want to see "an open checkbook."
"I'm all for providing them the resources so they can fight their war, but we have a war going on at home," Bresnahan said. "We are struggling, every single day, our own citizens, to keep their lights on."
On abortion, Cartwright said he supports reproductive freedom for women, saying that the Dobbs Supreme Court ruling which overturned Roe V. Wade “was a jolt … a jarring decision for American law, and my opponent claims that Dobbs did exactly what it should do.”
Bresnahan accused Cartwright of changing his stance on abortion, saying the congressman previously said he was “pro-life, with the exceptions of rape, incest, or the life of the mother.”
“I’d be curious to know when that position did a 180,” Bresnahan said, adding that he “would not support a federal ban on abortion under any circumstances.”
“I don’t believe a federal representative in Washington, D.C., should be making those decisions,” Bresnahan said, adding that his feeling is “you put it on the ballot, you allow the voters to decide what’s best for their state.”
Cartwright replied: “It is true that my wife and I are practicing Catholics, and I have never said I would vote to take away women’s reproductive rights.”
“What we’re left with, because of the decision he has applauded, is a situation where state politicians are now in the examination room with women and their doctors,” Cartwright said of Bresnahan's position.
“We’ve got to enact federal legislation reinstating Roe,” Cartwright said.
In their closings, both men said they would fight to do the job with the best interests of Northeastern Pennsylvania in mind.
Cartwright said he has and will continue to do that, working in a bipartisan fashion as he has up to now, citing as one example how he collaborated with U.S. Rep. Dan Meuser (R-Dallas) and state Treasurer Stacy Garrity, another Republican, to get strict post-COVID visitation regulations relaxed at the Veterans' Administration hospital in Plains Township.
Bresnahan praised Cartwright for that, but said a vote for his opponent would essentially be a vote for a status quo in which "groceries, food, and gas" continue to remain expensive.
But Bresnahan also reiterated what he had said earlier in the night: "This is going to be the most important election of our lifetime."
It was perhaps the only statement no one disputed.
Audio of the debate is attached to this story. To watch the debate in full, visit WVIA’s website or our YouTube page.