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CD1 candidates spar on most issues

Congressional candidate forum, owatonna, 2024
The candidates in the race for Minnesota’s 1st Congressional District faced off Monday in a decidedly partisan forum. Incumbent Brad Finstad (R-New Ulm) is seeking his second term, hoping to stave off a challenge from Rochester native Rachel Bohman. Staff photo by Kay Fate
By
Kay Fate, Staff Writer

It was the first partisan candidate forum – and it showed.

Brad Finstad (R-New Ulm), the incumbent in Minnesota’s 1st Congressional District, faced challenger Rachel Bohman, a Rochester native, Monday at the Owatonna Country Club.

Beginning with the first question, Bohman repeatedly took Finstad to task for not passing a new farm bill in the two years since he was elected to office.

The farm bill, which is passed roughly every five years, affects all aspects of farming, from crop insurance to healthy food access for low-income families to sustainable farming practices and more.

The 2018 legislation expired last year.

Finstad said his top two priorities for the new term are “family pocketbook issues” and securing the southern border.

“I hear a lot from my opponent about grocery store prices,” Bohman responded. “Unfortunately, Congress really can’t do a lot about grocery store prices – except maybe getting a farm bill passed, which didn’t happen in the last two years.”

She would focus on big-ticket items, such as healthcare, childcare and affordable housing, but said her other top priority would be a new farm bill.

Bohman also focused on Finstad’s “no” votes on a bipartisan immigration bill and the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.

Both candidates support comprehensive immigration reform.

“I believe we need to secure our border,” Bohman said. “We had a bipartisan immigration bill killed two years ago … as the result of Republican leadership.”

Finstad criticized current immigration and border policies, saying “it’s become too complex and too convoluted. We can’t even explain to our families and neighbors what it takes to become a citizen of our country.”

He proposed a wall with a door: “That door gets opened, there’s a hallway. That hallway’s immigration, and it meets the critical needs of our national security and workforce, and it should be as simple as that.”

Finstad briefly addressed the immigration bill, saying it also contained $60 billion for Ukraine aid and “other non-associated immigration policies, which is a symptom of how Congress has been broke – and got us $36 trillion in debt.”

The pair also disagreed about the meaning of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, or DEI; specifically, the challenges and opportunities for government and elected officials.

“It means we are putting handcuffs on people to fulfill the American dream, because we’re going to try to put each other in buckets, versus finding that American ladder,” Finstad said. “We reward people that show up and work hard, and quite frankly, the more we lean into the DEI policies … the more division it creates.”

Instead, he said he sees “folks from all walks of life, nationalities, that have built the culture of who we are in southern Minnesota.”

Bohman said she sees DEI “as an opportunity to bring in, include and building something better. One of the incredible things about diversity is that we all come together with a very different perspective … any time we are embracing a set of different skills and backgrounds on a team, we are likely to get the better result.”

Other topics included tariffs; the housing shortage; policies to combat climate change; ways to improve the supply chain disruption; daycare shortages; the importance of cyber security; future population demographics and the labor shortage; and mandates for buying electric vehicles in southern Minnesota.

The full forum can be viewed at Owatonna Live, under Videos and Livestreams, then Meet the Candidates in the Community Events category, or by clicking https://owatonnalive.lightcast.com/player/40141/686826

There was more division between the candidates about how to reduce the cost of healthcare and prescription drugs.

“We don’t have a health care system in our country, we have a sick care system,” Finstad said. “Rural hospitals, specifically, lose money on Medicare funding for a regular checkup.”

They make money on medical emergencies or surgical interventions, he said.

“That’s a backwards system; we need to make sure we’re putting the money on the front end, to keep people healthier,” Finstad said.

“One of the first votes Brad took was to vote against the Inflation Reduction Act,” Bohman responded, “which included some very important components of health care decision-making … allowing Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices, reducing the cost of insulin to $35, and capping expenses to Medicare recipients to $2,000” annually.

“The fact that my opponent voted against the seniors in our community is appalling,” she said.

The repeated barbs seemed to become the focus, at times drawing laughter; it was Bohman’s response to a question about the importance of cyber security that seemed to be the tipping point.

“If we rely on him as much as we did for the farm bill, then we’re in trouble,” she said.

“I see the shaking of heads in here, and I get it,” Bohman said. “But he’s had two years with a House majority… I’m getting really tired of hearing the same excuses for why Congress isn’t getting things done. It’s unacceptable, and we have to hold people accountable for the job they’re doing in Washington. If it’s not getting done, somebody needs to stand up and say something.”

Finstad, who hadn’t responded to many of the comments, bit.

“I look forward to your same critique and criticism of Sen. Klobuchar and Sen. Smith for the farm bill, since they actually don’t even have one,” he said.

The pair continued to split along predictable party lines on the issues of abortion and support for Israel.

After the forum, Finstad seemed to brush off Bohman’s approach.

“I’m the incumbent, so that happens,” he said. “I will tell you, though, the southern Minnesota way is being able to disagree agreeably, and it didn’t at times feel that way.”

The questions they were asked, Finstad said, “were very representative of what the people are talking to me about.”

Bohman, for her part, made no excuses.

“I think our initial reaction is to side with certain people,” she said, “but I do think that it’s OK to disagree – and we absolutely need to have these hard conversations. We can’t make progress without them.”

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