In the texas 32nd congressional district, the incumbent democrat faces this challenger. They rate this race likely democratic. Democratic. Just want to review the rules of it. They are fairly simple. Two minutes for Opening Statements from the candidates. Nd for questions there will be a 92nd response for each candidate and a 45 second rebuttal for each candidate. Any further response or followup will be up to me. There the timekeeping, will be about four boxes on the one of those will have questions for use in this debate. When the candidate gets down to about 15 seconds left in their answer, that box will turn yellow. It will time is up, turn red. We will also have one minute closing statements in reverse order of opening. So, in keeping with the agreement reached between the two candidates, the opening genevievewill go to collins. Ms. Collins good evening. Thank you for hosting us. Thank you to the congressman for joining me and being flexible. Thank you to all of you for tuning in. This has been a tough year for all of us and its time we come together. I am born and raised here in dallas. I went to school here. I had a business here. And i worked with every School District in the congressional district. I helped build my Family Business to over 300 employees serving 5 Million Students nationwide. My committee is focused on teaching kids how to read and how to close the achievement gap in schools. As your congresswoman, i am going to focus on jobs and getting us back to school quickly and safely, focusing on and fully funding and supporting our police. Hear my you will opponent talk about how bipartisan he is. In reality, he votes with nancy pelosi 100 of the time. He is an ineffective partyline politician who has passed zero bills in office. Tonight, you will hear him attempt to take credit for everyone elses work, including a myriad of health care policies. My opponent just two weeks ago, he voted to defund the police by 600 million. And he supports raising taxes on our Small Businesses. These are not texas values. These are d. C. Values. Colin allred believes the federal government knows what to do better for your life than you do. I disagree. Thank you. Opening statement from congressman colin allred. Rep. Allred thank you and thank im sorry we are not able together in person to have a vibrant and lively discussion. It has been the honor of my life to represent my home in congress. I was born and raised here by a single mother who was a schoolteacher. My mom taught in Public Schools. We dont pay our teachers enough, so it wasnt always easy growing up. [indiscernible] i had help [indiscernible] chance. Me a to play in the nfl, to become a black attorney, to serve president obama. Im proud of the work ive done in my first term in congress and how weve done it. Lead tod of how we serve veterans and create jobs. Im proud that we passed the usmca trade agreement with my leadership and think it will be a model for plans to come. Im proud that we got the bullet train past the federal red tape. As you can tell, we are having technical problems. Such is the case with live programming. What we are going to do, we are going to continue things on and i will ask you a question well we wait for them to figure that all out. Once we conclude with that, we will go back to congressman already, give him a chance to finish his Opening Statement, and then carry on with the questions in the order that we had to. Events, you might say, the Senate JudiciaryCommittee Vote on Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett is expected this week. Should that have waited until after the election . Ms. Collins well, the reality is that Amy Coney Barrett is a phenomenal, wellqualified, wellrespected, remarkably intelligent jurist who should be confirmed as a nominee. The constitution under article two stipulates that it is the to fille branchs job any vacancy in the Supreme Court. It is imperative that we actually follow the constitution as it stipulates what needs to happen in order to have an unbiased and appropriate excuse me, unbiased and appropriate bench of justices. This is simply fulfilling our constitution and i also believe that Amy Coney Barrett is remarkably qualified. Im disappointed in the Democrat Party for trying to reconstitute what it means to follow the guidelines in article 2. Im disappointed that joe biden, kamala harris, and my opponent say that we should pack the courts in case something of this nature happens. I think that is wildly inappropriate and it is our job to fulfill the constitution whoever is in the executive branch at the time. Sam, i believe you are muted. Ok, thank you. [laughter] this is all new to all of us here. We are still figuring out a way through all of this, this new reality here. We haveless, i believe congressman already back with us. Congressman, if you would like to do your Opening Statement again . Rep. Allred ok, sorry about that and obviously that is the reality we are living in now. Technical difficulties. As i was saying, im proud of the work ive done in my first term and im proud of how weve done it. Proud of the fact that we got the va hospital in garland and to pass the usmca. We got a signed copy of that from President Trump because of my efforts. Im proud that we lead the efforts to get the bullet train done and have worked to lower your Health Care Costs while standing up to this administration when they tried to take it away. Ive done that will being endorsed by organizations ranging from the u. S. Chamber of commerce to u. S. Labor groups. The choice in the selection is clear. I have a record of bipartisan accomplishments that received a 95 rating from the u. S. Chamber of commerce in bipartisanship. The challenge we are facing as a nation and as a community are enormous. Nearly 220,000 americans are dead, 12 million jobs have been lost, and we are more divided in many ways than we have ever been. People are rightfully worried about the future of their democracy. The stakes in this election could not be higher. Your health care is on the ballot. How we defeat pandemic is on the ballot. Our very democracy is on the ballot. The people of north texas made my life possible and i look forward to serving you for two more years if i have the honor. Thank you so much. Congressman, you were supposed to get the first question anyway, so let me pose the same question i did to ms. Collins. The Senate JudiciaryCommittee Vote on Amy Coney Barrett is expected this week. Should that have waited until after the election . Rep. Allred yes, it should have waited. Lets talk about the hypocrisy and the situation. With Mitch Mcconnell saying 11 months out from an election that president obama could not fill a thatme court seat, but now we have millions of americans having already voted and just days away from election day, trying to rush through a Supreme Court justice instead of doing the pandemic relief that needs to be done. So, yes, they should let the American People way in, listen to the voters, who do they choose to be the president of the United States . Who did they choose to be in the senate and the next congress . And then move forward. There are some things that even if you can do it causes some much damage to our democracy that it is not worth doing and this is one of those situations where when you take a Supreme Court seat that was held open unnecessarily and unconstitutionally in my opinion and you ram through another one in the midst of any election, you do so much damage to the institution of the Supreme Court and our overall separation of powers that you diminish the nation as a whole. I think the responsible thing is to let the American People way in and then lets fill the seat. Let me raise this question there been called by some democrats to expand the high court if joe biden wins, packing it as some call it, to include more democrats. The only one packing the courts is Mitch Mcconnell, who held open hundreds of appellate judge seat and Supreme Court seats to rush them through for President Trump. So that is who has been trying to pack the courts. It is nothing that ive ever supported, but i also have a reference to the Supreme Court. I believe it should be separate and independent from our politics and what they are doing is making it into just another political organ and it is going to make it harder for all of us to have respect for the courts ruling, to understand that it is not in the interest of the country and i wish that leaders in washington would this countrys interests first before the partisan desires. Lets move on with the question we were going to ask you for the first question. Withi moderated a debate you and Pete Sessions two years ago when you were making your first run for this seat, i brought up the issue of Excessive Police violence against black americans. That problem continues. George floyd, of course. Tatyana jefferson in fort worth a year ago last week. City, tontly, wolfe name a few. Just a little quick thing here because ms. Collins brought it up, do you support defunding the police . Rep. Allred i do not support defunding the police and ive never said that. It is politicians like ms. Collins to make it difficult for us to make any progress to try to restore the relationship between our police and our communities of color. You dont support defunding the police. I want to get to what my question was. You support defunding the police, as you say, did but do you think Police Reform is needed and how can u. S. A member of Congress Help address that . Rep. Allred well, we do need to have reform and we do need to have reforms that try to provide more resources to the police where needed and also take some of the responsibilities that should not be in their hands off their plates so they dont have to do with those things. In the congress, we passed legislation to try to take steps to restore the relationship between the police and the communities of color. It begins with accountability because we must have accountability. We also have additional money for training, body cameras, the storage of body camera footage, banning things like choke colds and noknock warrants. These are some things dallas is already done on around and we want to make national. Lets also talk about who is working to defund the police. Voted for 600 million for additional funding in the first heroes act, that is additional funding. Mitch mcconnell and the republicans in the senate said no, we are not going to take that up. They demanded we come back with a much lower figure. There was never any funding provided and Mitch Mcconnell said no. The only folks really defunding the police are republicans in the senate who are just going to deny state and local aid to our governments facing huge budget shortfalls and they are going to make deep cuts to our police and public safety. That is defunding the police, when you dont cover the budget shortfalls and then they have to take officers off the streets and have to make deep cuts to our public services. That is when you defund the police. Your view on Police Reform . And what you could do maybe as a member of congress if elected to help bring that about . Ms. Collins well, sam, what happened to george floyd and countless other americans, africanamericans in our communities should never have happened. It should have been avoidable. That there has been bias in Law Enforcement in applying equal protection under the law, all of that needs to change. It is imperative we have Police Reform. Thats why im grateful ive spent the entire summer working with our dallas black leaders in addition to the Dallas Police association listening to what they really need and learning of we really knit the fabric our Community Back together. Dallas has led in terms of getting choke colds. Banning them in 1984. But that needs to be systematic and consistent across the entire country. We need to have a federal registry for bad cops. There are so many good cops that are pillars in our community. Weve got to make sure that their voices are lifted up, so that when we dont actually have more bad cops inflicting unnecessary pain onto other americans. Weve got to have that registry. The reality is is that my toonent voted period defund the police by 600 million. He may try to pass the buck to he votes witht nancy pelosi 100 of the time and she took that bill, she took 600 million out of the bill. It begs the question, does my opponent really respect our Law Enforcement . It seems to me that is not the case. Let me take you back to something youve said. Im curious when you talk about bad cops as the problem, do you see that as the root of this whole problem with Excessive Police violence . Individual bad apples as opposed to or maybe a systemic form of racism at work . Ms. Collins i believe that there is racial bias and that is something that we as a nation are having a conscious conversation about that needs to happen. It is imperative that our police because uphold the law the constitution states that every american is created he will. If anyone says otherwise, than they are obviously not following our constitution and they are not applying the law properly. I absolutely believe that there is racial bias that needs to be changed and that it is imperative that we really focus on meaningful conversations that, like i say, knit the fabric of our Community Back together so we support each other instead of oppose each other and that is the reality of what this congress has done. Rep. Allred let me jump in there. It is interesting, im glad my opponent erad the george floyd read the George Floyd Justice and policing act because she just named a whole bunch of the things in the bill that we named our necessary to be done. Im glad i was part of crafting that legislation. But you bring up the 600 million dollars. We added that funding and Mitch Mcconnell would not take it up, so it does not make any sense to say that is defunding the police. People know that is not true and does not make any sense. But also, you have been fear mongering throughout this campaign about not only me, but what is only going to happen if i get reelected, that im going to try to defund the police. You darkened my skin in mailers. That is not who we are in my in north texas. I think you should be responsible in your advertising. Followups one quick , i do think it is important to recognize that the police bill was not taken up by the house. That was put up in late june and the house voted not to take up the Police Reform bill. It seems to me that the house is equally as culpable in this regard. Congressman . Rep. Allred we passed legislation in the house, the George Floyd Justice and policing act. In that act, it has many of the things you just said. A registry for bad cops, banning choke holds, banning noknock warrants, adding funding, training to reduce implicit bias, adding funding for body cameras and bodies body camera footage storage. That should have been taken up. Unfortunately, there are too many politicians who saw that they could use this fear, use this issue to pit us against each other instead of taking advantage of what i saw in north texas, which was a multiracial, Multigenerational Movement of folks walking in the streets from the wealthiest parts to all over, saying that they wanted to have change. And that was an act of hope that we should have taken advantage of and i wish that the republicans in the senate and President Trump would have joined us to find solutions to get something done and i think we will with president biden. Ok, lets move on to a viewer question somewhat related maybe. The National Conversation around issues of Racial Equity is impacting policy discussions of all levels of government. How do you define Racial Equity and what do you think government needs to do to realize sufficient Racial Equity . Congressman, we will start with you. Rep. Allred well, Racial Equity means that everyone has an equal shot. Right now, that is not the case. I believe the government does not create outcomes, but it can create opportunities by extending ladders of opportunity and making sure those are in place to make sure that if the next einstein is sitting in one of our dallas Public Schools right now, that she has everything she needs to become that. That begins with targeted measures to try to address some of the systemic issues that have faced our nation for centuries. But also just fundamental common sense things, like having access to health care. This administration and my opponent a