Congressional District Five Debate

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Congressional District 5 candidates Javier Ramos (D) and Clint Smith (I) debated for an half-hour about why their campaigns are the best option for District 5 citizens. Attempts were made to invite Andy Biggs (R); however, he did not respond. The 5th Congressional District covers east valley areas from Maricopa and Pinal County, which includes parts of Gilbert and Apache Junction.

Current Congressman

“The experience isn’t paying off. Andy has actually proposed 160 bills, and only one has passed and it renamed the Veteran’s Center in Chandler; that’s all that’s been accomplished,” said Smith about Congressman Biggs.

“Andy Biggs has become irrelevant; he votes no on everything. He voted against the Infrastructure Investment Act, he voted against the PACT Act to protect our veterans; he votes against everything and my Republican opponents are out of touch with what our district needs,” explained Ramos.

What the district needs

“We need somebody who has experience in city, state, federal and international travel work where I work with upper basin states, the lower basin states,” said Ramos. He mentioned he would support Governor Ducy’s budget of 1 billion dollars to be able to gather water from the Gulf of Mexico and desalinate for use while also providing efforts to conserve water.

Ramos felt strongly about electing someone that has experience to push for these types of efforts. “He does not know how to get this completed, he does not know how to get this done, he’s never worked at the federal level, he’s a probate attorney,” said Ramos against his opponent.

“I am not a probate attorney. I have done litigation for many years and now I do state planning and I stay out court. My idea is that if people can get together and talk about things they can solve problems a lot better than if they just say, ‘I’m the person who knows everything, and I can make this happen,'” said Smith in response.

The duration of the debate was met with discussions involving immigration, water policies and abortion rights.

Javier Ramos (D), Congressional District 5 Candidate; Clint Smith (I), Congressional District 5 Candidate

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