Gallagher, Porter set to spar in televised debates

Kirsten Searer

Thursday, Oct. 21, 2004 | 11:03 a.m.

And now, the debates.

After many television ads, phone banks and mail pieces, Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., and his Democratic challenger, Tom Gallagher, will finally meet for two televised debates this week.

Their first debate will air live tonight at 8 p.m. on KLVX Channel 10. The second will air Sunday at 6 p.m., on KLAS Channel 8.

The two candidates have appeared side-by-side in several community debates, but this will be the first time the two can discuss their policy differences in front of their entire district.

Sometimes, the two diverge substantially in their views, including on:

Porter, a former Boulder City mayor and state senator, entered Congress shortly after the vote to authorize the war in Iraq.

But his spokesman, Adam Mayberry, said the 49-year-old Porter still believes the world is better off without Saddam Hussein.

"Congressman Porter has always believed that Saddam Hussein himself was a weapon of mass destruction," Mayberry said.

Gallagher, a 59-year-old former gaming executive, has said he would have voted for the war had he been in Congress at the time.

However, he said, he would not cast that vote knowing what the country knows now -- that there is no substantive evidence that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. He also criticizes the administration for not putting an adequate number of troops in the country.

"It's very clear that we really let ideology drive the planning and analysis," Gallagher said.

Porter voted in favor of the $87 billion bill giving supplies and support to troops in Iraq, and Gallagher said he would have voted in favor of it, as well.

But Gallagher has attacked Porter for voting against a $1,500 bonus for troops serving in Iraq.

Porter said he realized that the money had to go toward important supplies for the troops, including protective vests. Instead, he said he supported two permanent pay raises that totaled $5,500.

"He's been to Iraq," Mayberry said. "He's talked to the troops up close and personal. And they have all told him that the equipment is a vital component to help them complete their mission."

Gallagher said he would have made sure the troops got both the supplies and the bonuses. His campaign maintains that the money for supplies didn't have to come from pay raises for the troops.

"The troop bonus would not have come out of protective gear," said Gallagher spokeswoman Mara Gassmann. "That is simply untrue."

Porter voted for the Medicare prescription drug bill, something Gallagher has spent a considerable amount of time criticizing.

Porter calls it a "good start" but said he is willing to work on improving the bill.

Gallagher calls it a "boondoggle" for drug companies and said it shouldn't have been passed with so many problems.

One criticism of the Medicare drug bill is that it prohibits the government from buying drugs in bulk to save money.

Porter said he supports the idea but is concerned that other government agencies have bought too many drugs when purchasing in bulk, costing the government and patients millions of dollars.

Gallagher said the government could negotiate for bulk prices and pass the savings on to seniors.

"When you buy in bulk you get more bang for your buck," Gassmann said. "It's exactly how the VA keeps its prices so low. It buys in bulk for its veterans. To prohibit the federal government from doing that is not only anti-senior but it's anti-consumer."

Porter supports the idea of reimporting drugs from Canada if they are deemed safe, Slanker said.

There is a provision in the Medicare prescription drug bill that allows reimportation of drugs from countries such as Canada if they are deemed safe by the Secretary of Health and Human Services.

It's impossible to tell the origin of some drugs that are manufactured to look exactly like drugs from the United States, Slanker said.

"I think we'll get there," Slanker said. "All it takes is for a terrorist to decide you know what, we don't have to blow anything, up all you have to do is contaminate the drug supply."

Gallagher said members of Congress shouldn't have passed a bill without provisions for reimporting cheaper drugs from Canada.

Gassmann called the reimportation provision a "facade."

"It was a way to try to appease people while everyone knew that reimportation would not happen," she said.

Porter, whose was mayor of Boulder City when the idea of storing the nation's nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain was first conceived, has battled the nuclear waste storage site since it was proposed.

He points out that he helped stop the movement to designate Yucca Mountain as an interim storage facility. But Slanker said that Porter expects the matter to ultimately die in the courts.

"Jon believes, as a lot of our elected officials believe, that this is going to be settled in the courts," Slanker said. "At the end of the day it's always been Nevada against some 39 other states. This is most likely never going to be settled rationally in the halls of Congress."

Gallagher has consistently said that Porter hasn't used his leverage as a congressman from a battleground state to get concessions from the Republican leadership.

Republicans who say they "agree to disagree" with the Bush administration on Yucca Mountain are "incongruous," Gallagher said.

"George Bush abandoned Nevada long ago, and yet Porter continues to stand with him," Gassmann said.

As CEO of Park Place Entertainment, Gallagher created a fund to help the state fight Yucca Mountain, Gassmann said.

Porter believes that public officials must look at every option to ensure the viability of Social Security, including the possibility of personal savings accounts.

However, he is against implementing changes now before the issue is thoroughly examined.

"He said he's open to the savings accounts as an option," Slanker said. "His goal is to preserve Social Security into the indefinite future. To do that you can't be afraid to look at options."

Gallagher opposes all efforts to privatize Social Security, saying investing money in Wall Street is too risky.

"He comes from a business background, so he understands first-hand that the economy has its ups and downs, and the stock market has its ups and downs," Gassmann said.

Porter supported recent legislation to implement new overtime regulations. Slanker pointed out that language governing overtime had not been rewritten in years.

"A lot of people misqualified and a lot were shortchanged," Slanker said. "This helps raise the pay level for people who just didn't qualify for it."

Mayberry called the bill the largest extension of overtime pay ever.

Gallagher has said he opposes the bill. Most research shows that middle-income workers will see a significant decrease in wages under the bill, Gassmann said.

Porter is against increasing the minimum wage at a federal level, saying the issue should be left up to individual states.

There is a measure on the Nevada ballot to increase minimum wage by $1 an hour, but Porter believes that the economy is just recovering and the measure could hurt small businesses, Slanker said.

Gallagher supports raising the minimum wage in Nevada and has said that paying decent wages is a fundamental cost of doing business, Gassmann said.

Porter, who opposes gay marriage, hoped to allow each state to set a its own law on the issue. But he was concerned that judges were overturning laws passed by individual states, Slanker said.

He voted in favor of the proposed U.S. Constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, though the measure ultimately failed.

"He didn't want to change the constitution, but he realized that judges were doing it," Slanker said. "He felt compelled to vote for it."

Gallagher is opposed to gay marriage but thinks the proposal is an abuse of the Constitution, Gassmann said.

Porter has voted in favor of President Bush's tax cuts for families. He authored a measure that will maintain the child tax credit at $1,000.

"Jon believes and has voted to give tax breaks to individuals and families as well as to businesses to create jobs," Slanker said. "Tom Gallagher's made it very clear that he wants to roll those back. He wants to raise taxes. Jon just doesn't believe that makes us competitive."

Gallagher has said he would reinstate taxes for high-income families to the levels they were at before President Bush took office, though he has not designated a certain level.

Middle-income families are seeing increases in health care costs and decreases in income, yet the Bush tax cuts have put a larger tax burden on the middle class, Gassmann said.

"Middle-income people are strapped, it's not right," Gassmann said. "These are people who are worried about putting their kids through school, whether they are going to be able to retire before they're 75, really basic stuff."

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