South Carolina Democratic debate recap - Entrepreneur Generations

Last night, seven top Democratic candidates took the stage for a debate ahead of South Carolina's Feb. 29 primary. CBS News, the Congressional Black Caucus Institute, and Twitter hosted the debate at The Gaillard Center in Charleston.

The debate quickly turned into a slugfest as candidates vied for votes in South Carolina and beyond, since this was the last debate before Super Tuesday (March 3). Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont was a popular target as he has recently emerged as the frontrunner. Here are some of the highlights concerning issues with rural resonance:

Former Vice President Joe Biden said that he will favor gun-control policies as president, and boasted that he had beaten the National Rifle Association twice: by ensuring the passage of an "assault weapons" ban and a ban on magazines that hold more than 10 rounds. After George W. Bush was elected in 2000, he said, the bans were not reauthorized.

Biden said he also led the fight for the Brady Bill, which featured waiting periods for would-be gun buyers. Then he accused Sanders and others of voting to give gun manufacturers "absolute immunity".

Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts said that gun-safety legislation can't pass, even with a majority vote, as long as the Senate employs the filibuster, and said that the filibuster essentially gives veto power to lobbyists. Until the filibuster is rolled back, no real change is possible, she said.

When a moderator asked Sanders why he had voted repeatedly against gun-control measures, Sanders said he had cast thousands of votes, and that voting against such measures "was a bad vote." He said that he has long supported a ban on assault weapons and believes we should expand background checks and end the gun show loophole. He also noted that he has a D- rating from the NRA.

Former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg said that he had founded the nation's biggest gun violence prevention organization, Everytown for Gun Safety, which has a volunteer wing called Moms Demand Action. Bloomberg provides about one-third of Everytown's annual budget. Bloomberg said he supports background checks, and implied that MDA had led to background check laws in 20 states.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota said she supports a ban on assault weapons, and said she authored the  part of the Violence Against Women Act that would prevent unmarried domestic abusers from buying fire arms (the "boyfriend loophole"). She also said she supports universal background checks and closing the "Charleston loophole," meaning she wants a three-day waiting period for someone attempting to buy a gun.

Klobuchar said the only way to pass gun-control laws is to get rural voters to go along with them, and said she was the only candidate who has carried Republican congressional districts while openly supporting an assault weapons ban. In one of the more memorable lines of the night, Klobuchar said that when she sees gun-control legislation, she considers how they would affect rural voters. "I look at these proposals and say, do they hit my uncle Dick in the deer stand? They do not. So coming from a proud hunting state and still being able to pass this legislation is going to be the key.

Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, said he believes that the kind of weapons he had access to as a soldier in the Middle East should not be sold "anywhere near an American school or church or neighbor."

Billionaire philanthropist Tom Steyer said the problem isn't so much that Americans need to be convinced that there's too much gun violence; the real problem is that corporate lobbyists have too much influence in the government. "The gun manufacturers own the Senate of the United States. So even though more than 90 percent of Americans want mandatory background checks on every gun purchase, we can't get it through the Senate," Steyer said.

Klobuchar was asked about affordable housing and education for minimum wage workers. She said that it's important to take care of the Section 8 housing backlog and create incentives to build and pay for affordable housing. She said it's a huge rural problem, and that businesses sometimes can't locate in rural areas because there isn't enough housing.

A moderator said that rural areas have populations that are older, sicker, and poorer than non-rural communities on average, and asked Klobuchar how she would ensure health care accessibility in rural areas. Klobuchar said there is no "one size fits all" solution, and said she is the lead Democrat on a bill that would expand funding for critical-access hospitals and other places like rural emergency rooms. She suggested making associate's degrees for some health care jobs free, since rural areas especially will need more home health care workers and more. She also supports loan forgiveness programs and expanded immigrant visas for health care workers who agree to work in rural America.

Buttigieg said that there was no difference in life expectancy between rural and urban people when he was born, but now the mortality gap is large and expanding, especially among minorities. Rural hospital closures are part of the reason for that, he said, which happens especially often in states that didn't expand Medicaid.

Sanders said he supports debt forgiveness for health care workers in underserved areas, and said Medicare for All would help expand rural coverage because it would remove the profit incentive.

This item will continue to be updated.




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