Van Drew, Salerno spar over issues: abortion, immigration, energy costs
GALLOWAY TOWNSHIP — Abortion, inflation, immigration, offshore wind and climate change were among the topics as U.S. Rep. Jeff Van Drew and challenger Joe Salerno shared the stage Oct. 24 at Stockton University for a debate ahead of the Second Congressional District election Nov. 5.
Van Drew is a two-term MAGA Republican from Dennis Township who was elected as a Democrat but switched parties during the first impeachment hearing of former President Donald Trump, pledging his “undying support” in January 2020 to the former president and current candidate.
Democrat Salerno, a Lower Township resident, is a Princeton- and Rutgers-educated engineer, lawyer and entrepreneur who is the son of a World War II POW. This is his first run for office.
The Second District encompasses Atlantic, Cape May, Cumberland and Salem counties, as well as parts of Burlington, Camden, Gloucester and Ocean.
Panelists Nicholas Huba, digital editor for The Press of Atlantic City, and Alyssa Maurice, director of research for the William J. Hughes Center for Public Policy at Stockton University, posed questions to the candidates.
In his opening remarks, Salerno contrasted today with four years ago.
“Tonight, you’ll get to know two very different candidates. And, frankly, we’re very different than we were just a few years ago,” Salerno said.
He said in 2018, he was running a software business, had children in college and was caring for his ailing father. Four years later, he had sold the business, all four of his children had finished college and he was working on the eulogy of his father, who had spent years serving others through Veterans Affairs.
“In 2018, Van Drew was a Democrat, considered an independent voice for South Jersey. Four years later, he had cut a deal with Washington insiders and traded that independent voice for hits on Fox News and became a lackey for his new political party,” Salerno said. “This election is not about what we used to be, it’s about what we are today.”
Van Drew followed with his opening, stating a reporter recently asked him to name the biggest issues in the district.
He took the opportunity to recite the GOP’s list of grievances.
“Is it the open border and everything happening there? Is it our economy and people can’t afford to buy groceries, can’t afford to buy gas, homes are unbelievably expensive?
“Is it issues going on in cities and urban areas, where we see urban decay and more crime than we ever saw before? Or is it our failed foreign policy where we are weak around the world and there are wars around the world?” Van Drew said.
RISING ENERGY COSTS
Salerno blamed current and past legislators for rising energy costs, saying they have done nothing to address the growing demand.
“We are upset about high energy bills this summer. When you’re mad, you want somebody to fight for you but the elected officials who say they are fighting for you are actually the cause of this problem for ignoring it for too long,” Salerno said.
He said there simply is not enough supply to meet the rising demand.
“Grid operators say we need 40 to 50 gigawatts of new capacity by 2030. That’s 10 times what the old B.L. England plant used to deliver. Are they working on bringing us more supply? No. The congressman tells us there’s some boogeyman at Atlantic City Electric who’s trying to rip us off. He’s not the solution; he’s the boogeyman,” Salerno said
Van Drew said there are two issues causing the problem, one local and the other national.
“The rates of Atlantic City Electric are now the highest in the state. They used to be the lowest in a state that has the highest rates in the country,” he said.
The second issue is national policy.
“We’re closing down plants but not building other ones,” he said. We should do natural gas and nuclear, which has zero carbon footprint. We should be making sure that we are number one in energy in the world. We are capable of being energy independent. This administration and what it has done has made us energy-dependent,” Van Drew said.
OFFSHORE WIND
Many Republicans, and Van Drew in particular, have come out against offshore wind for numerous reasons.
The congressman said wind energy could be good on the mainland but that it never has been tested in an area with category 3 hurricanes.
“It’s not appropriate for the ocean. It hurts our environment, hurts our fishermen and will hurt the ratepayer. If you think you’re paying high rates now, you’re going to pay more than ever,” he said.
“The answer is a basket of energy. There are many different types that we can use. We still will rely on fossil fuels to some degree, but need more natural gas, more nuclear.”
Salerno countered that the need is immediate.
“We can’t make nuclear in time — it took us 15 years to deliver the reactors in Georgia — and to say offshore wind is unproven is just a fallacy. There are 13,000 offshore wind turbines spinning around the world, delivering 74 gigawatts of electricity,” he said.
“We can deliver the energy South Jersey needs and respect that climate change is not a hoax; it is flooding our coastal communities. We can do that by deploying offshore wind over the horizon. We can do that and it can’t possibly affect tourism because you can’t see it and it can coexist with fishing.”
CLIMATE CHANGE
Salerno said steps must be taken now to alleviate the results of climate change.
“We have to take steps. We can’t continue to keep our head in the sand and ignore the threat of climate change,” Salerno said. “We are going to have to struggle through the transition, but we can share this sacrifice together in a way where costs are properly borne not by ratepayers but by the people at large, because we all benefit from a cleaner environment.”
Van Drew said nobody doubts that the water levels and temperature are rising and that something must be done to address it.
“The answer is how you do it,” Van Drew said, adding that the state Department of Environmental Protection’s proposed NJPACT-REAL rules are “really going to hurt the coastal economy.”
He touted his efforts to fund infrastructure projects.
“I have brought record amounts of infrastructure. Of all districts in the state, I brought the most into the district than any district in New Jersey,” Van Drew said, noting it is funding pumps, beach nourishment, dredging, building sea walls and raising elevations.
“All the work we have done and we need to do more and we will, but we don’t have to struggle. We can win,” Van Drew said.
IMMIGRATION
“I agree there is a crisis at the border and we need to take steps to remedy it, but what I don’t understand is why Republicans didn’t embrace the Senate’s bipartisan border bill. It delivered so much of what Republicans wanted — millions for border wall construction, billions for border enforcement, an end to catch and release and, best of all, redefined asylum so far fewer immigrants could qualify and claims processed in 90 days instead of 5 to 10 years. Republicans didn’t get everything they wanted, but that bill delivered what Americans sorely need — progress and compromise.
Calling it a “bad bill,” Van Drew said what it did was “codify, legalize allowing up to and even beyond that, 1.8 million illegal immigrants a year. That’s not the answer. It really didn’t do anything about catch and release. It didn’t do anything about the Stay in Mexico policy. It didn’t do anything about expedite to the country of origin. It didn’t do anything about all of the issues that affect us so much at the border. It was wrong. It wasn’t a good bill, it shouldn’t have gone anywhere.”
MASS DEPORTATIONS
“We’ve got to make sure that that border is buttoned up — no nation ever prevails with open borders. It is insane, it’s crazy what we’re doing,” Van Drew said, citing an Immigration and Customs Enforcement report stating the Biden administration has released more than 113,000 convicted murderers and more than 115,000 sex offenders into the country.
“They do have to be sent back. We don’t need to have the world’s rapists, sex offenders, murderers in our country. That’s the plan we have. I believe it’s the right thing to do,” Van Drew said.
“Of course he supports mass deportations because Donald Trump wants it. He won’t be able to resist that. He’s not a voice for South Jersey, he’s a voice for Donald Trump,” Salerno said. “This is just a dumb solution to a problem. Are we really going to round up millions of people who have lived here peacefully and productively, paying $100 billion in taxes a year? Sure, we can arrest and deport criminals, but everyone?”
FOREIGN-BORN WORKERS
“I happily embrace, and this is an aspect of the Republican bill, to use E verify to make sure every employee is here legally, but we can’t do that until we have a path to legalization for those people who are here,” Salerno said. “That’s why we need comprehensive immigration reform. You can’t just build a wall and have this idea that you are going to round up 10 million people and somehow jettison them over the wall. Not only does it cost a trillion dollars to make that happen, it’s devastating to our economy. Our local economy depends on these workers.”
“There’s no question this has always been a country of immigrants. People that come from all over the world because they want freedom, they want the ability to make a living. You know and I know why it’s so unbelievably important that we have a healthy immigration system — legal immigration, not illegal,” Van Drew said.
VOTER ID LAWS
“I can support a voter ID law that is not used as a Trojan horse to suppress voting just months before an election,” Salerno said. “If we take the time to make sure that we can implement a system that everyone who doesn’t have an ID — you’ll find them more often in marginalized communities — to make sure that everyone gets thoseIDs, if that makes people have greater faith in our system, that’s wonderful but the problem is people shouldn’t really doubt our system.”
He said 63 courts looked at challenges by Trump in the 2020 election and none found widespread voter fraud.
“It is the Republican Party that is sowing this distrust in our elections. This is a tragedy for our county. Donald Trump did not abide the results of the last election and he’s telling us right away, he is not going to abide bad results this time,” Salerno said.
Van Drew trumpeted the Safe Act, which required all voters to be American citizens.
“They wouldn’t vote for it; they refused to support it,” Van Drew said of congressional Democrats.
Salerno countered that it’s already federal law that non-citizens cannot vote in elections.
“What that Safe Act had was a requirement that people bring new sources of verification of citizenship, right now just months, weeks before an election,” he said.”
“In principle I have no problem with that law, but when it’s intended just to suppress voters that are likely to vote against your party, that is reprehensible,” Salerno said.
INFLATION
Asked what he would do to help lower inflation, Van Drew opted to criticize rather than offer a solution.
“You know what we shouldn’t do, the bill that went through, the Inflation Reduction Act, you know what that did? Go to the store, go to the gas pump, try to build a house, try to buy a house, try to live and you see how expensive it is,” the congressman said. “It hired 87,000 more IRS agents to go after middle-class working people. It put taxes on manufacturing centers and may lead to a loss of 200,000 jobs. It spent money to incentivize and help China.”
Salerno said the COVID-19 pandemic during Trump’s presidency resulted in inflation around the world.
“We all know what caused inflation, the pandemic caused inflation. I want to remind people that it is supply and demand that ultimately drives prices,” he said. “Government can help by stimulating supplies and negotiating prices in health care, housing and education.”
“The Inflation Reduction Act should have been called the Inflation Creation Act,” Van Drew countered.
ABORTION
“This is the biggest flip-flop of all for him. In 2019, he said he was strongly and unequivocally pro-choice. Now he has an A+ rating from the anti-choice lobby. I want to restore the Roe framework. Government should not be able to force a woman to bear a child against her will,” Salerno said.
“I do have concerns about third-trimester and late-term abortions, but Roe doesn’t involve late-term abortion of healthy fetuses in healthy women; it involves those tragic situations that come along late in pregnancy, some horrible emergency takes place. It is a tragedy and dangerous and no government has business in those horrible situations.”
“I’m pro-life,” Van Drew said. “I also think there should be exceptions for rape, incest and life of the mother. I also believe we need to protect IVF.”
He said he does not believe in a nationwide abortion ban nor nationwide abortion allowance.
“I think we can all come together on that third-trimester, partial-birth abortions are wrong. If you believe in choice, you should believe women should hear from both sides, pro-abortion and pregnancy centers,” Van Drew said.
CLOSING STATEMENTS
“I’ve been speaking over and over again about the need to change. We need a new kind of elected representative in our Congress, the kind that won’t be boxed in by tired political patterns of liberal versus conservative.
“It was 70 years ago when John Kennedy said our nation, even back then, could no longer tolerate such lazy political habits. He called instead for courage in politics, and not just courage to defend principles but the courage to compromise. He went on to explain that we can resolve the clash of interests without conceding our ideals, because in his words there are few if any issues where all of the truth and all of the right and all of the angels are on just one side.
“For this election, I ask you to reject cowardly, uncompromising partisanship and send an engineer and businessman who’s ready to roll up his sleeves and get working,” Salerno said.
“I love America. It has been great to me and has been great to you. It is the greatest nation ever to exist on the face of the Earth, and we need to come together in America — Republicans, moderate Democrats and independents. We need to blaze new trails of glory and greatness, we need to be the shining city on the hill, we need to be the beacon of hope and light in the world. We can do this and we can do it right now, hopefully in the new administration,” Van Drew said.
He said when Ben Franklin was working on the Constitution, stakeholders at the time asked him what he had created.
“And he turned to them and said, ‘We have a republic, if you can keep it.’ I want to keep it. I believe in it. I think that most of us believe in it and that’s why this election is so important,” Van Drew said.
The full debate is available on the Hughes Center’s YouTube channel.
– By CRAIG D. SCHENCK/Sentinel staff
