US Senate Debate Draws Out Marshall, Bollier On Health Care, Guns, Abortion

By Tim Carpenter,The Kansas Reflector

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Oct. 22, 2020

TOPEKA — U.S. Senate candidates Barbara Bollier and Roger Marshall clashed in a televised debate Thursday night on how best to counter the coronavirus pandemic and to deal with controversial issues of law enforcement, abortion, guns and health care.

Bollier, the Democratic state senator from Johnson County, and Marshall, a Republican congressman from Great Bend, both accused their rival of embracing distortions through an avalanche of campaign advertisments. Marshall repeatedly labeled Bollier an extremist out of touch with most Kansans, while Bollier portrayed Marshall as a champion of ruthless partisan politics.

“Tonight and in her commercials, Barbara Bollier pretends to be a moderate, an independent,” Marshall said. “She calls confiscating weapons an ‘amazing thing.’ She believes and supports late-term abortion. She wants to give Supreme Court justices a religious test. She’s too extreme for Kansas.”

Bollier said she would keep her campaign rooted in honesty and integrity, because that was required at this pivotal juncture of Kansas’ representatives in Washington, D.C. She said the endorsement of her candidacy by former U.S. Sen. Nancy Kassebaum and nearly 100 other Republicans demonstrated the imperative of working to build a bridge across the nation’s partisan divide.

“Many of you feel the weight of the world on your shoulders right now,” Bollier said. “There is so much uncertainty. But one thing is certain. We need a legislator, a United States senator who will look at the facts, do what’s right for Kansans. My opponent is quite different. He won’t stand up against his own party.”

Marshall and Bollier are competing Nov. 3 to fill the seat to be vacated by retiring U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts, a Republican.

On Thursday, a New York Times and Sienna College poll indicated Bollier trailed Marshall by 4 percentage points, 46% to 42%. The poll had a margin of error of 4 points. The Democratic nominee hasn’t won a Kansas race for U.S. Senate since the 1930s. However, the poll said only 51% of Kansans approved of the job done by President Donald Trump. Trump won the state in 2016 by more than 20 points.

During the debate on KWCH television in Wichita and broadcast on WIBW in the Topeka market, Bollier and Marshall expressed different views on calls for reform of law enforcement amid allegations minorities endured more violent responses from officers.

Marshall said there were opportunities to improve law enforcement and quickly pivoted to an allegation Bollier supported government seizure of firearms and declared without evidence that she would defund police agencies.

“As the son of the chief of police, I’m always going to see this through the eyes of the police officers. Ninety-nine-point-nine percent of them are the greatest people in the world,” the congressman said.

Bollier said she had a long record of supporting government funding of law enforcement and asserted Marshall was making “misleading, false” claims about her views on the issue.

“We have a system that is not always equitable,” the Democrat said. “We need to listen to our black brothers and sisters, brown brothers and sisters who have said, ‘It is not done the same way towards them.’ We should have justice for all.”

Bollier said the federal response to COVID-19 had been a disappointment, and called on Republicans and Democrats in Washington to work on a new aid package to finance personal protective equipment and deliver paycheck protection aid for businesses. She said it was essential the federal government advance fundamental public health policies such as wearing a mask.

“Unlike my opponent, who has run around the state without one on,” Bollier said.

Marshall said COVID-19 legislation passed by Congress and signed by Trump saved an estimated 500,000 Kansas jobs. He said he raised a red flag about danger of the coronavirus in January before it was on the radar of most Kansans. He said he’d supported development of vaccines and better testing for COVID-19. He didn’t address the mask issue.

“What I believe is that people of Kansas know what’s best for ourselves,” Marshall said. “We should respect the virus, but we can’t let it control us. We sure can’t let it shut down the economy again. Shutting down the economy has killed more people that the virus ever will.”

At least 223,000 residents of the United States and nearly 1,000 people in Kansas have died after contracting COVID-19. In other states, New York has reported 33,000 fatalities from the coronavirus and states of California, Texas and Florida have documented more than 16,000 each. The coronavirus has slowly transitioned into rural states and threatened to overwhelm hospitals during the flu season.

Marshall, a physician who took a break from the campaign trail to work in a clinic with COVID-19 patients, made the claim that he had personally “taken care of thousands of people with the virus.”

On abortion, Marshall and Bollier said they supported laws allowing women who were victims of rape or incest and women in jeopardy of dying to end a pregnancy.

“These are very difficult, very heartwrenching decisions that women sometimes find themselves in. I have always, always stood up for the private physician-patient relationship with women,” said Bollier, a retired physician. “I trust women to make their own decisions.”

Marshall said he wanted Kansans to know he valued every life and never “dreamed I would be in the halls of Congress fighting harder protecting newborn babies and unborn babies than I did as an obstetrician.”

Bollier said she grew up hunting and claimed Marshall was attempting to convince voters she supported a U.S. government gun grab. She said she had a record of standing for the Second Amendment right to bear arms. She also said gun violence in the United States required federal intervention to require background checks for gun purchases and to mandate guns were stored safely by owners.

“My opponent calls confiscating weapons an amazing thing,” Marshall said. “She has an F- rating with the NRA. Look, the Second Amendment protects the First Amendment.”

Bollier said she supported the Affordable Care Act and accused Marshall of repeatedly voting for repeal of the ACA. She also said she was with 80% of Kansans in support of expanding Medicaid to about 150,000 low- and moderate-income Kansans. In response to the question, Marshall said he would work to preserve the ACA’s protection of people with a pre-existing medical conditions if the 2010 law was repealed.

The Kansas Reflector seeks to increase people's awareness of how decisions made by elected representatives and other public servants affect our day-to-day lives. We hope to empower and inspire greater participation in democracy throughout Kansas.