Heck, Bilbray debate, split on key issues

Republican Rep. Joe Heck and his Democratic challenger, Erin Bilbray, disagreed Friday on how much leeway to give U.S. intelligence agencies as they track terrorism suspects and on how far Nevada should go in approving online gaming.

The two candidates, in their third and final debate before the Nov. 4 election, also clashed on whether the nation is prepared to stop the spread of Ebola and on foreign policy, with Bilbray arguing President Barack Obama has done a good job and Heck saying he has failed “across the board.”

Heck, who sits on the House Select Intelligence Committee, voted against stripping the National Security Agency of some of its powers after journalists revealed it had been illegally spying on Americans, too. Instead, he voted to put more safeguards in place to protect Americans’ privacy.

“You can’t just make the United States’ intelligence community blind and deaf,” Heck said in defending his vote. “You can’t just cut them off at the knees.”

But Bilbray said she put a premium on privacy and noted that the administration has not shown any evidence that even one terrorist “on U.S. soil was stopped” by the NSA’s gathering of data.

“I believe law-abiding citizens should have a right to privacy,” Bilbray said. “I think Congress was wrong on this issue.”

On online gaming, Heck said he backed Nevada’s moves to approve Web poker, but he does not believe Internet gambling should be allowed for all games. He said there is a distinction between poker, a game of skill, and other gambling that is a “game of chance.” He also noted that Americans already are playing poker online in foreign countries while Nevada is missing out on revenue.

“You start with online poker and see how that goes,” Heck said, not entirely ruling out expanding online gaming to other gambling in the future.

Bilbray said allowing online gaming beyond poker would create more jobs.

“I think the genie’s out of the bottle, and I think we need to be a leader on these issues,” Bilbray said.

The debate, which aired live at 6:30 p.m., was moderated by Jon Ralston on his half-hour “Ralston Reports” political talk show on KSNV-TV, Channel 3.

The face-off comes at the end of the first week of early voting in Nevada, which ends Oct. 31. Heck is seeking a third, two-year term to represent the 3rd Congressional District in Clark County.

On foreign policy, Heck blamed Obama for “a lack of leadership” in the world, which he said has emboldened Russian leader Vladimir Putin and decreased U.S. influence around the globe. Heck said Putin felt more powerful after Obama decided not to move forward with building a missile defense system in the region to protect U.S. allies from Russia’s weapons.

“I think that emboldened Putin to take these measures he has taken,” Heck said, referring to Russia’s military incursions into Crimea and Ukraine. “I think had we stayed true to our commitment to our allies, he may have thought before he started his expansionist measures.”

Bilbray disagreed, blaming former President George W. Bush for going soft on Russia, once saying he had looked into Putin’s eyes and had seen his soul. Bilbray said Putin, a former KGB chief, “is clearly someone who cannot be trusted.”

Asked if U.S. sanctions against Russia are working, Bilbray said they “should probably be a bit stronger.” But she said she didn’t have any specific ideas about how to make sanctions tougher.

Asked what Obama’s greatest foreign policy success was and his greatest failure, Bilbray pointed to the military killing al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden, who was behind the 9/11 attacks, as a win.

As for failure, Bilbray said Obama waited too long to deal with Syria after it used chemical weapons on its own people, prompting universal condemnation but little action.

“I think Obama has done a very good job in stopping terrorism in the world and he doesn’t get enough credit for it,” Bilbray said.

Heck dismissed Obama’s leadership as weak, from Africa to Asia.

“The president has failed in foreign policy across the board,” Heck said.

In their previous debate, Bilbray blamed Congress for cutting the budget of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and essentially causing the Ebola crisis. Asked if she stood by that view, Bilbray said even CDC leaders have said funding cuts hampered the agency’s ability to develop a vaccine.

Bilbray said that, in the past four years, $218 million was cut from three CDC programs that dealt with infectious diseases.

“These cuts have absolutely had an impact,” she said.

But Ralston noted the CDC budget cuts came under a “sequestration” deal proposed by the White House, which led to automatic cuts across the board, and Heck said Congress actually restored the money and approved even more for an 8.2 percent increase in the $6 billion budget.

Heck, a medical doctor, and Bilbray, whose husband is a pediatrician, differed on whether the United States is prepared to handle the Ebola crisis, which has hit several Americans so far, including nurses and doctors who have had direct contact with infected patients.

“I feel we are not prepared right now for the crisis,” Bilbray said.

Heck said there has been no secondary spread of Ebola so far and health authorities and hospitals have tightened proto­cols in handling patients so it doesn’t spread.

“I do think we’re safe,” Heck said. “And I think we’re better prepared now than when it started.”

Contact Laura Myers at lmyers@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2919. Find her on Twitter: @lmyerslvrj.