TAMPA, Fla. — Florida's District 14, a seat held by Democrat Kathy Castor since 2007, now includes parts of St. Petersburg — including downtown St. Pete, south St. Pete and areas east of Interstate 275 and U.S. 19.
Her Republican challenger, James Judge, is a political newcomer and U.S. Coast Guard veteran.
10 Tampa Bay asked for your questions for the candidates and took them directly to Castor and Judge. You can watch the interviews below.
10 Tampa Bay interview with Kathy Castor
Q: What is your stance on Ukraine? (Question from viewer)
Castor: God bless the brave people of Ukraine and their outstanding president Volodymyr Zelenskyy and I strongly support their supplying Ukrainians with the tools they need to repel Putin and his horrendous aggression, unprovoked aggression and I strongly supported the aid packages. And have worked here locally to help Ukrainian families relocate here, one case reuniting a mother with her daughter who works here at Community Tampa Bay.
Q: Under what conditions would you support direct American military action to support Ukraine against Russia?
Castor: No, I would not support troops or direct military action but I do appreciate that President Biden has led the effort to galvanize the Europeans in opposition to Putin's war of aggression.
Q: How do you plan to address climate changes? (Question from viewer)
Castor: The Inflation Reduction Act we just passed is the most historic investment in clean energy and resilience in the history of America. It's the most forward-reaching climate law in the world. I chair the House Select Committee on the climate crisis, so I was asked by my colleagues to lead the effort. It goes back to the fact that I grew up here in Florida, I’m an environmental attorney and I have experience on environmental policy.
Q: A 55% American majority opposes phasing out the production of new gasoline cars and trucks by 2035, while 43% are in favor. Where do you stand on this specific issue?
Castor: Well Ford and GM, our American manufacturers are phasing out gas-powered vehicles because it is one way to solve the climate crisis. The transportation sector is the most polluting sector, even more than the power sector so it's also a competition issue, global competition issue. We want to develop the solutions here in America.
Q: Do you think non educators should be choosing what is being taught or do you support teachers choosing what, when and how to teach? (Question from viewer)
Castor: Yes, I trust educators, but it's important for parents to have a role and a voice in their children's education. What I don’t like is politicians injecting themselves into what is education, professional educators and the way they review materials, a lot goes into those decisions but it should be a collaborative process but in the end, it's very important to teach the basics, reading, writing, and history.
Q: How about gun control and laws of obtaining them? I'm a gun owner and wondered what their thoughts are on it for future reference. (Question from viewer)
Castor: When you look at the epidemic of gun violence across the country and across the state of Florida, it's obvious we need common sense solutions. I support the bi-partisan background checks law to ensure that firearms do not fall in the hands of folks who shouldn't have them- criminals, abusers, terrorists. In fact, this Congress, we passed the first gun-safety legislation in over 20 years, the bi-partisan Safer Communities Act.
Q: If China takes military action to control Taiwan, what American response would you support? What would you unconditionally oppose?
Castor: Again, I don't see a direct role for the United States troops but it is very important at this moment in history for the United States of America to support democracies across the globe. China is playing a very dangerous game. We've seen them take over Hong Kong. Now, they're threatening Taiwan, had military operations in the neighborhood. It's very important for us to provide the consultation, military partnerships, the ISR- intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance. It's interesting, a lot of the new military leaders have shifted a focus to the Pacific rim because of China's aggression.
Q: What are three Congressional actions that you would support to control the flow of immigrants seeking to enter the southern U.S. border?
Castor: We've got to have a more secure border and I've voted for millions and millions of dollars for border security. There are a lot of new tools available where you can use drones and overflights in contact with folks on the ground to make sure that they're, that anyone trying to cross illegally is dispatched and not allowed to enter the United States. We also have a broken immigration system. If you are legally seeking entry through asylum or through a family connection, there needs to be a better way for you to reach, to apply while you're outside the country and have your papers reviewed before you show up unannounced. It's also very important especially in the Western hemisphere to encourage economic development among the countries where people are fleeing poverty and abuse. That's a longer-term challenge but we must do that.
10 Tampa Bay interview with James Judge (R)
Q: Was the 2020 presidential election stolen? (Question from viewer)
Judge: We have enough time for this question? (laughs) No, but there are some caveats. What I'll explain is, look, I don't know what happened in the 2020 election but I do know, like every election, there's cheating in every election, unfortunately. Was it enough to overturn the race? I don't believe so and I'll give you my reasoning for believing that. I make phone calls to people every single day for the campaign purpose and when I talk to one out of three Republican women who tell me they couldn't vote for President Trump because he was too vulgar, too aggressive, and too brash, I think when you lose that much of your base, the election wasn't stolen.
He should have won in such a landslide based on policy and where the economy was that you know, and I'll upset a lot of Republicans by saying it, but the reason President Trump is not president is because of President Trump. And, did 80% of the media coverage for four years, was it against him? That should have played a bigger role. It's surprising he got as many votes as he did. He had a lot of negative publicity towards him for four straight years. I think that had he changed his tone, if he would have been a little bit more professional, not as disrespectful, and stayed off of Twitter and just carried himself a little more presidential, I think he would still be president and he wouldn't be in this situation.
Q: What is your stance on Ukraine? (Question from viewer)
Judge: Alright, so having been to Ukraine several times this year, got to help with an organization, help with some rescues of some babies, really cool to be involved with that and it was also because we were rescuing Americans that had been held captive by Russian forces. Here's my take on it. If we had strong leadership in Washington, if we had good foreign policies, I don't think that Russia would have invaded Ukraine. I think in the world right now there's a leadership vacuum and when you don't have strong leadership where there are consequences for doing stupid things like shooting rockets and missiles at civilian buildings and we hold those people accountable should they do something stupid like that if it would have been a different leader in the office, I think that we wouldn't have that circumstance happening right now.
Q: Under what conditions would you support direct American military action to support Ukraine against Russia?
Judge: I think that one, I would like to speak to our military leadership before I really answer that question and say OK, we need to do this, we need to that. I'd like to get a briefing and understand where they feel on things and what they think our readiness capabilities are. I think Russia has demonstrated they're a lot weaker than we thought. I think the proxy war that is currently going on has actually weakened Russia substantially.
Q: Do you support women's right to choose what happens to her body? (Question from viewer)
Judge: So, this question is one that has been asked a lot this campaign and it's so much more complicated than pro-life, pro-choice. The Christian in me believes that all life is precious. The pragmatic person that loves the law in me wants to have a definition of life that would be consistent across the board. At the federal government level, I could give you an easy answer and say this is a decision that should be passed down to the states and leave it at that. I don't know that we need to have the federal government involved. I'd rather see all 50 states working to come up with the best possible solution and maybe that's where we go.
In terms of, from a pragmatic standpoint, if we could get Democrats and Republicans to agree on at least from a legal standpoint on when life begins because right now we don't have one. I don't drink but if I did drink, if I was to have three beers here, get in the car, drive and rear-end a woman who's on her way to the abortion clinic, in the state of Florida and that baby was to die, the state would pick up the charges against me and charge me with DUI manslaughter. It wouldn't even be up to the woman. The state of Florida, that's the way they would do it. How do we have a law that is fair and balanced on all sides? I think that maybe there's a definition, where we have like a heartbeat law where when there's a heartbeat. We judge a death by a heartbeat. Why not judge a life by a heartbeat?
Q: What are one-two actions that you would support to control the flow of immigrants coming across the southern border?
Judge: Immediately this is a foreign policy issue all day long. One, we have to start enforcing law. We should beef up border security. We should finish the wall. That's the immediate thing. Secure the southern border. Operation Vigilant Sentry has been enacted. It is the United States government's emergency operations plan for if and when there is a mass migration from the Caribbean, in this case Cuba and Haiti. In Mariel, during the boatlift, there was 125,000 Cuban immigrants that came over. This year, we've seen 230,000 Cuban immigrants. It's the largest Cuban exodus in world history. We've seen a 400% increase in Haitian interdictions. There is a crisis happening with migration to the United States. It's because this administration said come on in, just come on it, no issues, whatsoever.
Now what differentiates me from a lot of Republicans out there is that, I actually would like to fix immigration, and Democrats for that matter, I'm frustrated with most of Washington if you can't tell. It's not just the Democrats. I'm also frustrated at a lot of Republicans. A lot of them like to fundraise on these issues. The grossest thing I've learned about this process is it's all about money and most of them don't really care about fixing the issues. It's like if we've got issues with immigration, we can fundraise off of that. That's terrible. We're talking about human beings here, a lot of times human beings that are fleeing countries that have socialism and other issues going on so one secure the border, enforce the law because we should be a nation of laws and if we're going to have the laws, they should be enforced. If not, we should have new legislation and change the laws.