Photo by Deb Gau

A forum for candidates in Minnesota Senate District 15 brought some big issues to the forefront on Thursday. Sen Gary Dahms and opponent Anita Gaul weighed in on topics including abortion, gun control and vehicle emissions standards in Minnesota.

Dahms and Gaul answered questions from panelists and moderators at the campus of Southwest Minnesota State University on Thursday.

Dahms, R-Redwood Falls, said state abortion laws in Minnesota could only be changed by a popular vote or the court system, not by legislators.

“Why are we making this such a big issue in Minnesota? Because the DFL governor and all the other DFLers, they don’t want to face the music of what they’ve done in the last four years to the state of Minnesota,” Dahms said. He said Minnesotans should be focused more on issues like inflation, education and crime.

Gaul, DFL-Marshall, said abortion rights were a big issue for Minnesotans.

“Why is this such a big deal? Because the Supreme Court decision has now made this another states’ rights issue. And so states now have to decide,” Gaul said. “And we have a gubernatorial candidate who has pledged to sign abortion bans into law if they come to his desk, even in the case of rape and incest. That’s why it’s a big deal, because half the population got stripped of what they thought was a constitutional right this summer.”

Dahms and Gaul were also asked how they would address the issue of guns and crime in the state.

“I think however you look at it, the crime problem is exacerbated by the number of guns that we have on our streets and in our communities,” Gaul said. “We need to do something about guns on the streets. We need to enact a universal background check, we need red flag laws, and we need to raise the minimum age at which people are allowed to buy assault weapons.”

Dahms said in many cases guns were used as an instrument to commit crime, but he the solution should focus more on law enforcement.

“We see the crime rates continually go up. Look what happened in Minneapolis,” Dahms said. “And the only way that’s going to stop is you have to get serious about, you commit a crime, you pay the time. And we have to get serious about what we’re doing with the people committing these crimes and who we’re blaming it on. And we have to fund our police departments, and we have to make sure that these people have the right things to do their job with, instead of defunding them.”

The question of whether Minnesota should follow the same vehicle emissions standards as California was another topic that candidates said was important to southwest Minnesota voters.

Dahms said the California emissions standards “Has certainly been a debacle on the part of our governor.”

“This should have been brought to the legislators, and legislators should have had input instead of him saying, ‘You know what, I can do this with my executive authority,’ “ Dahms said. He said Minnesota needed to look at moving forward with clean fuels in “a respectful and fair way.”

“There’s a lot of work that needs to be done there, and I hope that we can get him to sit down and start talking about this, and we can make something work that’s going to fit Minnesota, especially rural Minnesota,” he said.

Gaul said the emissions standards were a concern that came up a lot as she was door-knocking in the district.

“Both Democrats and Republicans are concerned about this clean car mandate,” she said.

Gaul said there were concerns about the timeline and implementation of the standards, but at the same time a push for more electric vehicles would offer Minnesota a chance to develop new industries and be less reliant on foreign oil.

“This is an opportunity to start us down the path to wean us from fossil fuels,” she said.