The race for the vacant House of Representatives District 68 seat took a heated turn Tuesday night, when Libertarian opponent William Hunt Jr. of Warren square off against Bristol resident and Democratic nominee Laufton Ascencao in the first of two forums featuring the two men before the Nov. 6 election. The forum, held at Warren Town Hall, was sponsored by the League of Women Voters of Rhode Island, East Bay Newspapers, Full Channel and the East Bay Chamber of Commerce.

Since he started his campaign, Mr. Ascencao has identified himself as a progressive outsider who won’t be beholden to corporate special interests and has worked hard, with little money but plenty of passion, at his family’s Providence liquor store and as a commercial quahog diver, since his childhood days.

His opponent, Warren Libertarian William Hunt, believes in limited government regulation, legislation that provides and improves essential government services but otherwise stays out of residents’ lives, and calls himself the true outsider, beholden to nobody but the voters.

Over the course of a 20-minute forum, Mr. Hunt relentlessly sought to poke holes in Mr. Ascencao’s image, suggesting it is nothing more than a carefully crafted but false facade designed to hide his real identity as just another political insider.

While Mr. Ascencao spent much of his time talking about things he would do as a representative, Mr. Hunt, who ran unsuccessfully for the seat two years ago, took the offensive from the start, spending his time questioning his opponent’s spending, history and background, and suggesting it is at odds with his everyman image:

“In 2016 I earned 38 percent of your vote while spending just over $2,000. My opponent just spent over $25,000, much of that from special interests and political action committees, in a primary election where less than 20 percent of the voters cast a ballot,” Mr. Hunt said.

“What does that say about me? My success in 2016 is a direct reflection on my ideas, my pragmatism and the hard work I put into my campaign.”

Mr. Ascencao didn’t respond to Mr. Hunt’s comment, instead using his opening statement to talk about what he believes in as a citizen and hopeful would-be legislator:

“The statehouse is broken,” he said.

“As a citizen I’ve fought for a lot of bills that I believe in: I fought to expand local energy, the field I work in. I fought for earned sick days, and I fought to enact common sense gun reform.”

“I’ve seen citizens from Bristol and across the state ignored. I’ve seen corporate lobbyists come in and get special meetings time and time again while regular people were left out in the cold. To put simply, I think that’s wrong and I’m running to change that.”

Finances and small businesses

Many of Tuesday’s questions focused on financial issues, including how someone in the District 68 seat could help local business. The first question along those lines elicited a back and forth between the two and delved into how each would help workers who these days often have a hard time earning a living wage:

Mr. Ascenaco said he has a unique take on the realities of small business in Rhode Island, due to his family’s liquor store and his own work as a quahogger.

“The struggles small businesses face is much more than how they interact with our government,” he said.

“You have these big corporations who can understand these laws and parse through them. But … what you don’t have is small business owners that can understand them.”

He proposed a “small business owner’s bill of rights, ” that would give small business “a leg up” as they try to compete against large corporations that now receive preferential government treatment.

“We should do everything we can to protect those kinds of businesses and not put all our resources into helping these large employees.”

“It’s interesting that the policies he’s pushing are bad for business,” Mr. Hunt replied. “Otherwise you wouldn’t have to create two sets of rules for both large corporations and small businesses. The truth is when it comes to helping small business, the best thing to do is to get the government out of the way.”

“That’s not what I said,” said Mr. Ascencao. “I was working a full time job when I was 12 years old. The truth is, I believe in raising the minimum wage. I believe that when small businesses have that (minimum wage) jump up, they don’t have the pockets of money to deal with those increases, so I do think we should give them tax credits. Large corporations give 300 to 1 benefits to their CEOs. They have the fat — they can afford to pay a living wage.”

Once again, Mr. Hunt returned to the offense:

“My opponent uses a $2 full-time job when he was 12 as a justification for a higher minimum wage,” he said. “His argument doesn’t hold water because in Rhode Island you can’t legally work before you’re 14 years old.”

“The only thing his story demonstrates is over-regulation does nothing more than drive employees underground,” Mr. Hunt added. “Low-wage earners with no other alternative are forced to take jobs under the table that are not covered by workman’s compensation. They can’t collect unemployment and are easily exploited by their employers.”

How to fund education here

Mr. Hunt said that he favors a voucher program that he believes will make schools more competitive:

“Instead of Bristol and Warren fighting for funding over a regional school district, why isn’t anyone talking about tax dollars being wasted by other communities?”

“We could regionalize the entire state by creating a voucher program where the money follows the student. Let’s allow our children to attend whatever schools best suti their needs. Schools could then compete for students and the funds that follow them. The way we educate hasn’t really changed in 70 years — we can do better.”

Fighting for schools requires establishing coalitions, Mr. Ascencao said:

“Public education saved my life,” he said. “My family emigrated here from Madeira and they didnt’ speak English when they got there. Schools saved my life and ensured I could have a good education where I could get a good degree.”

“Now … we’ve received massive cuts from the state which is frankly unfair. What to do about it? It comes down to building coalitions and organizing. There’s only one representative in the entire state that answers only to the Bristol Warren school system, and that’s this one. You have to work with all 74 of the reps to figure out how to reopen the funding formula question and make the changes we need.”

Campaign finance and corruption

A question about what each candidate would do to fight corruption at the Statehouse also turned into a back and forth.

Mr. Ascencao said he supports the line item veto and as for finance reform, said there should be a ban on lobbyists taking donations during sessions. Also, “We need to look at the public financing of elections. We have reps who’ve taken thousands and thousands of dollars from lobbyists. We need to tackle both the laws and the people in the system.”

“My opponent said at the beginning of his campaign that he wasn’t going to accept money from political action committees, so that didn’t actually come to fruition,” Mr. Hunt replied.

Referring to Mr. Ascencao’s campaign finance reports, he said, “his only income comes from Energize Rhode Island, a coalition of multiple special interests … and two progressive tent agencies that pay political operatives to canvas for their issues and protest against the opposition.”

“He is not welcome in the back rooms of the Statehouse. Instead, he and his progressive friends have created their own back room outside the Statehouse, paid for by special interest groups looking to pass their own radical agenda. Just because his issues are different from (state) leadership, doesn’t make him any less of a political insider.”

“My opponent portrays himself as a grassroots activist who is fighting the system for altruistic causes. Don’t believe him.”

In response, Mr. Ascencao sought to defend those who support him:

“The organizations he’s talking about are called the Environmental Council of Rhode Island, which is a group of environmental organizations including The Audubon Society, The Nature Conservancy, those that fight to preserve our bay, our rivers, our parks. I’m not ashamed of that work, and it’s not a secret.”

“Again, I did not promise to take any money from PACs. Not corporate PACs, nothing from the fossil fuel industry, nothing from the firearms industry. I’ve kept that promise and I’ll keep that promise.”

Firearms legislation

On the hot button topic of firearms legislation, the two candidates had widely diverging views. Mr. Hunt said he supports “the state and constitutional right to protect ourselves” and said he’s opposed to any legislation that would turn “otherwise law-abiding gun owners into criminals.”

“I’m opposed to laws that violate our Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure and property and our Fifth Amendment rights to due process.”

The gun issue, he said “is a real issue but clearly is being politicized to distract from other important issues.”

Mr. Ascencao said there should be more legislation for firearms and ammunition, and also perhaps a change of culture:

“It’s not just that we have a violence problem, it’s that we have a gun violence problem. People look at video games and TV and say, ‘Look what our culture has become.’ But I’ve been in Canada and Portugal. They have the same TV, the same movies, they have the same everything, but what they don’t have is the same gun violence problem. So I think that we need to look long and hard (to make sure that) the wrong people don’t get guns. That means more extensive background checks. And we also need to look at training. People who are well-trained (in firearm safety) don’t have the same incidents with guns.”

Final remarks

In his closing statement, Mr. Hunt said his life experience and pragmatism make him a better choice than Mr. Ascencao:

“As a homeowner and a taxpayer, I understand the difficulty of coping with ever-increasing state and local tax burdens foisted on us by our legislators, who are only focused on special interests. Compared to my opponent, an entire decade more of work experience provides me with real world insight and knowledge that cannot be gained as a college student, community activist or organizer.”

“I got into politics because I care about people,” Mr. Ascencao said in his closing statement.

“My life, my experiences, have made me want to fight for these values. It’s why I ended up running away from medical school and going around the country, working on campaigns and working for this community.”

“All I want to do is pay back this community in every way I can, and work hard for this community every day.