The Gubernatorial Debate was held in Carolyn Pope Edward’s Hall on Tuesday, June 4th at 1:05 P.M. The candidate representing the Nationalist party was Chloe Hanzlik and the candidate representing the Federalist party was Swara Dasari. The candidates were each given the chance to answer multiple questions.

The first question that was proposed was, “Each of you is the head of your respective party. I would like to know which platform that you discussed among your parties that is most important to you and how you will further your initiative?” First for the Federalist Party Chloe Hanzlik responded, “The biggest issue I see is the teacher shortage, especially as a daughter of a teacher and coming from a rural area. It’s because of the low salary that they have to deal with, so one thing I would do is raise teacher salaries so more people would be interested in going into teaching. I’ve had someone tell me that they wanted to be a teacher but because of the low salary that she would be getting paid, she is deciding to go into health care instead.” Swara Dasari followed with, “One of the main things we talked about in our party was mental health, so incarcerated individuals really don’t get good treatment in prison. They don’t get access to mental health facilities and most of the time when they are at a young age they tend to go back if they don’t receive the proper rehabilitation. We discussed how to better this by allowing for mental health like therapists, which would really help incarcerated individuals. The crime that they committed isn’t just a physical thing but also mental. By getting them mental help we can really help them get back into our society and limit the number of incarcerated people.” Later on, one of the Federalist Party members made the statement, “We actually did not discuss anything about mental health or incarceration, so what would you support over the topics we did discuss?” Dasari was a little flustered, but responded with, “ I’m pretty sure we did talk about it and correct me if I’m wrong.” The federalists all disagreed, so Dasari proceeded to state, “Well then as I said before I would try to help to support women by getting feminine products in public places and making them free” 

The next question asked was “What are your thoughts on environmental sustainability in our state?”. Hanzlik replied, “Since I come from a farm, I think that the environment is a very important thing. I partner with ag motivators through UNL, and I go from almost down to Omaha all the way to the South Dakota border teaching elementary classes how you can protect the environment and eat healthy through it. My last year’s program used drones to fly over fields and work with how to keep the crops healthy.” Dasari said, “ I’ve done research and there is a bill that is being renewed every 5 years called the Farm Bill. I stand for tangible laws. The farm bill involves a bunch of different classes. The floods have been increasing over the last couple of years in the state of Nebraska and the tornados that we just experienced all hit super hard on farmers. So what the bill does is provide assurance for farmers in multiple different areas. It makes sure that the pesticides that you use don’t harm the food you are eating and regulates things through the FDA to make sure your food is strong and healthy and good for you.”

One other question that was asked was “What is your opinion on the foster system, low-income homes, abusive homes, and how would you help it?” Hanzlik had an emotional response stating, “I come from a rural area so low income is a big issue in our area, and many struggle because of it. So, actually, my best friend was put through foster care, and since I saw firsthand how the foster system affects a person I really think that it needs help. It was really hard seeing how it affected her sometimes, so I feel like the system definitely needs to be corrected.” She was given a couple of minutes to calm herself while Dasari gave her opinion stating, “My party discussed a bill that would better foster kid situations, so we would do this by doing better background checks on individuals who are going to be foster parents. That would help to make sure that the children are getting better parents in the future. One other thing especially in rural communities is to make sure that they aren’t moved around too much. That would make it possible for the kid to make more friends. So I would definitely put more money into background checks.” After Hanzlik took a breather she came back with, “I would definitely have a background check run on both of the parents and have the child interview with the parents they are supposed to be living with to make sure that they would end up being a good fit.”

Several other exceptional questions were asked at the Gubernatorial Debate. One of them includes that both candidates agree that “We the people” is the most important line in the Constitution. Swara Dasari and Chloe Hanzlik both did a phenomenal job responding to all the questions that they received. It was a very competitive but professional debate.