Cartwright, Bognet battle in 8th Congressional District debate

Oct. 21—JENKINS TWP. — U.S. Rep. Matt Cartwright and challenger Jim Bognet battled Thursday over abortion, gun policy, inflation and other issues during a contentious debate at WVIA studios.

The race between the incumbent Cartwright, 61, a Moosic Democrat seeking his sixth two-year term, and Bognet, 47, a Republican living in Hazle Twp., is a rematch of 2020. It's a key contest as the GOP seeks to wrest control of Congress from the Democratic Party.

During the hourlong debate — the only one planned between the two candidates — Cartwright blasted Bognet as a "corporate lobbying executive" beholden to special interests. Bognet repeatedly tied Cartwright to President Joe Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, blaming them all for inflation and accusing them of waging war on U.S. energy production. Debate panelists included Times-Tribune staff writer Borys Krawczeniuk; Roger DuPuis, news editor for the Times Leader; and WNEP-TV's Lisa Washington.

Cartwright, who described himself as the most bipartisan Democrat in Congress, and Bognet, who called Cartwright a "wholly owned subsidiary of Joe Biden," wrangled early over the issue of abortion.

Asked if he'd support a federal ban on abortion, Cartwright said he trusts women to make their own health care decisions, accusing Bognet of wanting a national abortion ban with no exceptions in cases of rape, incest or when the life of the mother is at risk.

Bognet, however, said there must be those exceptions. States, not the federal government, should set abortion policy, he said.

He also said Cartwright held himself up for years as "one of the few pro-life Democrats," but accused him of now supporting "abortion on demand until the moment of birth."

Cartwright said he and his wife, both Catholics, would not personally choose abortion, but noted he "never ran to take women's rights away."

Asked if individual cities, boroughs and townships should be allowed to make their own gun laws, Cartwright said he thinks "we can have local control over gun access." He evoked the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Connecticut, and called for "sensible gun safety laws at the federal level."

Bognet rejected the idea of local control for guns, arguing Scranton could hypothetically outlaw individuals from having a weapon permitted in Exeter. He called for a crackdown on illegal guns and people who commit gun crimes.

Each candidate frequently accused the other of dishonesty.

Bognet accused Cartwright of favoring "defund the police lunacy" and supporting "antifa rioters" during the summer of 2020. Cartwright said Bognet's efforts to tie him to the idea of defunding the police is crazy, accusing Bognet of having dishonestly spliced an audio tape to make it seem like Cartwright supported defunding law enforcement.

Responding, Bognet said he took audio from Cartwright speaking to the Black Scranton Project and put it on TV. The GOP candidate called the Black Scranton Project a "radical, pro-crime group" and vowed to fight for police officers.

The Black Scranton Project is a nonpartisan nonprofit organization dedicated to archiving and celebrating local Black history and culture, founder and CEO Glynis Johns said in a text message after the debate. She rejected Bognet's characterization of the organization.

"We do so much to uplift the community and so it's confusing and disheartening to see individuals creating a false narrative of who the Black Scranton Project is to leverage a campaign," she said via text.

On the topic of same-sex marriage, Bognet noted the U.S. Supreme Court has already decided on that issue and said he would do nothing to try to change that. He then said teaching "transgender stuff" to schoolchildren and permitting the teaching of any kind of sexuality to elementary school students is horrible, noting he'd fight against such things.

"That's where I will put my efforts," he said. "We deserve equal rights under the Constitution for everybody. That's what the 14th Amendment says. That's what I believe. But we do not need our public schools to have our children indoctrinated."

Cartwright responded by accusing Bognet of attempting to distract people with culture war issues.

"Here come the culture wars again, and this is all a big distraction, folks, from the main play that's going on," Cartwright said. "The big corporations that got ... huge tax cuts, many of them pay little, some of them pay no taxes even though they're making record profits, and they have people like this shilling for them down in Washington and distracting everybody by delighting you with tales of culture war."

The candidates also debated inflation, Social Security policy, immigration and other issues. Video of the debate is available online at wvia.org.

The 8th Congressional District includes all of Lackawanna, Wayne and Pike counties and parts of Luzerne and Monroe counties. The standard annual salary for members of Congress is $174,000.

Contact the writer: jhorvath@timesshamrock.com; 570-348-9141; @jhorvathTT on Twitter.