U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran faced a mostly Democratic crowd at Donnelly College in Kansas City, Kansas, and he more than once had to respectfully disagree with his questioners' points of view.
But in a civil conversation that lasted an hour and a half, Moran said he wanted to hear it all.
“You all will be my last dose of common sense and good judgment before I return to Washington D.C.,” he told the crowd. Below are some of the conversation highlights:
On refugees: “The point I would make is we need to make certain we don’t discriminate against people based on their religious beliefs. We just need to make certain people who are applying to come to the U.S. have no ill-intentions or come to do us harm. I want (the Department of Homeland Security) to brief Congress. That hasn't happened. I will welcome that when it happens.”
On guns and gun violence: “The President takes unilateral action without dialogue with Republicans or Democrats in Congress. Congress needs to be dealing with these issues. We need to be very concerned that you don’t end up with changes in gun laws that reduce the rights of law abiding citizens but don’t take guns out of the hands of people who don’t care what the law is.”
On jobs and economic development: “Economic development can be whether there’s a grocery store in town. The administration and Congress has done virtually nothing to improve the economy. Unfortunately, many of (the recently created jobs) are minimum wage jobs. We still have this circumstance in which the less privileged are less likely to have a brighter future, even though job numbers have gone up.”
