Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and former baseball great Steve Garvey’s Tuesday night debate turned prickly and personal within minutes, with both taking swipes at the other for failing Californians on everything from reproductive rights to immigration.
Schiff and Garvey are jockeying for the Senate seat left open by the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein last year.
Garvey, a Republican from Palm Desert, California, painted Schiff as a “career politician” who is more concerned with personal political aspirations than helping Californians.
“This man hasn’t done anything over the last 24 years on any of these things that have given us any consistency in life,” Garvey said during the hourlong televised debate. He also claimed that Schiff was too obsessed with a personal vendetta against former President Donald Trump to care about the needs of Californians.
Schiff portrayed Garvey as a candidate with no experience in politics and one who should stick to sports.
“While Mr. Garvey was signing baseballs for the last 37 years, I was seeing presidents of both parties and governors of both parties sign my bills into law,” Schiff said. He also called Garvey a “MAGA mini-me in a baseball uniform.”
Garvey has run a relatively low-key race, skipping the California Republican Party convention and the Republican National Convention. He has appeared at some regional festivals and given interviews with local news outlets. He has made a concerted effort to appeal to Latino voters and outraised Schiff during April and June, though his campaign is still hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt.
Schiff has a 20-point advantage over Garvey, according to a University of California, Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll from August. Schiff helped Garvey get on the general election ballot over Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA) because he thought he had a better chance of beating him.
With less than 30 days to go before the election, here is a look at some of the key takeaways from Schiff and Garvey’s first and likely only face-to-face meeting.
1. Garvey faults Democrats for border crisis while Schiff warns of mass deportations
Schiff said the country needs to fix the border problem by investing in more personnel and technology. He also said the country needs a comprehensive immigration policy that treats border crossers with civility and provides relief and a path forward for undocumented migrants who arrived in the United States as children.
“We can have both a strong border but also treat people as human beings,” he said.
Schiff tried to link Garvey to Trump and his plan for mass deportations if he becomes president again.
“You’re voting for mass deportations when you say you’re for Donald Trump,” Schiff said.
Garvey called what’s happening at the border an “existential crisis that has been created by Joe Biden” and Schiff, adding that their actions may have only been directed by “votes in the future.”
He added that he supports securing the border and “finishing off the wall.” He also said he wants to reinstate the Trump-era policy of keeping asylum-seekers in Mexico while their applications are pending and “reinforce Border Patrol.”
Garvey has tried to court Latino voters, and on Friday, his campaign aired its first statewide TV ads in Spanish as part of a $5 million ad buy.
2. Garvey distances himself from federal abortion ban
Garvey struggled to pinpoint his position on abortion rights, saying that he personally opposes it but that he would not support a federal ban.
“I am a Catholic,” he said. “I believe in life at conception. I believe that God breathes a soul into these fetuses. So I am steadfast in terms of my policies on abortion and also pledge to support all the people of California.”
Schiff, who has gone on record multiple times as supporting a federal law giving women the right to abortion, blasted Garvey for supporting the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in 2022.
“If my colleague was listening to the voices of Californians as he claims, he would hear their voices loud and clear,” Schiff said. “Californians want a national right to reproductive freedom and they don’t want the government in the business of making that decision for women.
“I’m for reproductive freedom, Mr. Garvey. You are not.”
3. Schiff and Garvey disagree on gun regulation
Garvey and Schiff also debated on guns.
Garvey did not weigh in on whether he would support a ban on assault weapons ban but said he supported stricter background checks.
“I think that the most important thing is a stringent background check that goes much deeper than it is today in order to preserve the integrity of the Second Amendment and to be able to provide for people to defend themselves,” he said.
Schiff, on the other hand, said he supports a universal background check law and a ban on assault weapons and ammunition clips. The congressman said he would also go after the National Rifle Association and “strip away the NRA’s immunity from liability.”
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Feinstein, whose Senate seat both men want, authored an assault weapons ban in 1994.
Fighting the gun lobby was one of her top priorities during her three decades on Capitol Hill.