Community organizations question candidates during Congressional Debate

The KUAM 2024 Congressional Debate had members from throughout the community asking the candidates about issues important to them. 

“If elected or re-elected, what three priorities will you advocate for within your first 100 days as Guam’s Congressional representative,” asked Joanne Ige with Guam Association of Realtors. 

James Moylan: “Two things we are doing now and will continue to do when I am re-elected as well. We’ve added an additional $400 million for the military to build housing in base. In addition, increased the funding cap for Department of Defense to look at these dilapidated buildings, large apartments, old hotels as a possible source for housing for military and purchasing that or leasing that to take the burden off the housing market on Guam.”

Ginger Cruz: “We need to get the infrastructure. We can’t get more housing built on Guam if we don’t have the infrastructure to service it. The second thing is we need to get public private partnership because let’s face it. We can’t always be asking Uncle Sam to fund everything because we’ve seen Uncle Sam does not have enough money to fund everything and every time they say we don’t have enough money we can be left high and dry. So we need to incentivize the private sector to get them to build more affordable housing here on Guam. We need to coordinate our federal efforts with the Guam Economic Development Authority because they’ve got QC authority.”

Both discussed the importance as well for getting more H2 workers on the island.

“If either former President Donald Trump or Vice President Kamala Harris wins the presidency. What do you estimate will be the economic outlook for Guam will be under their leadership,” asked Ernie Galito with the Guam Chamber of Commerce. 

Cruz: “It is important that if I win this election that I be able to work with whoever the occupant of the White House is, whether it be Donald Trump or Kamala Harris. I will make sure that I represent the people of Guam. There’s going to be pluses and minuses on both sides. I believe if Kamala Harris wins there is a lot more opportunity to help the society on Guam to improve our opportunities to get child care, to get $25 thousand of child credits for housing, things that we are really going to need. At the same time if Donald Trump wins I think he is very transactional and I think there are things he is going to do in terms of military buildup which we could benefit from as well.”

Moylan: “Let the people decide and at the end is where I am going to work together with them. Right now we have a Democrat as president and the House which is controlled by Republicans are working our best. The Senate is run by Democrats as well. If we had a Republican President and hopefully a Republican Senate too things could probably move smoother hopefully. We don’t know. But either way it goes I have proven that I can work across the board as shown in my rating listing on how I’ve done in registering on the top 30th of those who can work well with both sides of the aisle.” 

Your 2024 Congressional Debate is now available on KUAM News YouTube channel.

Watch the candidates return to the stage at the Hyatt Regency Guam for the general election forum. 

Tickets are available at guamwomenschamber.com.