Meuser, Wallace clash over data centers, health care, and stocks in only debate

The two appearances, both two weeks before the Nov. 3 election, showed the race for Pennsylvania’s 9th Congressional District settling around familiar fault lines: health care costs, AI data centers, the war in Iran, and Meuser’s personal finances and residency.

The Schuylkill Chamber of Commerce sponsored the debate at Penn State Schuylkill. The 250-seat venue was fully booked shortly after its announcement in mid-September. 

Wallace, the Democratic candidate, opened the debate by accusing Republican Meuser of putting his own interests ahead of the district’s. Meuser countered that her campaign was built on falsehoods.

“Dan Meuser has shown he is in this for himself, and I am in this to fight for us,” Wallace said.

Meuser, a Republican first elected in 2018, called her claims about data centers and stock trading “completely false.” He said a campaign mailer accusing him of illegal stock trading was “a complete lie.”

“Any stock that I purchased was well before I got into Congress,” Meuser said.

Robert S. Carl Jr., president and CEO of the Schuylkill Chamber of Commerce, moderated the debate. Samantha Chivinski, the chamber’s executive vice president, was timekeeper. 

Throughout the debate, Wallace yielded some of her time to answer questions posed by the moderator to Meuser, asking him her own accusatory questions, ranging from topics like his stock portfolio to votes he has cast in Congress. Moderator Carl clarified to Wallace and the audience that she was willingly yielding portions of her time, and that each candidate was allotted equal time by the hosts.

Data centers

Data centers, a growing issue across the district, produced one of the night’s sharpest exchanges.

Wallace repeatedly said Meuser voted to take away local control over data centers and voted for an $80 billion tax break for data center developers in last year’s budget reconciliation bill. Meuser denied any such provision existed.

“Sounds like you don’t know what you voted for,” Wallace shot back.

Meuser demanded she name the bill. When she said it was the budget bill, he said Republicans voted for “competitive tax rates for all industries.” He said he has long told communities considering data centers to negotiate the best possible benefit packages.

“Ask for the stars. Don’t settle for the moon,” Meuser said.

He then turned on Wallace: “If you don’t know any better, you’re ignorant. If you know better, you’re lying. There’s no bill that did that.”

At Monday’s town hall, Wallace said seven of the district’s 12 counties have at least one data center somewhere in the pipeline. She pointed to the proposal in Muncy and to farmers near Allenwood fighting to keep their land from power lines serving a data center.

Asked whether she would support a national moratorium, Wallace said she preferred the word “pause.” She said development should stop until local, county, state, and federal rules catch up.

“I am not opposed to data centers,” she said. “It’s just that we need to slow down, and we need to make sure that our communities here are not stuck holding the bag.”

Health care

Wallace said Meuser voted for a $1 trillion cut to Medicaid that will cost about 30,000 people in the district their insurance and “defund our hospitals and nursing homes.”

Citing her time as chief of staff in the White House budget office, Wallace pledged to reverse the cuts. She also pledged to ban prior authorization by insurers, cap the share of premiums that can go to executive pay, and break up companies that own insurers, hospitals, doctors’ offices, and pharmacy benefit managers.

Meuser said Medicaid “hasn’t been cut. Hasn’t been touched yet.” He said spending on the program will still grow about 25% over 10 years, with the increase slowed by work requirements and the removal of people in the country illegally. He blamed rising premiums on the Affordable Care Act. He touted “most favored nation” drug pricing, health savings accounts, and association health plans that would let chambers of commerce offer coverage.

Energy, Iran, and costs

Both candidates said they support producing more domestic energy, including natural gas and coal. Wallace said she backs “all of the above” and noted her endorsement from the United Mine Workers. Meuser blamed today’s high fuel prices on the Biden administration’s energy policies.

The two split sharply on the war in Iran. Wallace said the war is driving up diesel, gasoline, and heating oil prices, and she pledged to vote to end it.

“Have we stopped Iran?” she asked. “Are we safer today than we were eight months ago?”

Meuser said the war was about keeping “the worst nation on the face of the earth” from building a nuclear weapon, not about energy.

Residency and attacks

Wallace again noted that Meuser lives outside the district. Meuser lives in Luzerne County’s Back Mountain area and said redistricting put him outside the district “by 0.9 miles.” He said his son attended school in the district and that he works there.

Meuser also disputed Wallace’s claim that he never holds town halls. He said he held 146 public events in the past 12 months.

He also questioned Wallace’s resume, saying her work for former U.S. Rep. Tim Holden was a roughly three-and-a-half-month internship in 2006, and he linked her to Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and George Soros.

Wallace responded that she is “a proud capitalist from a family of small business owners.” She cited endorsements from Holden and Democratic strategist James Carville.

Town hall positions

At Lycoming College, Wallace took a range of questions from about two dozen attendees in an audience nearing 100. The event was hosted by the Lycoming College Student Democrats, headed by Professor Jeff Newman and student Haley Heimbach, and the Phenomenal Women of Color club, represented by student Annabella Rios.

Her answers sometimes broke from the progressive wing of her party. Asked whether she would fight to abolish U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, she said no.

“I do not support abolishing ICE. I do support drastically changing how they are doing their jobs,” Wallace said. She said she would use Congress’ oversight and spending power to address abuses.

Asked whether she would vote to impeach President Donald Trump, Wallace said she would be “mad as hell” if Congress spent next year on impeachment instead of costs, health care, and ending the war.

She also declined to promise new gun legislation, saying she does not see it passing in the next two years.

More along her party's lines, she said she supports access to abortion and contraception, as well as raising Pennsylvania’s $7.25 minimum wage.

Wallace took a strong stance against the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, saying she has not received funding from them and would not accept it if they offered, as opposed to Meuser receiving financial backing from pro-Israel political action committees, including $56,333 from pro-Israel/AIPAC-tracked sources.

On funding and defense aid to Israel, she said that there are supposed to be conditions to foreign aid that she believes are not being met.

If elected, she said, she would seek a seat on the House Appropriations Committee, citing her want to send money to her district as a top priority.

Closing

In his closing, Meuser framed the election as “a contest for the heart and soul of our nation.” He warned that a Democratic House majority would move the country toward socialism. He again accused Wallace of lying about his record.

Wallace closed by promising to bring people together and to “fight for us, not a political party, not my own bank account.”

The 9th District covers all or part of 12 counties, including the eastern portion of Lycoming County.