U.S. House Dist. 21 candidates Joseph Kopser, Chip Roy debate

AUSTIN, Texas – Candidates for U.S. House District 21 Joseph Kopser and Chip Roy squared off in a live debate at noon Tuesday.

Austin’s KVUE hosted the debate at the Google Fiber Space in Austin.

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The current Representative from District 21 is longtime incumbent Republican Lamar Smith, of San Antonio, who is not running for re-election in 2018.

District 21 runs along the western edge of Insterstate 35 north of San Antonio through west Austin, and blankets a wide swath of the Texas Hill Country.

"What I want to see the federal government do is  provide the conditions for a level playing field to make sure education is the great equalizer, that infrastructure is in place to move commerce and trade, to make sure immigration is reformed in a way that can add new Americans to the workforce to keep this economic miracle alive," Kopser, a Democrat, said in an August debate.

"Get more regulations out of the way, to provide more power for Texas to govern and see and do best what we can do. It's also to provide health care freedom, so we are no longer strangling businesses and people with the unbelievably high cost of health care. These are things we can achieve if the federal government gets out of the way of Texas," the Republican Roy countered.

Election Day is Nov. 6. Early voting begins Oct. 22.