The Bipartisan Policy Center announced Thursday an August 1 debate between Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn, and Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, that will take place at the Jack Morton Auditorium in the School of Media and Public Affairs building.
The debate, the second of the larger “Senate Debate Project Series,” will be available live and on-demand on multiple C-SPAN platforms and begins at 7:30 p.m. The debate also follows a recent “kickoff” debate between Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., that took place on June 13 in the Kennedy Institute’s replica U.S. Senate Chamber in Boston, broadcast on FOX Nation.
CBS News congressional correspondent Nikole Killion will moderate the August debate.
“The Senate purports to be the world’s greatest deliberative body, and yet too often, we respond to the most important issues facing Americans with inaction,” Murphy said in a release by the Bipartisan Policy Center. “This place can’t function unless Democrats and Republicans come out of their respective corners to hammer out our differences and get something done – something we proved with the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. Senator Portman has been an important legislative partner in the Senate, and I look forward to our lively discussion next month.
The event will also be co-hosted by the Orrin G. Hatch Foundation, and the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate alongside the Bipartisan Policy Institute.
“Over the last year, the Senate has made notable progress on several key issues, including bipartisan laws to strengthen our national infrastructure and combat gun violence, the kind of progress that can only be made through meaningful give and take and hard work to find common ground,” Portman said in the same release. “I have appreciated working with Senator Murphy on a number of important issues, and I want to thank the Bipartisan Policy Center, the Orrin G. Hatch Foundation and the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for providing us a forum to engage in a thoughtful, policy-centered discussion on how to move our country forward and improve the lives of the American people.”
