Democrat Nick Miller and Republican Dean Browning, opponents in the race for the state Senate seat from the 14th District, debate Thursday, Sept. 29. 2022, at the Fellowship Community assisted living retirement community in Whitehall. (April Gamiz/The Morning Call)

The hottest minutes in a 60-minute forum with state Senate candidates Nick Miller and Dean Browning were the final few, when they shook off the no-debate rules and spoke pointedly about each other.

Miller said Browning is part of an “extreme minority that wants to ban access and pass an absolute ban on abortion” — to which Browning retorted he already had spelled out exceptions to his stance against abortion and “for you to say that I will not do that is simply not true.”

Miller, a Democrat, and Browning, a Republican, spoke at a Thursday evening event at Fellowship Community in Whitehall Township, arranged by the League of Women Voters of Lehigh County.

The two are vying for the newly drawn 14th Senate District seat that will represent parts of Lehigh and Northampton counties.

The event was the first where the candidates spoke publicly side-by-side before an audience, but the rules did not allow back-and-forth debate.

A few times, though, they pushed the envelope and the moderator failed to hold them back.

One instance came early in the hourlong session, when a question about elections led Miller to say he would make sure counties had financial resources to carry them out properly and all voices should be heard via voting.

Browning said people of both parties no longer trust results and “our system is broken. We need to make changes.”

When Miller asked if he could respond to Browning, the moderator said “yes.” MIller then said giving election workers time for pre-canvassing of ballots would be a simple way to speed up getting results.

The moderator, after confessing she was at fault for allowing the rebuttal, gave Browning a follow-up on the topic. Browning said pre-canvassing would be a mistake, because it created the potential for someone to leak election results early, and he pointed to the leak of the Dobbs U.S. Supreme Court decision as an example.

Miller, a 27-year-old first-time candidate for statewide office, is a member of the Allentown School Board and runs a real estate business. Browning, a 66-year-old former Lehigh County commissioner, is a retired chief financial officer who has run unsuccessfully for Congress twice.

With the two seated at a table facing the audience Thursday, the moderator used notecards to run through nearly 20 questions, including some that approached the same issue from different angles.

Each candidate answered the question, taking turns going first. On high-profile topics such as abortion each stuck with themes they laid out in early interviews.

Among other issues addressed Thursday:

HOMEOWNERSHIP: Miller praised the “whole-home repairs” program passed by the Legislature and signed into law by Gov. Tom Wolf this year. It gives income-qualified residents financial incentives to repair and weatherize their homes.

“We are about 15,000 housing units short in the Lehigh Valley,” he said, “and addressing that supply side thing, continuing to spur and support economic development, is a crucial piece of this senator position.”

Browning said Allentown has a low number of single-family homeowners and efforts should be made to increase it, including incentives to attract first-time homebuyers and a “revamp” of how specific problems like shortages of both parking spaces and green areas are addressed.

Browning also said there should be a return to “strict code enforcement” in the city.

INCREASING JOB OPPORTUNITIES: Browning said that to jump-start economic investment, he wants to bring about an immediate 50% reduction in the corporate net income tax. Pennsylvania’s rate, he said, is one of the highest in the nation.

In Harrisburg, he said, “They have recently passed a bill to gradually reduce it over the next eight years, to cut it in half. I don’t think that is nearly enough, or quick enough.”

Miller called for support of small businesses.

“Increasing access to capital is one way we can do that. Also workforce development,” he said. Miller called small businesses “crucial to our local economy” and “a foundation of our community” but said they are dealing with rising costs, worker retention and supply issues.

MINIMUM WAGE: Miller said he supports increasing the state’s $7.25-an-hour minimum wage to $12-$14 an hour, and to have it “tagged” to inflation to allow for automatic increases.

He said there has not been a Pennsylvania minimum wage increase in more than a decade and noted state lawmakers get automatic cost-of-living increases in their pay.

“Why do we not have that for our minimum-wage workers?” he asked.

Browning said government should have “skin in the game” in any potential increase.

He said he supports a “business-friendly increase in the minimum wage where the government picks up the difference.”

The problem with standalone increases in the minimum wage, Browning said, is they hit small business owners, who will have to increase prices to customers or pay raises out of their own pockets.

Morning Call Capitol correspondent Ford Turner can be reached at fturner@mcall.com.