Ken McGurn is a Vietnam veteran and said he spent years working to revitalize downtown Gainesville.
The Democrat is running in Florida’s 3rd Congressional District race against incumbent Ted Yoho.
McGurn appeared on First Coast Connect Wednesday. He said Yoho has taken many extreme positions, including voting for the October 2013 government shutdown.
“That shutdown cost us 120,000 jobs during the middle of the recession,” he said. “According to Standard and Poor’s, that cost the American economy $24 billion and extended the recession. Because of that recession, people lost their homes; people lost their jobs.”
McGurn said, as a businessman, he has been able to create many jobs in the Gainesville area though the several companies he created with his wife Linda.
McGurn is also critical controversial comments made by Yoho during his two terms in office.
In June, Yoho garnered national attention when he compared transgender people using the bathroom of their choice to dogs urinating wherever they want.
In a video posted on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6Dx3CDQ87Q">Youtube, Yoho said, “If I feel like a dog today and I want to urinate on a tree outside, can I do that because I felt like a dog?”
McGurn said that kind of rhetoric needs to stop.
“There’s a lot of hate in our country. There’s a lot of mistrusts, there’s a lot of fear,” he said. “A lot of people wake up in the morning and they know they are going to get slurred and some of them are fearful...of being attacked. We need to stop that because all people are created equal.”
First Coast Connect has extended an invitation to appear on the program as well as the candidates in Florida’s 4th and 5th congressional districts.
Producer Kevin Meerschaert can be reached at kmeerschaert@wjct.org, 904-358-6334 or on Twitter at @KMeerschaertJax
