Foley Seat Contenders in Live TV Debate Tonight

There is a live nationally televised debate tonight among contenders to succeed former U.S. Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla., who resigned after confronted with copies of sexually explicit e-mails to former high school pages who worked at the U.S. Capitol.

Watch it live on C-Span1 or on the Internet at www.wptv.com from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. EDT.

The debate is sponsored by TV station WPTV and Scripps Treasure Coast Newspapers and public radio station WQCS.

The candidates are Democrat Tim Mahoney, Republican Joe Negron and independent Emmie Ross. The late resignation of Foley reportedly improved the election chances of Democrat Mahoney, the best-known of the trio.

During part of the debate, a panel of journalists will question the trio. They will include Amie Parnes, the Washington, D.C.-based reporter for Scripps Treasure Coast Newspapers who closely covered all the Foley developments before and after he resigned.

Others are: Anthony Westbury, a columnist for Scripps Treasure Coast Newspapers, and Jill Roberts of WQCS radio.

At some point, one of the questioners is likely to bring up the Foley scandal and see how the congressional candidates want to address it -- will any candidate dwell on it or will all skip quickly toward plans for future work in Congress?