Mike Garcia and Christy Smith squared off in a lively online forum for a highly coveted northern Los Angeles County congressional seat on Friday, April 24, presenting competing visions of how they would lead the region — and, ultimately, the nation — out of the rubble of the coronavirus outbreak.

The race for the 25th Congressional seat, which former Rep. Katie Hill flipped to blue in 2018 but then surrendered amid scandal, has provided an early glimpse at issues and attitudes in the run-up to the November general election.

The district includes more than 400,000 voters, from the northern tip of the San Fernando Valley to Simi Valley to the Antelope Valley. And yet, in Friday’s forum — sponsored by the Santa Clarita Valley Chamber of Commerce — it was a state issue that got the spotlight: Assembly Bill 5.

The law has become a touchstone in the race, as Republican Garcia, used it to juxtapose his anti-tax, free-market, strong-defense platform against the record of Smith, a Democratic assemblywoman who voted for the bill, which restricts business’ ability to pay for work from independent contractors.

The law earned critics upon its passage, but garnered new scrutiny amid the coronavirus outbreak, as many claim the bill originally intended to help “gig” workers has instead made life tougher.

“Turn off AB5 right now,” Garcia said in answering a question from forum moderator Jeffrey Forrest of College of the Canyons on how to ensure that small businesses get an equitable allocation of funding from federal disaster money. “It’s a bad bill. It needs a lot of work. At this point, it’s all a facade.”

Garcia argued that a combination of lower taxes, lower regulation and dropping red tape could help ensure that the free market itself could prop up the economic recovery.

But Smith took issue: “When a worker is misclassified, it costs the state and federal government a tremendous amount of money,” she said. “In the end, that costs us all,” she said, adding that without such legislation business and consumers are hit because “it becomes and unfair competition environment” and a social safety net for times like we’re in now also takes a hit.

Federal stimulus money from the federal CARES Act, designed to help ailing businesses hold on during the coronavirus crisis, also triggered lively exchanges.

Garcia said the disaster funding should flow through local entities such as chambers of commerce and city councils rather than big banks, which are incentivized to loan to big business.

Smith said that to keep that from happening, the law needs to be better spelled out. Businesses would be better served from direct grants from the government, which bypass banks, she said.

Both saw building up transit as a way to create jobs. Smith pointed to the need to expand the 5 and 14 freeway corridors. The expansion of transit in tandem with more, higher-density housing was a way to not only create jobs, she said, but also to connect the region to the greater L.A. area.

Garcia, too, pointed to the need to expand freeway access as a job-generator, while he and Smith amplified the need to build up the district’s water capacity.

Smith said she would look for “efficiencies” in the federal budget as an alternate way to fund transit needs, beyond a state and federal gas tax. She added that her experience as Newhall School Board coupled with being a legislator have bolstered her support of a rainy day fund.

Garcia called out Smith for not pushing back on the state gas tax. For him, “killing the bullet train” and other cost cutting could quell the need for such tax measures.

On the 2017 federal tax cuts, Garcia said they spurred the “the best economy, before the coronavirus, that this world has ever seen.”

Smith, however, said the cuts have led to higher deficits and “less room” to maneuver in the federal budget.

Both candidates played up their years of experience handling money — Smith in elected roles from school board member to assemblywoman, and Garcia, as a business executive.

This week, President Donald Trump endorsed Garcia, tweeting praise for him for being “Strong on Crime, the Border, and Second Amendment.” That added to a list that includes mayors who lead a cluster of district cities.

Smith, who represents the overlapping 38th State Assembly district, trumpeted her support has come from such backers as L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti and Reps. Adam Schiff and Nancy Pelosi, and from leaders from the area’s schools.

Smith has raised $1.89 million in total contributions as of the freshest Federal Election Commission update, ending March 31. And Garcia has raised $1.78 in contributions.

And both parties together have poured more than $2 million into a robust TV ad blitz in recent weeks.