Is Judge Brett Kavanaugh qualified to serve on the Supreme Court? That’s the question Republican Senators want the public to focus on.

What impact would Kavanaugh have on a woman’s reproductive health and President Trump’s future if he became the fifth conservative vote on the court? That’s how Democrats want to frame the debate.

Closer to home, the GOP wants the gubernatorial campaign to center on this question: Will Ben Jealous’ universal health care plan bankrupt the state?

Democrats, on the other hand, want the campaign to center on this question: Will Governor Larry Hogan commit to funding the Kirwan plan for state aid to public schools?

With the opening of school yesterday, there were dueling press conferences.

Governor Hogan wants to combat corruption in the schools. By executive order, he created the position of “Investigator General” and filled it with the chief education adviser for Comptroller Peter Franchot.

Jealous wants to ease the burden on teachers of buying supplies for their classrooms. It would be funded by allowing people to donate a portion of their tax refunds.

Meanwhile, schools closed early because students were sweltering in their un-air conditioned classrooms.

This was no surprise. City and state officials should have met before now to solve the problem.

For the long term, we need the candidates for governor and the legislature to answer the bigger questions of funding preventive health care and state aid to public schools. We have a recent history of doing so in in a bipartisan way for health care. In the four years ahead, we need to do so in both areas.