1. Why do you want this position and what are your qualifications?

I’m running for my fifth and final term in the Missouri House. A LOT has changed since I started in the legislature, but the one thing that has stayed fairly consistent is that with modern term limits and ever shifting dynamics in the Senate, it has become extremely difficult to get anything substantial accomplished until you have some seniority within the Chamber. I’ve worked extremely hard in the last seven years gaining not only the respect of my House colleagues, but also that of members of the Senate and Governors office. Over the years I’ve been diligently working on many bureaucratic reform measures that will add much needed checks and balances to the semi-corrupt Jeff City bureaucratic machine, and would love nothing more than to have the opportunity to see that work through.

2. If elected, what are your three highest priorities and why?

I think I accidentally already revealed one, but the honest truth is the other two are fairly simple. TO KEEP BAD, CORRUPT, AGENDA BASED LEGISLATION FROM PROGRESSING, and to at all cost protect my constituent’s God given Personal Rights and Civil Liberties. If you would have asked me seven years ago if we would be in a position in Missouri where guys like myself would have to fight with all we’re worth, literally on a daily basis, to protect the citizenry from having their rights infringed upon by a semi-corrupt form of bureaucratic government… one that ironically was originally established and designed only to serve them, I would have told you there was no way!… but the reality is that’s where we are. I not only want to make sure it doesn’t get worse, but want to ACTUALLY be the one that helps return Missouri to a form of state government that is beholden to the people, not a form of government that treats the people as if they are beholden to it.

3. What is the single biggest issue in Barry County you believe could be addressed in the state legislature?

In pondering this question and attempting to eloquently find a way to say that there isn’t one key issue, but literally hundreds, my brother called and asked me what I was doing. I told him… and he was quick to remind me that there was a calf beside my house that was starting to get pink-eye and needed darted with Draxxin, and that no one will read my dumb thesis type response (his words)… and even if they do they won’t care what my answer is because no one cares what you know unless they know that you actually care. He then went on to remind me that the only thing my constituency actually cares about is knowing that I care… and knowing that I’m doing it for the right reasons. Every week that I’m in Jefferson City numerous real life issues that affect real life people come up, and I have to be very diligent in leaning on the handful of true Christian friends and family that I have that remind me to check myself on a daily basis and remind me to remind myself why I’m doing it, and who I’m doing it for. During session I start everyday by doing that which helps me prioritize and address issues by their real importance on a daily basis, not pick some fake politically advantageous issues and prioritize them for fake political purposes.

4. What changes, if any, are needed in Missouri’s criminal justice system?

I think the biggest reform that needs done before we can even begin the broader conversation of reform/treatment initiatives and their efficacy is to actually hold criminals accountable. I know this is a crazy concept to some, but it’s silly to get worked up about what the “Law” is, and how effective certain reform measures are, when there is a lack of desire by certain portions of our judicial system to actually hold those who break the law accountable. Real no nonsense Truth-In-Sentencing is crucial in getting the law-abiding public’s trust back! Even if the sentences handed down aren’t as “harsh” for certain non-violent crimes, or don’t include jail time, it is imperative that the legislative and judicial branches work together to get to a point where the sentence handed down is actually the sentence. You don’t go into a store and see something with a twenty dollar price tag and expect it to be five dollars when you go to the register. How is it we’ve created a system where criminals literally expect that their punishment cost won’t actually be anything even close to the “price on the tag”? Two years of incarceration should mean two years of incarceration, instead of meaning two months of incarceration and a free ride back to the drug house. We can never begin to reform the rehabilitative efficacy of a “correction” system and make valuable changes unless we start by interjecting some honesty and truth into the framework of the system we’re starting with.

5. What is your position on the state’s current funding for public schools, and what changes would you make, if any?

I’ve never in my entire life met anyone who feels as strongly about how crucial our rural and small town public schools are to our communities than myself. But that doesn’t mean we can’t have a real conversation about how St. Louis Public Schools and Kansas City Public Schools are some of the most corrupt “Black-Hole” public school districts in the entire country. Multi-million dollar consulting contracts to former administrators for “professional-development training” that never actually takes place, building maintenance contracts for union leaders for maintenance that isn’t performed, kick-backs to former employees that infiltrate DESE and rubber stamp the grift, liberal teacher’s unions that threaten their own members’ lives for speaking up, etc, etc. We have to quit letting our rural and small town school administrators be tricked into advocating for the system that protects St. Louis and Kansas City’s corruption. Period. There. I said it outloud. I’m definitely not calling out any of the administrators we have in my district! Infact, we’re much more fortunate in the 158th than many people realize. We genuinely do have some of the best pragmatic administrators you could ask for, and I’m not just saying that!… but that’s not the norm, that’s the exception. Many rural districts have superintendents and principals that let their union run professional organizations trick them into advocating for policies that tilt the scales even harder towards the corrupt city public schools instead of policies that are actually best for our healthy successful local public schools. As far as raw funding, I’m going to continue to at all cost advocate for substantive foundation funding formula changes that promote the increased direct funding of the things that we know actually positively affect educational outcomes and support healthy local community schools while trying to cut out those black holes in the formula that the city districts use to fund their grift and corruption.