1. What is your position on the application of wastewater residuals on Barry County farmland, and should the practice stop or continue?

Boy, talk about a loaded question. To me this is like asking if cheese is good and asking if people should continue to eat it. Well, I think that’s pretty dependent on the facts. Do I think properly made, transported, and stored cheese is good and would I go so far as to say that putting a couple slices on a lean slightly overcooked hamburger would improve it? Absolutely!! Do I think that if you made that same cheese and poured ten thousand gallons of straight sodium-hydroxide into the recipe and then didn’t refrigerate it and allowed it to get rancid and putrid and covered in maggots that it would still make that hamburger better? No… No I do not. So the original question becomes are we talking about Agriculture processing residuals, or heavily chemically treated municipal city waste solids? Are we talking about a very consistent, predictable Ag byproduct with a good fertilizer value that compliments Ozarks soils and forage based agriculture systems very well?, or are we talking about a wild-west mixture of anything and everything that any companies want rid of including manufacturing waste chemicals? or products that have been allowed to become so rancid and putrid that the odor ruins the quality of life and infringes on the civil liberties of anyone within a fifteen mile radius? Are we talking about an affluent that has been agitated, digested, and rigorously tested for any non-approved chemicals?, or are we talking about loading up whatever other states might not want and land applying it in our back yard just to get rid of it? Because one is like adding a couple slices of good cheese to that hamburger, and the other is like ruining that hamburger with the rotten contaminated cheese. All that said, myself and former Representative Dirk Deaton have invested hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands of hours over the last two years working with national environmental groups, top international environmental consultants, our Department of Agriculture, our Department of Natural Resources, and our agriculture industry partners to pass House Bill 2134 and House Bill 1956 and implement top-tier necessary standards and safeguards and to incentivise practices that promote true sustainability while making sure that our Agriculture industry partners are bought in on responsibly and sustainably applying any processing residual soil fertility amendments while putting a permanent stop to the bad actors and any fly-by-night application contractors who were just trying to use our beautiful district as a dumping ground for any and everything that out of state companies would pay them to get rid of. I will continue to work diligently to make sure the law is being followed, the newly implemented standards are being met, and that any bad actors are kept out of Missouri forever.

2. What policies would you create or change to support agriculture in Barry County?

The answer to that question is ironically actually the exact opposite of what the question asks! To truly support our strong agriculture base here in Barry County the number one thing I will continue working to do is to make sure no new policies or policy changes are made that would negatively affect the ability of our hard working farmers and ranchers from being able to effectively and efficiently do their jobs… and by doing their jobs do their part in supplying healthy quality ag products that help feed and maintain humanity. That’s not political theater or rhetoric. The human race isn’t sustained on free bubble up and rainbow stew. It is sustained by real food raised by real farmers and ranchers on real farms and ranches. It’s gotten kind of crazy though, and a lot of people in this area who aren’t real plugged into politics don’t really believe me when I tell them, but there is a very fast growing fraction of the Republican party who align almost perfectly with sierra club extreme liberal non reality based environmentalists. When they start talking about what laws we need to pass regulating land, water, fertilizer, pesticides, animal medicine, tractor and truck exhaust emissions, and animal agriculture practices you would think they were extreme liberal hippies living in Berkeley, but they actually are proud Missouri Republicans. I have to be unwaivering in making sure that real facts are always used to stop the progression of any of those policies that would negatively affect our farmers and ranchers. Protecting their rights doesn’t just include their property rights, it also includes protecting them from non-reality based legislation that would dramatically encumber their ability to run and sustain productive operations.

3. What can the state legislature do to help improve access to health care in Barry County?

Primary Care Physicians, Primary Care Physicians, Primary Care Physicians. We have to implore health care networks to actually try to work to increase access to Primary Care Physicians, and if that means formal Reciprocity Agreements with neighboring states and/or health care networks, then let’s work together to get that done ASAP! If that means empowering Physician Assistants that can fill the role of Primary Care Physicians in communities and to folks who don’t currently have access to one, then let’s work together to get that done ASAP! If that means decreasing the internetwork burdens of getting a referral to a specialist so local Primary Care Physicians can concentrate on doing their job, then let’s work together to get that done ASAP! If that means better technology and phone apps that help people gain access to a Primary Care Physician in their area, and in turn help them get quick efficient access to the care they need, then let’s work together to get that done ASAP! Let’s quit playing politics and just do the stuff that we can that will actually make a difference by the end of the month, not the end of the decade. Many of my older retired constituents, and professionally employed folks who  regularly go to the doctor would be astonished at how many people reach out to me telling me that they tried to go to the doctor but they couldn’t. It is a huge problem and I’ve recently taken the initiative to surrender attempts at addressing this problem legislatively and have begun working directly with Cox and Mercy to work together to do the things we can actually easily do sooner than later that will move the needle on this issue.

4. What is your position on citizen-led amendments and the efforts to change that process?

LOL. But for real though, this made me laugh out loud. We haven’t had an actual citizen led petition in the state of Missouri in probably 50 years. These things aren’t propped up and proposed by groups of actual Missouri citizens like they want you to believe, or like the process was originally intended. When democrats say citizen-led petition what they actually mean is agenda based east and west coast funded deceptive liberal agenda advancement technique. Every initiative petition that Missouri voters has been tricked into voting for over the last few years has been written by out of state extreme liberal groups with decieving ballot languages and advertising campaigns funded by hundreds of millions of dollars of east coast, west coast, and literal foreign money. Even the so called signatures are gathered by hired “signature-getters”… many of whom make upwards of twenty dollars per signature and who didn’t even know where Missouri was on a map until they were hired to come here and trick people into signing their sheet outside of Lowes on a Saturday. Because of this, our state Constitution has become absolute garbage!, and unless we take some drastic steps to get back to a responsible form of representative statutory government, we might as well just look at what California and New York are like, because that’s where we’ll be in the next 15 years. When Benjamin Franklin was asked what type of government our founding fathers had established he famously answered “A Republic, IF YOU CAN KEEP IT!”. Well in Missouri we’ve currently lost it… the question then becomes do we want it back. I do.

5. What circumstances would compel you to vote against your party’s leadership?

Literally any circumstance that might infringe on my constituents’ God given Civil Liberties and Personal Rights. Our inalienable rights were given to us by our creator and enshrined when his son died on the cross for each and every one of us! They sure weren’t given to us by any government, and especially not by a political party!… So I assure you if party leadership ever attempts to progress anything that infringes on those, I will always be the FIRST to vote against them!