WARRENSBURG – The Johnson County Republican Women hosted a candidate forum featuring seven Republicans running for the 5th Congressional District on Monday, June 15.
Key issues like access to abortion and gender-affirming care, immigration, state income tax and more were brought forward by JCRW’s president and event moderator, Sarah Wiley. Each candidate chose a random question from a bucket to answer before the crowd and were given two-to-three minutes to do so.
“We’re giving the community a chance to hear all of our new congressional candidates, and (we have) a lot of them because the 5th District is a new district, so it’s a wide-open race,” Wiley said. “It’s an exciting time for us, so we’re wanting to hear from all of them and we’re excited to have them here.”
Those running for the District 5 congressional seat include Micah Beebe, Rick Brattin, Taylor Burks, Brett Hueffmeier and Brad Patty. Candidate Berton A. Knox did not attend the forum. The winner of the GOP primary for the District 5 seat will run against incumbent Rep. Emanuel Cleaver in the Nov. 3 General Election.
Originally from the Lake of the Ozarks, Burks served for 19 years in the United States Navy before he ran for the 4th Congressional District seat. As a member of a fifth-generation farming family, Burks said his military and agricultural experiences would serve him well as a congressman.
“I think it’s incredibly important that we send a member who understands both the agricultural heritage of the district, as well as (the) armed services of Whiteman Air Force Base being just down the road,” Burks said. “A congressman who can speak to the values of mid-Missouri. Those are things that are sorely lacking under Congressman Cleaver.”
For Beebe, his Christian ideals paired with his experience as a real estate broker are what he said make him a strong candidate for the 5th District.
“I felt like this was something the Lord placed on my heart, and this was something that I was called to do,” Beebe said. “When I step in front of you guys and tell you, ‘This is what I stand for,’ I mean that. My word is my bond. I’m a conservative, I’m pro-life, I’m pro-Second Amendment, I’m pro-small government.”
During his introduction, Brattin likened the UFC cage match President Donald Trump hosted on the White House’s South Lawn to the current political landscape. As a career politician, Brattin said he’s the only Republican candidate in the race that has the experience necessary to hold a congressional seat.
“It’s a real, true cage match. We used to say politics is war without the blood, but when we’ve seen the president of the United States have an attempted assassination on him, on a way of life, day in and day out, it’s war with blood,” Brattin said. “It was emblematic of where we are in America today. We need a fighter to send to Washington to hit the ground running.”
As a business executive, with experience working in Washington D.C. and a background in law, Hueffmeier said his experiences would help him push for a more balanced economy if he were elected to congress.
“We have a Washington that’s really broken. I think you can all see that. You all know how to balance your checkbooks, but Washington doesn’t,” Hueffmeier said. “We have a debt ceiling that was designed with the effect of constraining our spending, but in fact, it just causes us to go into gridlock. We need to change that whole system. We need to do something that’s more practical.”
A self-proclaimed “outsider,” Brad Patty, 25-year Army veteran who served at the Korean Demilitarized Zone and the Pentagon, said sending someone who has never been a politician before would be in the best interest of the voters.
“When I hear my opponent say we need to send an experienced politician to Washington D.C., I think that’s the last thing we need,” Patty said. “We need to send character that will not buckle under pressure. Let’s build an elected official we would be proud of– let’s send somebody who is not a politician.”
Though the candidates were asked a slate of different questions, across the board, each candidate agreed that access to gender-affirming care and abortions should be at least prohibited for minors, if not completely outlawed altogether.
As far as immigration, each candidate also agreed that stricter limits should be imposed on those trying to gain citizenship in the United States, with many of the candidates agreeing that more oversight from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency would be beneficial. Many of the candidates, like Burks, Brattin and Beebe said they would bring the same conservative values Trump holds to their 5th Congressional District seat should they be elected.
Hasina Shah can be reached at 660-747-8123.
