Issues

Religious Liberty

America was founded on the principles of religious liberty.  We do not believe individuals should have to set aside their deeply held religious beliefs to hold elected office or operate their small business.  As a state, we need to protect the individual liberties and freedoms that made our country great.  We support religious exemptions from vaccinations and defer to parents to make health decisions for their children.

Abortion

We support the Constitutional amendment that declared Alabama is a pro-life state.  We are 100% pro-life from conception to natural death.

Transgender Sports/Transgender Bathrooms

This issue is not complicated.  Boys should compete with boys, and girls should compete with girls.  Girls should also be free to use the female bathroom at school without fear that a transgender boy will share it with them. The mere fact that we’re even making a policy statement describing our stance on these issues is illustrative of how much the public school system has changed in recent years.  Thankfully, the legislature has correctly addressed both issues in recent years, though it was met with resistance by some in Montgomery. 

Gambling Expansion

We oppose the expansion of gambling in the state of Alabama including the establishment of a state lottery, casinos, and online sports betting.  Current Alabama law should be enforced to eliminate “black market” gambling that is already going on.  Taking money from one individual and giving it to another does not create anything of actual economic value. Additionally, a gambling expansion erodes the moral fabric of the surrounding community, increases suicide rates, divorce, addiction, and other types of crime.

Protecting Children from Woke Policies

We support the elimination of divisive concepts from our curriculum that push woke policies like transgenderism, critical race theory, and socialism.  Instead, we should return curriculum control to parents and local teachers. Whatever your political affiliation, we can all agree that school is not the proper place for discussions on issues like these to take place, and that oftentimes these discussions are not age appropriate.

2nd Amendment Gun Rights

We are opposed to any law that restricts the purchase of guns, accessories, or ammunition to law-abiding citizens of legal age. Additionally, we support Constitutional Carry legislation which removed the requirement for a concealed weapons permit to carry a pistol concealed on your person or in your car.  This is a blatant and clear violation of the 2nd Amendment that states, “…the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”  Citizens should never have to pay a fee or get a license to exercise a Constitutional right!

We also oppose unconstitutional so-called “red flag” laws.

Small Business

We have seen first-hand how government regulations, fees, and red tape stunt business growth and discourage entrepreneurship.  We support the elimination of the Business Personal Property tax and Business Privilege tax.  These two job killers are paperwork nightmares and one goes so far as to charge tax annually on all business assets, including office desks, equipment, water machines, and virtually everything else.

Medical Freedom

We support the right of parents to make health decisions for their children.  Government overreaches such as mask mandates and lockdown orders are ineffective at best and unconstitutional at worst.  Parents, not schools, should decide whether their child wears a mask at school. 

We also support exemptions from vaccine requirements, including medical, religious, and other types of requests. Elected officials should respect your right to decide for yourself whether to mask or get vaccinations.

Taxes

We believe taxes are too high already and therefore oppose any and all tax increases.  Many middle-class Alabamians are already paying close to 50% of their income in taxes when you consider federal, state, and local income taxes along with sales taxes, property taxes, excise taxes, death taxes, etc.  Increased taxation also stunts job growth and discourages reinvestment of capital into the economy.

Occupational Licensing

We support the reduction and/or elimination of certain occupational licenses in Alabama.  There is no need for government to regulate barbers, auctioneers, landscapers, and hair braiders. These are artificial barriers to entry and they are anti free-market.

Economic Development

We believe government has an important role to play in economic development.  It is the government’s responsibility to create a friendly business environment by keeping taxes low, regulations few, and playing fields level.  Beyond these three things, government’s role should be merely recruiting businesses based on the availability of natural resources, convenience to population centers, and ensuring local infrastructure meets the needs of private enterprise.

We oppose expanding existing social welfare programs, and are even less inclined to support corporate welfare programs.  Taxing money from local businesses and citizens to entice other corporations to move to the district is simply a wealth transfer program.  Typically, the return on investment in those scenarios is very poor.  It leads to multiple municipalities and districts competing for the same jobs, which enriches the corporations at the expense of the common man.

Instead, we promote organic economic growth through small business. We support entrepreneurship and free enterprise, which will bring us the jobs that we need into this state.

Campus Free Speech

The best way to combat speech you disagree with is more speech, not less.  For this reason, we oppose “free speech” zones on college campuses and support instead the FORUM act.  Taxpayer funded universities should not legally be allowed to restrict free speech or distribution of literature in public areas of their campus.

Currency

We believe crypto currency should be free from ad valorem (property) taxes as any other type of currency currently is.

We believe Gold and Silver should be used to back the dollar so the Federal Reserve can’t print fiat money at will. We oppose the taxation of profits or losses incurred from precious metals transactions, as these are often “phantom” gains caused only by the devaluation of the dollar.

Educational Freedom

We fully support the right of parents to homeschool or send their children to private schools when they do not feel their children are getting a good education in the public school system.

We believe in school choice.  Parents should be able to move their children from failing schools to a school where their child has a better chance at a good education and success in life.  We believe that the money should follow the child. Forcing students to stay in failing schools is a disservice to the community.  Children should have the opportunity to get the best education available within their geographic region.

There are problems within the public school system that must be corrected:

We support the repeal of Common Core education standards, because we believe it promotes some objectionable material and because education has failed to improve under that system many years after its implementation.  It is also completely unconstitutional for the federal government to be telling states what they must teach.  The Department of Education has basically forced states to accept the standards by tying grant money to the standards. We believe curriculum should be customized at the local level to meet the needs of each school district.  We also have serious concerns about the amount of data being collected on students by the federal government.

Additionally, we support the abolition of the federal Department of Education.

Criminal Justice

We oppose civil asset forfeiture and believe that property should only be forfeited upon a conviction of crime in a criminal court.

We are opposed to the militarization of police departments.  There is no need for a small-town police department to have a tactical assault vehicle or tank.

We support body cameras on law enforcement officers to ensure accountability.

Property Rights (Eminent Domain)

We defend private property rights.  The U.S. Constitution establishes that property can only be taken for public use.  To us, that means that those instances should be few and far between.

“Public use” does not mean that the government can seize it and sell it to a private corporation just so it earns more tax revenue off of the property.  It can be taken to build roads or utility easements, but should never be seized so that a private corporation can build a new shopping mall or for any other business-related activity.

Medicaid Expansion

The Medicaid expansion was part of Barack Obama’s healthcare plan called “Obamacare.”  It loosened the income requirements to qualify to receive benefits if states opted into the new system.  It provided 100% funding for the first few years, but only 90% funding after that.  This would leave a state like Alabama picking up an additional $250 million tab in the general fund budget and expanding entitlements. We oppose the expansion of Medicaid in Alabama and want less government involvement in healthcare, not more.

Certificate of Needs Board

We support the repeal of the Certificate of Needs (CON) Board because we do not believe you should have to seek approval from an unelected bureaucracy in order to expand medical services into a given geographical area.  It is not a quasi-governmental agency’s responsibility to determine the financial feasibility of building a new hospital or expanding treatment options. The free market should determine need, not a political board.

Additionally, the system is ripe for corruption!  Richard Scrushy, the CEO of HealthSouth, was able to “purchase” a seat on the CON Board from Governor Don Siegelman in exchange for a $500,000 donation to a political campaign.  With that seat, Scrushy was able to vote against other healthcare providers expanding facilities that competed with his company. Both men ended up serving jail time after the incident, yet the system remains unchanged to this day.

Privacy

We oppose Unconstitutional red-light traffic cameras that do not allow you to face your accuser and allow 3rd-party companies (often overseas) to collect data on your movements. 

We oppose “no-knock” warrants which allow police officers to enter a premises without first announcing their presence or purpose.

We support requiring a warrant for electronic and biometric data.