BROCKWAY – James Brown turned in over 740 signatures from the 66th District in a crusade to champion conservative ideas in the Pennsylvania House.
“We’ve had Republicans in control of the House for some time now but we still are not getting our conservative agenda passed. Every day that our Republican legislators drag their feet we have more needless abortion deaths. Maybe they’ve got something more important to do than save lives but as the Representative from the 66th district I would not want even one unnecessary death on my conscience. I would make this a top issue.”
Brown has been an educator for 35 years and is well aware of how government regulations and mandates often do more to harm the educational opportunities for families than to help them. “Education is a local issue and those decisions are best made by those closest to the student. The ultimate responsibility for the child’s education lies with the family. The local community is also in a place to offer assistance when asked for or needed by the family. To a lesser extent the state is in a position to offer help but I would like to see the federal government remove itself from Pennsylvania educational issues.”
Recently school choice was an issue before the PA legislators. Brown states that “The PA House was in an excellent position at one point this past year to pass SB1, a bill that would give parents more educational options but the current House leadership dragged their feet so long on this issue that they lost the votes in the House to pass a school choice bill. When I saw what was happening there and that Pennsylvania families were being denied school choice I immediately began to wonder if the Republican leadership was taking money from teacher unions. A quick check of votesmart.org and followthemoney.org confirmed just that. How can we expect our Representatives to vote against those they accept money from?”
“I’m not a politician and I never planned to run for the PA House until I saw how conservative issues are taking a back seat even with a Republican majority. If we wanted to continue with things as they were going we would have voted in another round of liberal Democrats. The people of District 66 want change, but they want the RIGHT change. We don’t want a state government that will cave into Obamacare. Nor do we want greater spending and more debt. We do want jobs and economic growth but we are not going to get them with more government regulation and higher taxes. That’s what killed the economy.”
“It will not cost us another arm and leg bailout to get out of this recession. It is much simpler than that. We just need to get government off the backs of the businessmen and farmers so that their business will prosper and they are in a position to hire more workers. If we could cut the government red tape we might have more people willing to start their own businesses and find success. These are usually the Republican principles that the GOP made its heritage, but lately we are seeing that not everyone that wears the Republican name holds true to those ideals.”
“I have a strong passion on these issues and I will not be silent. For too long now the citizens of our state and our country have lost their freedoms one-by-one. For too long now the government has put more burdens on the people than they can bear. Jesus said, “Woe to you also, lawyers! For you load men with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers.” (Luke 11:46) We have politicians who burden us with unnecessary regulations and do nothing to help. “I go to Harrisburg as a citizen politician, not a professional politician. I will not accept their high paid pension, nor will I accept more than three terms in this office. We need protection from professional politicians that only term limits can provide. I will also introduce legislation to reduce lawmakers’ salaries back to the level they were before they gave themselves a 50 percent raise a couple of years back.” Why are Pennsylvania politicians among the highest paid in the nation?
Brown has a Ph.D. in education and has studied Bible, history, statistics, and library science. He has been a missionary with the Christian and Missionary Alliance and is a member of the DuBois First Baptist Church. The “Friends of Jim Brown” have provided a website at www.JimMBrown.com.