Ted Brown

Ted Brown was born in Steubenville, Ohio. He earned his B.A. in political science with a concentration in constitutional law from UCLA in 1984. His career experience includes working in the insurance industry. Brown has been affiliated with the following organizations:[1][2]

Libertarian Party of Texas

Texans for Accountable Government (TAG)

Amnesty International

Liberty International

Institute for Justice

Future of Freedom Foundation

antiwar.com

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Who are you? Tell us about yourself.

I am a lifelong Libertarian activist who advocates for personal freedom and economic freedom. Government at all levels is much too large and must be cut back severely. Democrats and Republicans want to control our lives in different ways. I just want to be left alone and want you to be left alone as well. I have been married for 40 years to Laura and have an adult daughter named Katie. I am self-employed as an independent insurance claims adjuster. I was recently Chairman of the Libertarian Party of Travis County and currently serve on the State Libertarian Executive Committee. I am not beholden to any special interest groups or corrupt party leaders, like my opponents are. I am beholden to the U. S. Constitution, the people of Texas, and to the inherent human rights and individual liberty of each person. I believe in the Bill of Rights. I am opposed to any political leaders having emergency powers, since this is just an excuse to create emergencies. I believe in cutting taxes, cutting spending, free trade, more and easier legal immigration, a non-interventionist foreign policy, police reform, judicial reform, and educational choice. I will always stand up for the right of the individual against government power and control. You don't have to vote for Democrats and Republicans. They have wrecked this country. Try voting Libertarian for a change -- a big change!

Please list below 3 key messages of your campaign. What are the main points you want voters to remember about your goals for your time in office?

The $35 trillion national debt is unsustainable. Interest on the debt is now the largest budget item, more than miliary defense and more than Social Security. The Federal Reserve creates money out of thin air. This is why there has been so much inflation. It's all about the money supply. To control inflation and to put a hold on increasing the debt, we need to stop deficit spending. This has to involve massive cuts in the federal budget in every single program and department. We also need to abolish the Federal Reserve (the nation's central bank) and instead have a strong currency backed by gold and silver, with other competing forms of exchange as well.Immigration is good for this country and should be encouraged. Unlike what we see in the media, immigrants come here to work and to seek better lives for themselves and their families, not to go on welfare. They need to be able to work from Day One, rather than being on welfare programs while awaiting work permits. I favor an Ellis Island-style immigration system where immigrants just need to come in officially, sign in, be checked for criminal records and contagious diseases, and then be welcomed in. And no, immigrants do not commit a lot of crimes. Their crime rate is much lower than that of native-born Americans. Both of my grandfathers were immigrants, and I'm quite happy they were allowed to come here.The war on drugs is a war on the American people and always has been. Most people now want marijuana to be legal, especially for medical purposes. The federal government must take marijuana off the schedule of controlled substances completely and repeal all marijuana laws. No one should go to jail for a plant. Even for harder drugs, I believe that adults have the right to choose to put any substances in their bodies that they want to. To be sure those substances are not adulterated, they must be completely legal. Anyone who is jail or prison for a non-violent drug offense should be released and their record expunged.

What areas of public policy are you personally passionate about?

I am particularly upset when individuals who just want to live their lives and be left alone are abused by government agents. People should be able to open businesses and engage in the occupation of their choice without government roadblocks at every turn. I believe in the free market, where people freely trade with each other without government regulations and controls. I am also passionately anti-war and oppose this country's decades-long intervention into the affairs of other countries. We should not be the world's policeman. As George Washington said, "Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none." We should not be the arms merchant/death merchant of the world.

What characteristics or principles are most important for an elected official?

Voters elect representatives to use independent judgment about the best policies for the country. Instead of independent thought, however, Republican and Democratic politicians are controlled by special interest groups and corrupt party leaders. They seem to just care about what their corporate sponsors want. They also follow talking points instead of doing the deep analysis often needed on complicated issues. My pledge to the people of Texas is that I will not fall prey to lobbyists and special interests. I will be a true independent voice for liberty in the U. S. Senate. If a bill violates peoples' personal freedom or economic freedom (and certainly if it's unconstitutional), I will vote NO.

What legacy would you like to leave?

I would like to leave a freer society, a freer country than I was born into. Anything I can do to turn back the growth of government, I would consider a success.

What is the first historical event that happened in your lifetime that you remember? How old were you at the time?

The event that made me interested in politics was Watergate. When I was 14, I watched the Nixon impeachment hearings on TV and was fascinated by how the president's crimes were brought forth so clearly. My parents hated Nixon, so that colored my view a bit also. But this led me to read everything I could about current events, political history, etc., an interest I still have today.

What was your very first job? How long did you have it?

My father owned a furniture store. Starting at age 11, I was working at the store after school and on weekends. I kept gaining more responsibilities, and by age 13, I was in charge or inventory control and ordering merchandise. I worked in the store until I was 17. Kids are quite capable if given the chance. These days, kids aren't given enough responsibilities and are coddled from learning about the real world. That is going to be a real problem in the future.

What do you perceive to be the United States' greatest challenges as a nation over the next decade?

Massive unsustainable debt. Democrats and Republicans having alternative views of reality. The possibility of sleepwalking into World War III with either Russia or China or both unless we change our misguided foreign policy. Young people not learning how to critically think.

What are your thoughts on term limits?

I believe in limiting Senators to two six-year terms, or twelve years altogether.

What do you think of the filibuster?

I will be happy to filibuster any bill that violates peoples' personal freedom or economic freedom.

What kind of relationships would you build with other senators?

I will work with any Senator who will promote personal freedom or economic freedom, and I will vigorously oppose any Senator who wants to reduce either of those.

What criteria would you apply when deciding whether to confirm presidential appointees to their Cabinet?

Are they qualified? Will they uphold the Constitution? Are they beholden to the American people, or just to the President who appointed them? Of course, many cabinet-level departments should be abolished completely, so there is no need to confirm anyone. The ones that come to mind immediately are the Department of Education and the Office of National Drug Control Policy (drug czar's office).

What are your views on financial transparency and government accountability?

There is currently no transparency or accountability. The federal government spends over $6 trillion per year, much of which is deficit spending. $1 trillion is spent by the Dept. of Defense (the Pentagon), which has never passed an audit, and no one knows where hundreds of billions of dollars have disappeared to. Most of the federal budget is on autopilot. This has to change, though most Members of Congress have no motivation to do so, since they get campaign contributions from corporations, labor unions, and wealthy people who want their piece of the taxpayer's pie.

Campaign website

Brown’s campaign website stated the following:

Emergency Powers

We learned during the recent COVID-19 pandemic that government officials can impose arbitrary rules and regulations on all U. S. residents without due process of law. This includes not only elected officials like the President, Governors, and Mayors, but also unelected bureaucrats like health department officials. Libertarians opposed the pandemic restrictions and would limit the power of officials to impose such rules and regulations in the future.

I opposed the arbitrary lockdown rules imposed on most Americans starting in March 2020. No one should be limited in their public movements unless they are known to have a contagious disease, and no testing was even available then to know who was infected. The designation of some businesses as “essential” and other businesses as “non-essential” was completely arbitrary. Government officials throughout the country were in total violation of the 14th Amendment, which says that no State shall “deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.” There was no due process of law, considering there was no process to challenge a “non-essential” designation, and courts were even closed for a while.

Under our republican form of government, which has a balance of powers between three branches of government, the Legislative Branch is responsible for passing laws, while the Executive Branch is responsible for implementing and enforcing laws. The Legislature has no right to turn its powers over to the Executive. One person should not be making arbitrary, often dictatorial decisions. This is true for the federal, state, and local level. Americans fought a revolution about that in 1776!

The President issues Executive Orders on a regular basis, not just to impose COVID regulations. In fact, in the last 100 years, presidents from both major parties have issued 10,481 Executive Orders. The most famous is Roosevelt’s placement of people of Japanese descent in internment camps during the Second World War. But every President tries to impose their will arbitrarily, without gojng through the Constitutional requirement that Congress pass all laws. Yes, going by the book is often clunky and time-consuming, but that is how we protect the rights of all Americans. I will introduce a bill to require every Executive Order to be approved by Congress before it can go into effect and to revisit all existing orders the same way.

Police Reform

Police officers are called upon to enforce all of the laws passed by federal, state, and local officials. This means that every law, no matter how trivial, is enforced at gunpoint and enforced selectively. Indeed, members of minority groups like African-Americans and Hispanics are often targeted by police.

The recent high-profile death of George Floyd in Minneapolis and the resulting protests made more Americans aware of police brutality and police harassment than ever before. Libertarians have been aware of the problem since the party was founded in 1971 and have sought reforms that are suddenly being proposed by politicians from other parties, though a bit late.

The following reforms would go a long way to protecting the civil liberties and human rights of all Americans, and especially members of minority communities.

End the War on Drugs, especially marijuana prohibition. Drug laws give police excuse to search peoples’ homes, cars, and bodies whenever they have “suspicion” that the person has some drugs. This often leads to unnecessary violence. This is a violation of the 4th Amendment and must end.

End mandatory minimum sentences. Drug offenses are punished by very long, mandatory sentences at the federal level and in many states. African-Americans are arrested more frequently and usually receive much harsher sentences than white people, though whites and blacks use drugs at about the same rate.

End the militarization of police. Under Section 1033, a federal law, surplus military equipment like tanks, grenade launchers, etc. are available to local police departments. Police have gone from being “peace officers” to being warriors, thus making the average citizen seem like an “enemy” to be fought instead of a neighbor to be protected.

End “no-knock” warrants. Police often serve search warrants in the middle of the night and just storm into people’s homes without knocking, waiting, and properly identifying themselves. This leads to danger for both police and residents, as people being wakened out of a sound sleep can’t expect to know that police are entering their homes.

Promote “de-escalation” of tense situations. Police must be trained to talk to people and listen and try to resolve situations without violence. Too often, police encounters lead to needless death or injury because officers are told to “control” every situation, even ones they should just walk away from.

End “qualified immunity” for police officers and other government officials (like prosecutors) who violate peoples’ rights. Federal courts have limited the right of people to sue for violation of their civil rights by police. This must change.

Move investigations of police misconduct away from the local police and prosecutors and instead to the state Attorney General’s office. Police shouldn’t be investigating themselves, since they usually find that they didn’t do anything wrong.

Require police officers to buy liability insurance in order to work as an officer. This means that their record would have to pass the test of an objective insurance company, so no officer could work if he had too many instances of misconduct on his record. The added bonus would be that insurance companies would pay to settle claims against police, not taxpayers. And since they don’t want to pay those claims, insurance companies will be very careful regarding whom they insure.

Stop involving police in situations like traffic enforcement, code enforcement, wellness checks, and other situations that don’t involve dangerous criminals. Unarmed community service officers or mental health professionals can be sent on calls like this, in most instances. And in the case of traffic stops, most of them can just be eliminated. Police are often stopping people for revenue purposes for the local city government, not for safety concerns.

Limit police unions to collective bargaining for wages and financial benefits only. There should be no contracts that limit investigation and discipline of officers who engage in misconduct.

Healthcare

“If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it’s free.”

– P. J. O’Rourke, author

Health care is not a right or a privilege. It’s a service, and like other goods and services, it should be provided by free-market competition.

The U. S. once had the finest health care system in the world. The standard of care was growing by leaps and bounds. Health care was reasonably priced, so that most people didn’t even feel the need to buy health insurance except for catastrophic illnesses. Doctors and hospitals voluntarily provided free health care to the poor. Doctors were happy with their work.

Not anymore. Since the 1960s, there has been an ongoing health care crisis in America, one that has resulted in ever-increasing health care costs that threaten to bankrupt people. Moreover, many doctors hate their profession and choose to retire as soon as they can.

The main reason for this is the federal government’s heavy intervention into health care, consisting of (1) Medicare and Medicaid, two programs enacted in the 1960s, which have placed extraordinary financial demands on America’s health-care system; (2) occupational licensing, which artificially limits the supply of health care providers; (3) an ever-growing, intricate web of health care regulations and tax regulations that warp and distort the health care industry; and (4) the excessive costs of prescription drugs due to Food & Drug Administration (FDA) certification requirements.

Some immediate reforms would be to promote Medical Savings Accounts (similar to IRA’s); make health care expenses tax-deductible; allow people to buy health insurance across state lines; allow insurance companies to offer limited, catastrophic policies; replace the FDA with private sector drug certification; and allow people to buy drugs from other countries, and even over-the-counter without prescriptions.

Ultimately, the solution to what Democrats and Republicans have done to destroy what was once the greatest health-care system in the world is a total separation of health care and state. That means the repeal, not the reform, of Medicare, Medicaid, occupational licensing, and health care and tax regulations.

Taxes, Government Spending, and the National Debt

“The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax.“

– Albert Einstein

Taxes are always too high, at the federal, state, and local levels. Elected officials are thirsty for more of our money to finance their programs and big plans (or more accurately, boondoggles) and to pay off their big campaign contributors. I will never vote to raise taxes.

Democratic and Republican politicians are always quite willing to raise taxes. Sure, Republicans cut tax rates sometimes (but fail to cut spending), but taxes at all levels are at historic high levels. Half of what we earn goes to taxes at the federal, state, and local levels. The federal income tax is the biggest government intrusion into the lives of the American people, to the tune of $2.6 trillion to be extracted from us in Fiscal Year 2022. It forces every worker to be a bookkeeper, to open his records to the government, to explain his expenses, and to fear conviction for a harmless accounting error. Compliance wastes hundreds of billions of dollars. The income tax discourages savings and creates an enormous drag on the U.S. economy.

The federal government is way too large and interferes in too many aspects of our lives. We must get rid of the hundreds of federal agencies and programs that violate our rights and drag down the economy at the same time. Sadly, it’s next to impossible to end a government program, since each program has beneficiaries and supporters who will fight to keep their place at the public trough. I want to combine massive spending cuts into a single package that includes the largest tax cut in American history — the total repeal of the federal income tax. The 100.6 million Americans who pay federal income tax would each see an average of $25,844 per person back in their pockets.

There are proposals to replace the income tax with a flat tax or a national sales tax. I will work to repeal the income tax, abolish the IRS, and replace them with nothing. Even without the personal income tax, the federal government would still collect the same total amount that they did 12 years ago – and the government was much too large even then. The Constitution allows only a limited role for the federal government, such as national defense, the post office and patents and copyrights. By reducing the federal government to it proper level, we could not only do away with the income tax, but the estate tax, capital gains tax and Social Security tax as well.

Not only does the federal government collect too much money, it spends much more than it collects, and budget deficits keep growing each year. The national debt doubled under President George W. Bush, doubled again under President Barack Obama, and went up $7 trillion under President Donald Trump, and has risen $6 trillion since President Joe Biden was elected. It now exceeds $33 trillion – $97,000 for every man, woman, and child in this country. No one seems to care – except Libertarians. Only Libertarians will cut spending, cut the deficit, and stop adding to this insane debt level that is totally unsustainable.

Gun Rights

“Arms in the hands of the citizen may be used at individual discretion for the defense of the country, for private self-defense, or for the overthrow of tyranny.”

– President John Adams

Libertarians strongly defend the 2nd Amendment and support the right to keep and bear arms for self-defense. The right to own a gun is an American tradition. We would never have won our independence from Great Britain had our colonists not been armed and able to fight the King’s army. Guns by themselves are not dangerous. If someone uses a gun to commit a crime, he should be punished. But disarming law-abiding citizens does nothing to reduce crime.

Those who support gun control should recognize that the cities with the strictest gun control laws (like Chicago and Washington, D. C.) also have the highest murder rates involving guns. Criminals will always be able to get guns. Peaceful citizens need to protect themselves. I will work to repeal existing gun control laws, and will oppose any attempts to limit the gun ownership of law-abiding Americans. I am also opposed to “red flag” laws that try to anticipate if someone will commit a crime. Such laws are open to abuse and violation of due process.

Immigration

People all over the world want to come to the United States to escape political repression, economic stagnation, and other kinds of persecution. This has been the case for 400 years, since the first colonists arrived. One of my great-grandfathers was a Lithuanian Jew who fled anti-Semitism in Czarist Russia in 1890. Another great-grandfather fled forced military service in Germany in 1904.

Ever since Democrats and Republicans enacted a system of immigration controls way back in 1924, there has been a never-ending immigration crisis. This is driven by people having varying views on who should be allowed to come here, often tainted by religious, ethnic, or racial prejudice, or the false view that immigrants are a drain on the economy. We first saw the cruelty of these laws in the 1930s, when European Jews fleeing Nazi tyranny were denied entry to the U. S.

Any time Congress tries to reform the problem they created, they have failed miserably. This has caused untold suffering, as well as the creation of an immigration police state, especially in southwestern states like Texas.

Examples abound, including domestic highway checkpoints; warrantless federal trespasses onto ranches and farms; warrantless searches on Greyhound buses; forced deportations; raids on private businesses; forcible separation of children from parents; and abuse of people seeking refugee status. This has led to much death and suffering, not to mention the massive infringements on the liberty and privacy of the American people (such as with E-Verify requirements to find work).

As with most issues, the solution is to embrace economic liberty and free markets. That necessarily means the free movement of people across international borders, in the same way that people freely cross state borders within the United States. I oppose building even one more foot of border wall for this reason. Deportations should stop, except for violent criminals. The federal government has been finding any excuse to deport immigrants for minor offenses, including U. S. military veterans and their family members. This is not right. The young people who came to this country with their parents and are now in limbo as “Dreamers” in the DACA program should be granted immediate citizenship. This is really the only country they have known.

The U. S. had an open immigration system for more than 100 years, the only system that is consistent with religious, moral, and ethical principles. While it makes sense to prevent known criminals, terrorists, and people with communicable diseases from entering, these categories are a very tiny minority. On the whole, immigrants are good people looking for better lives, and are known to contribute so much to our melting pot of a country.

Foreign Policy

“Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none.”

– President Thomas Jefferson

Libertarians favor a policy of non-intervention in the affairs of other nations. U.S. troops should be here to protect this country. Instead, there are 170,000 U. S. troops stationed in 150 different countries around the globe (out of 193 total countries) — in the Middle East, Europe, Japan, and South Korea. Libertarians would bring all the troops home and advise other countries to pay for their own defense. We should not be involved in alliances like NATO.

Our nation should be the beacon of freedom and liberty in the world, like we were for the first 150 years of our independence. That’s not how much of the world thinks of us now, due to our misguided desire to be the world’s policeman. It is our long record of violent involvement in the Middle East that’s the main problem — from the 1991 Gulf War, to the occupation of Afghanistan, to the 2003 Iraq war and occupation, to trying to pick sides in the Syrian Civil War, to supporting Saudi Arabia’s war against a faction in Yemen. Our troops, our bombs, our drone strikes, and our meddling have created more terrorists every year.

I will vote against any and all military appropriations that would keep our troops in these foreign assignments. The only way to really support our troops is to stop sending them to places where they have no business going.

Additionally, our government currently gives $57 billion of our tax dollars to 164 countries for foreign aid. Some of the aid is military and some is humanitarian, but it is primarily the transfer of wealth from American taxpayers to the elite of other countries. I will work to end all foreign aid payments.

Marijuana and the War on Drugs

Libertarians recognize that if government officials can’t even keep drugs out of prisons, they sure aren’t going to keep drugs out of the country. We must end the insane War on Drugs. This will take the criminal profit out of the illicit drug trade and bring some peace to our cities again. The drug war has been an excuse for police to harass and arrest African-Americans and Latinos for decades, and this must stop.

668,000 people were arrested for marijuana offenses in 2018, more than for murder, rape, robbery and other violent crimes combined. 47% of federal prisoners and 17% of state prisoners are locked in cages for non-violent drug offenses. Often drug users spend more time in jail than murderers or rapists. We need to jail violent criminals, not peaceful drug users.

Democrats and Republicans keep fighting this losing war because it makes them look tough on crime, and it gives them more power over our lives. Libertarians have never signed on to the War on Drugs. We have opposed this war since the 1970s. California Libertarians were the earliest promoters of medical marijuana, since it’s well-known that cannabis relieves pain and other symptoms of a variety of illnesses. Adults must be allowed to put any substances in their bodies that they choose. Libertarians treat people like adults, not like errant children. I will work to repeal all of America’s drug laws, starting with those against marijuana. It must be taken off the schedule of controlled substances immediately.

Free Trade

I believe in free trade. If goods don’t cross borders, troops will. Tariffs are really just taxes on foreign products that must be paid by American consumers. And the tariffs that other countries like China impose on our products hurt U. S. farmers and businesses, since their sales go way down. Congress gave the power to the president to decide by himself when to raise tariffs. I would repeal this law. Congress has no constitutional authority to delegate their legislative powers to the president. The Trump trade wars must end.

There is really no danger in having a trade deficit with another country. I have a trade deficit with Target. I buy a lot of goods from them, but they don’t buy anything from me. And that’s OK, since we each get what we want. I want their products, and they want my money. It’s the same with countries. Our