PLATFORM
"America's problems will not be solved by simply reviving the past but by working to
realize past ideals. Our economy will only be restored and our republic preserved if we keep the commitments to liberty, democracy, community, honor and hope that have
always driven our nation's progress."
LIST OF ISSUES
Economy
Brent understands how inflation, fueled by tariffs, the pandemic, and corporate profiteering, have strained families in North Carolina’s 14th District. He believes Congress must not cede responsibility to Trump’s failed trade policies and instead advance an economic vision that prioritizes working people. Brent is committed to protecting the dignity of work by ensuring fair wages, secure retirement, and livable incomes, while promoting technical training and making sure people can get a good job and not just a degree.
He will support small businesses—the backbone of local economies—by ending tax breaks for outsourcing, improving access to capital, expanding broadband in rural areas, making childcare more affordable, and ensuring monopolists do not unfairly crush smaller competitors. Brent also emphasizes tax fairness, insisting that billionaires and mega-corporations pay their fair share while protecting the middle class from increases. His agenda seeks to strengthen workers, entrepreneurs, and families, ensuring economic security and opportunity for all.
Finally, Brent will also work to increase the control Americans have over one of their most precious resources - their own time. In Congress Brent will promote remote work and ensure that technological increases in productivity translate to higher worker wages.
Stop Corruption in Public Life
The United States has rightly prided itself for being an example for democracies around the world but today a general feeling our politics is corrupted has undercut our confidence at home and tarnished our reputation in the world. Brent worked as a fundraiser on statewide and Congressional campaigns and saw how fundraising has become the central focus of aspiring and elected leaders. This leads certain classes and special interests to have an outsized say in how our nation is governed.
This has been aided and abetted by a Supreme Court that promotes for partisan purposes the false idea that the more money you have, the more speech you should have in the public debate. We must pass legislation in Congress to overturn Citizens United. The maximum donation in a campaign should be capped at no more than one percent of median household income in America, reducing it from the current $3,500 to $785. More importantly, outside money should not be allowed to overpower the voices of district voters.
Voters should choose their representatives, not politicians choosing their voters. Partisan gerrymandering should be ended as the Supreme Court has said is the only way it can be - with a Congressional ban on the use of partisan voting history when drawing districts.
Finally, Members of Congress must be banned from trading stocks while in office. Common people recognize they have too much inside information and too much sway over the economy for trading to be done fairly. Only a complete ban will restore the trust we need in a republic.
America's Role in the World
Coming from a long family tradition of military service including a grandfather and great-grandfather interred at Arlington National Cemetery and both parents being high-ranking military officers, Brent knows the awesome capability and reach America has around the world. American institutions are the backbone of a modern global order that has lifted billions from poverty, increased the recognition of human rights around the world, and pushed nations toward trade and away from conquest.
Brent believes America's greatest legacy will come not from its military might, but from its world changing achievements in political philosophy, space exploration, technology, and the sciences. From the Wright Brothers to the microchip to internet and now ChatGPT, America has contributed a world changing innovation every single decade for over a century.
Even so, America's tremendous potential is not yet fully realized. If we want the coming age to be consider the "Great American Centuries," we must continuously prove ourselves worthy of the leadership role we seek to claim by living up to our highest ideals in our actions at home and abroad.
Housing
Prior to law school, Brent worked at a homeless shelter in Burlington, North Carolina. Now a real estate attorney, he knows how vital housing stability is for Americans who need a platform on which to build their version of the American Dream.
Yet, across our communities, families are being priced out of their neighborhoods, young people are burdened with skyrocketing rents, and homelessness continues to grow. Housing should be treated as a cornerstone of human dignity — not a privilege reserved for the wealthy.
We must invest in building and preserving affordable housing, promote growth, and strengthen programs to keep people in their homes. A focus on rapid, responsible growth and regulation of corporate landlords will ensure that profits do not come before people. Expanding access to capital for updating older properties, supporting community affordable housing initiatives, and increasing federal funding for housing assistance will preserve this cornerstone of the American Dream.
Healthcare
Just over a decade after Obamacare was implemented, the Kaiser Foundation reports a third of patients are having difficulty affording the medications they need, and/or have not taken their medication due to cost. And now, the federal government is cutting access to vaccines and medication supply options. Also, though Medicaid was expanded in North Carolina it is run by insurance companies that work for profit, and the cuts are coming. Twenty-six North Carolina counties don’t have a single OBGYN, and too many women are going without the prenatal and postnatal care they need. This is part of why the United States is the only industrialized country to have an increasing maternal mortality rate.
The 14th deserves a representative who will work to deliver safe standards and affordable health care for every citizen. In Congress, Brent will work to engage in strict oversight of the Department of Health and Human Services to ensure health policy is driven by scientists and not politicians. He will protect, improve, and build upon the Affordable Care Act with the addition of a public option to the marketplace to help control costs. He will support guaranteed coverage of preventive care services to every American, including preventative coverage such as yearly check-ups, dental, and eye care.
Artificial Intelligence & The Future of Work
Artificial intelligence and the automation of work are soon going to transform daily life. This year Morgan Stanley estimated there will be 1 billion humanoid robots in the workforce by 2050. We cannot predict every innovation that will come, but we can use our own recent experience to get an idea of how dramatic the change might be.
But one generation ago at the turn of the millennium, there were no smart phones, no social networks, and not even Wikipedia. Same day delivery of goods, self-driving cars, and consumer level 3D printing were mere pipe dreams. Within one generation from now we will almost certainly see virtual AI agents that can do much office work and humanoid robots that can handle manual labor such as lawncare, construction, factory, and warehouse work.
The last time America faced a comparable change in the technology of work we failed miserably. The invention of the shipping container allowed the mass offshoring of manufacturing. This devastated blue collar jobs and communities, giving room for despair, the opioid epidemic, and the decline of the American family, and opened us to surges of inflation like we saw in the pandemic while placing industries vital to national security in hostile nations. Rather than redress the human suffering we all saw developing, American elites blamed the workers while the tech and financial sectors allowed us to pretend our economy was still growing for everyone.
This time around we must listen to our neighbors if they say they are hurting and provide a strong social safety net to ensure we all gain from these momentous changes. If Americans have more time with their families and greater material security, we will have won. If America has the first trillionaire while 30% of workers are unemployed, we will have failed in tragic fashion.