Texas’ 6th Congressional District has three Republican candidates vying for the seat — incumbent Jake Ellzey and challengers James Bufford and Cliff Wiley — and one Democratic candidate, John Love III.
The district covers parts of Ellis and Navarro counties, as well as the southeast corner of Tarrant County, including parts of Arlington and Mansfield.
Primaries will be March 5, with early voting starting Feb. 20. The general election is Nov. 5.
Members of Congress earn $174,000 per year.
Ahead of the elections, the Fort Worth Report compiled candidate surveys for relevant Tarrant County races.
Answers may have been edited for grammar, length and clarity. The Report has not independently verified the accuracy of the statements made below.
Ellzey did not respond to our interview requests by publication deadline.
Age: 54
Occupation: Pilot
Age: 54
Occupation: Regional maintenance supervisor
What are your qualifications to serve on this seat?
I’m over 25 and I’m a U.S. citizen. I know what it is to run a balanced budget, and I know what it is to fight in spiritual warfare. I’ve done both.
If elected, what are your top three priorities?
We need to get our border secured. I don’t think we need to be sending another dime into Ukraine until we have our border secured, whether that’s building a wall, Remain in Mexico policy — whatever it takes, that’s what we’ve got to get done.
I think we need to cut taxes so that entrepreneurs, small businessmen and women in this country can flourish again. I would (like) to start an initiative to advise entrepreneurs and to try to reopen manufacturing in the U.S.
And, of course, the budget. We don’t have the money to keep spending like we’re spending. We have to have brakes on it, and I think in the Appropriation Committee, we need to be looking at every dime spent and where we can cut. We need to cut our total spending across the board at least 23%.
What is the single biggest issue facing your district right now?
Constituents are talking about the border. You can’t go anywhere without talking about the border. We want that secure. If you don’t have a border, you don’t have a country.
How will you balance the needs of your constituents in the more rural parts of your district with the needs of those in the denser, more urban portions?
If you’re urban or rural, I think the needs are still the same. It’s still the economy, the border, what we’re doing with our overcrowded schools to Medicare, housing — just any government systems that we’re giving to illegals is taking away what we’re doing for our veterans, what we’re doing for our poor and for just our neighbors. That doesn’t change by the size of a city or rural town.
Values probably change but right now, everyone wants a secure border. Beyond that, 60% of small businesses are concerned that they’re not going to be able to make it through 2024. They’re holding on, hoping they’ll have administrative change at the top of the ticket.
This past Congress was considered the least productive in decades. If elected, how will you work with your fellow Congressmen to get things done?
I’m not sure that there is a correct answer to it, because what I feel might not align with what others feel. What I feel is that our government is oversized and too big. I would push and advocate for smaller government and having the federal government play a smaller role in our everyday lives.
When I look at the Congress that we have right now, I see things like voting themselves the largest pay increase in the history of Congress at a time when people can hardly buy fuel or food. A businessman would not ever be able to give an 11% increase.
You think about what they did to red flag laws, universal background, which is a total violation of our Second Amendment. And specifically, my congressman stonewalled and threw our speaker of the House vote away on Mike Garcia instead of voting for Jim Jordan, which I believe that Jim Jordan would have been a great speaker and I really believe that he would have been able to get some conservative values. I am a conservative Republican,so I would stand for conservative values and lesser government.
Age: 49
Occupation: Public high school history teacher
What are your qualifications to serve on this seat?
As far as qualifications go from the Constitution, I’m a citizen and I’m 25 years old and I want to serve.
But beyond that, my first career as an adult was in the United States Marine Corps. I have multiple combat deployments, fighting on behalf of our country and now, I continue to serve in the classroom in Corsicana at the high school. I just don’t feel that we’re being represented right now the way we’re supposed to be, so I want to continue my public service if the people choose to have me in Washington, D.C.
If elected, what are your top three priorities?
That’s a tricky question because right now it is February 2024. When I win this election, I’m not going to report to Washington, D.C. until Jan. 3, 2025. Now I hope that the issues we’re having in 2025 are not the same issues we’re having now.
Now, if I were to be up there and sworn in today, the border would be probably No. 1 on the list because as I’ve been campaigning, that seems to be the No. 1 issue for the constituents in the district. And then behind that, close second and third would be out-of-control spending, and all the amount of foreign aid that we’re giving out to countries while we have a lot of issues here at home. So those would probably be the top three things if it was today.
What is the single biggest issue facing your district right now?
No. 1 is the border, an overwhelming majority of the time. And if constituents don’t say the border, they talk about how they’re not happy with the representation they have now. They’re like, ‘Well when it was the speaker of the House vote, our congressman was not voting the way we wanted him to vote,’ which was for Jim Jordan. Our congressman voted for Mike Garcia out of California. And so everyone in the district was flooding his emails, his telephones, knocking on his office doors, and just couldn’t get a response, and they just feel like they’ve been unheard and forgotten.
First will be the border. And then shortly after that, they feel that they’re not represented the way they want to be. And that’s the category I’m in, that’s what made me decide to run.
How will you balance the needs of your constituents in the more rural parts of your district with the needs of those in the denser, more urban portions?
You think they would be dramatically different, but they’re really not. In the more population-dense areas, it’s people and small business owners who are struggling with government regulations that are holding them back. In the more rural parts, your agricultural areas, I’m running into the same concern. I’ve got people — ranchers and farmers — that are concerned with all of the government regulations that are making life on their farms more difficult than it needs to be. So a lot of it crosses over from one side to the other and a lot of it is just our government’s gotten too big and it has its hands in places it’s not supposed to have. People want those regulations gone and that’s one of the things I want to help make happen.
This past Congress was considered the least productive in decades. If elected, how will you work with your fellow Congressmen to get things done?
I think a lot of politicians that have been up there have gotten a little bit too comfortable. A lot of them have been in office for a long time. That’s something I have an issue with because they know that elected officials, especially in Congress, have over a 90% reelection rate as incumbents while at the same time having a 15% approval rating. The math just doesn’t add up and for some reason, we as voters continue to vote for the same people.
Incumbents know that they can go up there and kind of have a lazy session, if you will, and they’ll be voted in again because that’s just the way it works somehow. I’m going to do everything I can to help motivate people to want to serve their constituents the best I can and if they don’t want to follow along, people in District 6 will know that they have somebody representing them and is at work every day, all day, doing the things on their behalf that I’m able to do.
I just want to remind people that it’s OK for someone to leave office. It’s OK for people in Washington, D.C., to leave office having done a good job and then go back to whatever it is their chosen career was. It doesn’t take a felony or a horrible picture that you accidentally tweeted out that you shouldn’t have that’s explicit, for you to have to leave office or a controversy. It’s OK to leave and say, ‘Hey, I served in Congress. We did a great job. We did some good things. And now I’m back here doing my job.’ I’m all for term limits. I’m going to do a maximum of three or four terms, and then I’m going to come right back to the high school in Corsicana and keep teaching the next generation.
Love did not respond to Report interview requests by publication deadline.
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