(Devan Ridgway/WTIU News)
As part of WTIU/WFIU News’ 2024 election coverage, reporter Ethan Sandweiss invited the three candidates running for Indiana’s Ninth Congressional District.
The three candidates are incumbent Republican Erin Houchin, Democrat Timothy Peck and Libertarian Russell Brooksbank. Of the three, only Houchin did not respond to an invitation.
Indiana’s Ninth District consists of the southeastern portion of the state, including Monroe County and areas along the Kentucky and Ohio state lines.
The interview with Russell Brooksbank can be found here.
Ethan Sandweiss
What prompted you to run this year?
Russell Brooksbank
My state chairman (laughs). But no, what prompted me to run was I believe that we have a right to good government, and when I look at the other candidates, I don't see us getting good government from them. So I feel it's my obligation then to step up.
Ethan Sandweiss
I want to follow up on that in just a second. But first, I wanted to ask what you see as the biggest issue for our congressional district in this election cycle?
Russell Brooksbank
I think the biggest issue for the district and for the nation is our national debt. You know, I think that it's the thing that's threatening this country more than more than terrorism, is because when we can no longer afford to pay our bills and our money is worth nothing, then that's pretty much the downfall of the civilization. So, I think right now, the national debt is the most concerning for our district.
Ethan Sandweiss
What’s the way to close that gap and or that deficit for our nation. You know, there's the Libertarian Party platform calls for cutting certain programs, but then also lowering taxes. How does that gap get closed?
Russell Brooksbank
Well, the platform of the Libertarian Party basically says that we want to eliminate all taxation, and how we close that gap is first we go through the budget, we balance it, and we cut things like the massive military spending that we're doing. I mean, right now we spend more than the next nine countries combined on defense. And so, we go in and we eliminate a lot of that spending. We eliminate a lot of the unnecessary bureaucracies, you know, like the Department of Education, things like that. And so, we shrink the government to its smallest possible size, and then from there, we figure out how much money we need to perform those functions and go from there. I'm a big fan of user fees, you know, so like on our highways, and how do we pay for the roads? Well, a user fee, whoever's using it pays for it.
Ethan Sandweiss
Like a toll road?
Russell Brooksbank
Yeah, like a toll road. Even our gasoline tax or our licensing taxes and everything, those could be considered user fees. But what happens is they don't use that for our roads. It goes into the general fund, and then it gets split up a million ways. And so, the Libertarian approach to fixing the gap and spending basically is voluntary donation, user fees, things along those lines. And you know, I think that
if there's a program that we want as a people, I mean take something like Social Security, if it's something that we want, then the politicians need to go to their constituents and sell them on the idea. And if we don't get enough people to volunteer to help pay for it, then it's not something that we need to be doing.
Ethan Sandweiss
I want to follow up on a couple of those as well, too. But you know, first, I want to ask as well. You know, you're running as a Libertarian this year. Third Party candidates are usually seen as a long shot as you admitted before the interview. Do you see it that way? I mean, do you think you have a chance at winning in this election?
Russell Brooksbank
I think every election I have a chance, and like I alluded to earlier, it's all up to how fed up the American people are. You know, have we reached the point where we're ready to ditch the two-party system and take a chance and vote for something different? And you know, each election cycle, I see us gaining ground. And so, yeah, I believe I can win. I mean, I wouldn't do it unless I believed I could win.
Ethan Sandweiss
Thank you. So I want to go into a couple of questions that are more specifically policy related. First one, and you haven't touched on this yet, but we've done a lot of coverage here at our station about the death penalty, federal death penalty, which is likely to resume if Trump wins the election, and the state death penalty, which they've already announced that there's going to be another execution in Indiana. Now what is, what is your stance? What is the party's stance on the state, on the federal government, resuming these executions in Indiana?
Russell Brooksbank
Well, the party stance and my stance are pretty much, you know, lockstep. I don't believe in the death penalty. You know, the government can't even fix a pothole. I don't trust them to decide who should live or die. And you know, there have been people that have been exonerated and left off of death row because they've been proven later after a massive fight, you know, to be innocent. And I just feel that if we execute someone, then that robs them of their opportunity. And yes, I know that people are have certain amount of appeals and everything to go through it. But you know, like in the case of DNA evidence, there are people that are being let off a death row now because of DNA evidence. Now, with the technology that we have, we can prove that it wasn't them versus the DNA technology when they were convicted. And so I just, I just think it robs them and robs us of the of the chance to fix a wrong. And so yes, I'm 100% against the death penalty.
Ethan Sandweiss
You mentioned also earlier that military spending is one of the things that Libertarians would prioritize cutting down if you make gains in the election. The United States is currently supporting several allies, Ukraine and Israel in their own conflicts applying weapons money. What is your position on these particular conflicts? Do you support the current administration's policies regarding Ukraine and Israel?
Russell Brooksbank
I do not. I don't think that our government should be sending our tax dollars to other countries, whether it be for what they call foreign aid or military aid. Our forefathers warned us about getting involved in entangling alliances and staying out of the European wars, and I think we should heed that advice. And you know, we have our own problems to deal with, and we should deal with us and not worry about the rest of the world. We cannot be the world's policeman anymore. And you know, we need to bring the troops from, it was like 280 some odd bases across the world. And we need to bring in people home. And if we want to put them on our border, to protect our border, we can do that, but no, I don't agree with the administration funding Ukraine.
Let me backtrack on that a little bit, because we did make a deal with them that if they were to give up their nuclear weapons that they had, that we would help them and get them into NATO. So, I don't know. Maybe we owe them a little, but beyond that, no, I really think that we need to keep our hands out of everybody else's business.
Ethan Sandweiss
So you would support Ukraine joining NATO?
Russell Brooksbank
I would support Ukraine joining NATO, yes.
Ethan Sandweiss
If we're members of if Ukraine's members of NATO, then we have an obligation to send troops over there defend them, right?
Russell Brooksbank
But they're currently not a member, and so we don't have that treaty with them, okay? But if we did, as a Libertarian I'm really big on making sure we you make good on the promises that you make, and so I would be in favor of us at least doing that.
Ethan Sandweiss
And you mentioned also the Department of Education basically that you saw as extraneous. So, do you think that there should be public education at all in Indiana in terms of public elementary schools, middle schools, high schools?
Russell Brooksbank
I think the government should be out of the education business, just like I think they should be out of the healthcare business, out of the real estate business. The job of government is to secure our rights, and beyond that, they're overstepping.
I believe that parents and communities can handle the education of their children a lot better than the government can.
Ethan Sandweiss
So do you support like school charter programs?
Russell Brooksbank
Yeah, school choice, I think that people should be able to take the tax money that's being taken from them and spend it on the education that they want for their children. And
Ethan Sandweiss
You also said that social security should be a volunteer to pay system?
Russell Brooksbank
I think social security for the people that have and like myself, you know, I'm going to be retiring here in a few years, people that have paid into the system definitely need to get back out of the system, at least what they put into it but I think social security should be something that we phase out. You know, so for the younger workers who already know that there's no way they're going to collect social security, because it's going to collapse before we before you get there, if you took the money that they're taking from you for Social Security and you just put it in the S&P 500, you'll make more money than what you would get out of Social Security.
Ethan Sandweiss
What about like for poor folks who aren't necessarily able to put something away at the end of the month? You know, somebody who's been working retail for the whole lives, who's retiring now and would rely on Social Security? You know, should they rely on that same private investment option?
Russell Brooksbank
Well, they're still taking money out of their check for Social Security, and what I'm saying is, let them have that money back so they can invest that money. And if they invest that money, like I said, just in the S&P 500, they'll make more money than they would with the Social Security system. But you know, Libertarians get accused a lot of, ‘You don't like poor people,’ or ‘You want people to starve,’ things like that, and that would be furthest from the truth. We just believe that the government is the absolute worst mechanism for providing that. You know, I can feed my neighbor a lot better than the government can, you know, because I can take my money and without any overhead, go to the store and buy it and say, ‘Here you go, here's your groceries.’ And as a matter of fact, the Libertarian Party of Clark County, we operate our own food bank. And so how to deal with poor people is just like Jesus said, the poor you'll have with you always, and he said for us to take care of them, not the government. And so, I'm in favor of voluntary foundations that are set up that take voluntary money and help people, just like in the Depression. I challenge people to find me a picture of the bodies stacked up in the street from people starving to death. And you won't find that, but what you will find is people standing in line at a soup kitchen that was put together by the local church. And so we as a nation, we as a community, have the ability to take care of our own if the government would just get out of the way.
Ethan Sandweiss
So I have notes here that said you founded the Pro-life Libertarian Caucus. Do you see that as contrary to Libertarian principles about personal freedom, and would you be in favor of banning all abortions with no exceptions?
Russell Brooksbank
I don't believe it's contrary to the Libertarian principles, because the one guiding Libertarian principle is the non-aggression principle that says that I do not use force for political or social change. And it says that I don't have the right to aggress on you. I believe that abortion is a violation of the non-aggression principle, so it violates one of the very basic tenets of Libertarianism. So, would I ban all abortion? No, because I do believe that a woman has a right to self-defense, and if a pregnancy is killing her, then she absolutely has a right to defend her life. I also believe that if a woman is raped, then she was impregnated against her will. And even though I believe that two wrongs don't make a right, I cannot in good conscience, force someone to carry a child that resulted from a rape.
Now, as far as the life of the mother, I'm on the side and of the opinion that, and a lot of doctors say this, is that it's never really necessary to kill the child in order to save the mother. I would much rather them deliver the child and try to save the child. And because you have two patients, and because there will be a delivery, whether the only difference is whether we'll deliver a live baby or a dead baby, but there will be a delivery. And so, I would say that we would need to deliver the child whole and not healthy but deliver them alive and then attempt to save their life. Now, if that means that they attempt to deliver the child at 20 weeks, and they succumb, then at least we tried, but we didn't outright kill the kid.
Ethan Sandweiss
There was a case in Texas just very recently where a mother was carrying a child a term who was going to be born but probably would not have survived, and doctors didn't operate, and the mother and the child died. And in a case like that, are the doctors still justified in trying to bring that baby to term, out of fear of reprisal?
Russell Brooksbank
No, like I said, they should attempt to deliver the child. Like I said, there will be a delivery. Even in an abortion, there is a birth. And so why not deliver the child alive, you know, via C section, or however you're going to do it? And like I said, if it has to happen at an earlier point than we say is viable, then at least we have tried to save both patients and so, no, I would not ban it. You know, there's always going to be extreme circumstances and cases. But you know, I've found that the vast majority of abortions are performed basically because the child's inconvenient, and I am firmly against that.
Ethan Sandweiss
In particular in Southern Indiana, forestry is a very important issue both for recreation and economically. As a Libertarian, do you believe there should be a US Forest Service? Should there be any restrictions on logging?
Russell Brooksbank
I don't think there should be a US Forest Service. I don't think the government should be owning any land. I think the federal government should turn all the holdings they have back to the states. And the states should, you know - like this forest that we have here close by. That land can be used. Now, if a person wants to purchase a bunch of it and turn it into a sanctuary or wildlife preserve, then they're more than welcome to do that. And it has been done. There's a park, a private park, down in Jeffersonville, Indiana. It's called Perrin Park, really nice park, very well kept, and it's not government funded so and it's not government owned, so it can be done, and it should be done.
Ethan Sandweiss
in particular in Bloomington, and I don't know if this is the case in Clark County too, but homelessness has been huge here. Do you think the government has a role in aiding people who have no place to go?
Russell Brooksbank
I think the government needs to get out of the way. They are doing more to hurt the population, the homeless population, than to help. Anytime you have churches that are brought in front of the zoning board because they allow homeless people to sleep in their basement, or churches that are or groups that are cited and shut down because they set up a feeding station on a public sidewalk, and they feed the homeless or anybody who's hungry, when you have government stepping in and issuing them tickets for feeding people, then we have a serious problem. And so, if the government would just get out of people's way and allow us to help the homeless, then I think you would see a lot better results.
Ethan Sandweiss
Bloomington in particular has had homeless encampments set up by homeless folks, not by churches, on private property, do you think the government has a role to step in then?
Russell Brooksbank
If the private property owner says they can be there, then the government should have no say in it. But if the private property owner does not want them there, then yes, the government has a say so in it, because at that point, they are violating the property owner's rights. And so, like I said, the only role of government is to secure our rights. And so, if the private property owners’ rights are being violated, then, yeah, the government should step in.
Ethan Sandweiss
All right, and do you agree with federal support for universities such as guaranteed student loans?
Russell Brooksbank
No, I do not. I think that the guaranteed student loans have done nothing but increased the cost of college education. You know, the colleges and the banks say, ‘Okay, well, we know we're getting at least this much, and so we could at least charge this.’ And so, no, I don't believe in taxpayer funded college loans. You know, I think that if you want higher education, and then you should get it. I mean, it used to be that you could work a job in the summer and pay for college. You can't do that anymore. And why is that? And I think it's because of the guaranteed loan program.
Ethan Sandweiss
I wanted to ask you about the other two candidates in the race, starting with incumbent Erin Houchin. How would you evaluate her performance, and how would you differentiate your position and yourself from her?
Russell Brooksbank
I would say that she does what a good little Republican does and votes accordingly. I really haven’t gone and researched all her votes and things like that. Because, to me, it doesn't matter, because they are going to continue to do what they've always done. And with this two party system, with this duopoly, I believe that they trade off, you get to vote no on this even though we know it's going to pass so you can go back to your people and say you voted no, and then the next go around is, well, you got to vote yes on this. And so, how I would differentiate myself, basically, is the questions I would ask myself before I voted for anything: is it constitutional, does it secure our rights, or does it violate somebody's rights and is it good for the community? Those are basically my three points. And so, if the Constitution says we can do it and it's securing rights and it's good for the community, then I'll vote for it. If there's a no to any of those questions, I'm going to vote against it. I say what I mean, and I mean what I say, and so I guess in that way, I'll be different.
Ethan Sandweiss
That’s as opposed to Houchin, who you don't think has the same considerations in terms of her priorities?
Russell Brooksbank
I don't know what she does, and all I can tell you is how I would do things. And you know. And you know, if you want things to continue to stay the same, then vote for Aaron. You know, if you want things to be different, then vote for Okay.
Ethan Sandweiss
And you have another opponent as well, Democratic challenger, Tim Peck, who has also been seen as a bit of a long shot since Republicans have usually carried District Nine. Do you have any evaluation of him or his campaign?
Russell Brooksbank
From the encounters I've had with him, he's a nice guy. I don't know anything about Erin because I haven't met her and I haven't talked with her, but I'm not the type of person that that likes to be negative and do negative campaigning, things like that. Tim's a nice guy, and I think all three of us want the same thing. We want a community that we can be proud of. We want a government that works for us instead of against us. We want a safe place for our children and grandchildren. The only difference between us three is how we want to go about doing it. And so, what I urge the voters to do is look at each of us and how we would go about doing things and then make your decision as to which closely fits the way you think things should be done.
Ethan Sandweiss
If there's anything I didn't get to ask you yet that you feel like is important to share, do you have any brief closing comments?
Russell Brooksbank
Well, the closing comment that I have for you and for everybody else is just, please go out there and vote your conscience. I'm running as a Libertarian, yes, but you know, I'm not running just for the Libertarians in my community. I'm running for the disaffected Democrats who are tired of their party sacrificing principles for power, and I want to be for the Republicans who feel that their party has left them and that it's not their party anymore, and the people who aren't voting because they feel it's not worth it. It is worth it. Get out there and vote. I would love for you to vote for me, but I don't care who you vote for. Just go participate, learn and become active in the process. And I think if we do that, America will be much better off.
