Brian Stephenson (Texas)
From Ballotpedia
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Brian Stephenson (Democratic Party) ran in a special election to the U.S. House to represent Texas' 6th Congressional District. He lost in the special general election on May 1, 2021.
Stephenson completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2021. Click here to read the survey answers.
Biography
Brian Stephenson was born in Glen Ridge, New Jersey. He served in the United States Air Force from 1986 to 1998. He earned an associate degree from the Community College of the Air Force in 1988 and a bachelor's degree from Embry Riddle Aeronautical University in 1998. His career experience includes working as a systems engineer at NASA's Johnson Space Center.[1]
Elections
2021
See also: Texas' 6th Congressional District special election, 2021
General runoff election
Special general runoff election for U.S. House Texas District 6
Jake Ellzey defeated Susan Wright in the special general runoff election for U.S. House Texas District 6 on July 27, 2021.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ |  | Jake Ellzey (R) | 53.3 | 20,873 |
 | Susan Wright (R) | 46.7 | 18,293 | |
| Total votes: 39,166 | |||
 = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
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General election
Special general election for U.S. House Texas District 6
The following candidates ran in the special general election for U.S. House Texas District 6 on May 1, 2021.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Susan Wright (R) | 19.2 | 15,077 |
| ✔ | | Jake Ellzey (R) | 13.8 | 10,865 |
 | Jana Lynne Sanchez (D) | 13.4 | 10,518 | |
 | Brian E. Harrison (R) | 10.8 | 8,485 | |
 | Shawn Lassiter (D) | 8.9 | 6,973 | |
 | John Castro (R) | 5.5 | 4,321 | |
 | Tammy Allison (D) | 5.4 | 4,240 | |
 | Lydia Bean (D) | 3.7 | 2,923 | |
 | Michael Wood (R) | 3.2 | 2,509 | |
 | Michael Ballantine (R) | 2.8 | 2,225 | |
 | Daniel Rodimer (R) | 2.7 | 2,088 | |
 | Daryl Eddings (D) | 2.1 | 1,654 | |
 | Michael Egan (R) | 2.0 | 1,544 | |
 | Patrick Moses (D) | 1.5 | 1,189 | |
| Manuel Salazar (D) | 1.4 | 1,120 | ||
 | Sery Kim (R) | 1.1 | 889 | |
 | Travis Rodermund (R) | 0.6 | 460 | |
 | Adrian Mizher (Independent) | 0.4 | 351 | |
 | Brian Stephenson (D) | 0.3 | 271 | |
 | Phil Gray (L) | 0.3 | 265 | |
 | Matt Hinterlong (D) | 0.3 | 252 | |
 | Jenny Garcia Sharon (R) | 0.2 | 150 | |
| Christopher Suprun (D) | 0.1 | 102 | ||
| Total votes: 78,471 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Withdrawn or disqualified candidates
- Montgomery Markland (R)
- Asa Palagi (R)
- Katrina Pierson (R)
Campaign themes
2021
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Brian Stephenson completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2021. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Stephenson's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.
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I am an Systems Engineer working at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston TX. I believe that our nation needs a good problem solver and that's why I am running. I see many areas where my skills are needed: Minimum wage, budget balancing, healthcare, Veterans care, border security, and not to mention foreign relations. Elect me and you will see big changes for the better in CD6, Texas and our nation.
- Raising the minimum wage to $15/hr with annual COLA increases. Everyone's employee is someone's customer, if we pay our employees more, our customers will have more to spend.
- Open a dialog with our southern neighbors (central and south American countries) on immigration and ways to enhance their economies. If their citizens love life in their country, they won't want to come to ours.
- Early college high school. This is the best way to reduce the high cost of college. If people can get a 2 year jump on a 4 year degree, they can make college graduate wages earlier, thus helping our economy to strengthen.
I am passionate about higher wages. I believe that if people can earn more, they will pay more in taxes, without the government having to raise the tax rate to compensate. We have an unprecedented level of debt, and as the COVID pandemic has shown us, this level of debt can quickly become unsustainable. There are two solutions to the national debt issue.
1) Raise the tax rate. Raising the tax rate to between 50 and 70% for incomes over $300,000/year. This way would raise some capital to reduce the deficit, however, it would do more harm than good, as it would stifle growth.
I look up to my Father and Uncles, who taught me that hard work and perseverance get the job done. My father had a couple of patents to his name, namely the second patent on the cordless phone and the first patent on automated electronic credit verification. His work on these catapulted our family into "prime time" and set the bar for others in the family to meet. That encouraged healthy competition and a drive to get educated, which are qualities that I promote in this day and age.
Most important principles are listening, fairness and action. As an elected official, I would be there to serve the people, not for my own personal gain.
Bring a voice for your district to Washington DC. No one's going to know what your district needs unless you make yourself heard. Vote on things that benefit your district, state and nation.
My desired legacy would be that I was able to set up a plan to pay off the national debt and have our budget run on interest earned from investments. My goal is for the $15/hr min wage and early college high school to generate enough funding so that they put us in a surplus situation. We invest that surplus in national and international securities, real estate, emerging markets, helping 3rd world countries, etc and collect and reinvest the interest that they generate, until we generate enough interest to pay a generous national US budget year over year. Once this happens, we can cancel taxes and live tax free. This won't happen overnight, but it will keep taxes low, with the other option being to raise taxes to offset deficits.
My first historical event was the moon landing in 1969. I was 4 years old at the time and was watching Felix the cat cartoons on a black and white 13" TV (I think it was a Phillips), when the TV shut off and wouldn't turn back on. My dad came home from work and, after hearing that the TV broke, said "they are going to launch in a few days, I need to go out and get a new one". He came back with a 25" color floor console TV made by Motorola and Quasar, and when we turned it on it was like looking at a moving portrait; the picture was so clear. This made for a very moving experience watching the Apollo 11 launch. Incidentally, Buzz Aldrin grew up in my town of Montclair NJ, so there was much fanfare about the "town's favorite son".
My very first job was as a skate guard at an ice skating rink. This was a minimum wage job when minimum wage was $3.35/hr. The job lasted for 2 weeks and ended due to the rink closing down due to not enough customers. From that, I learned that my time was very valuable to me, and to make my time count for something important. I got satisfaction from helping people and generally doing a job well done. I learned that while the paycheck was important, the experience would last a lifetime, so in the future, work at jobs where the money lasted longer too.
Sherlock Holmes, because he figures everything out.
The House provides for checks and balances, which is designed to prevent us from having dictators. This allows for a "majority rule" system of government, a Democracy. The best thing is that Anyone can become a Congressman. It doesn't matter their education, familial background, profession, etc. Anyone can get elected.
Previous experience is always beneficial, but don't let it define you.
Our national debt, our standing as the #1 country in the world and division between our citizens. Currently division amongst us is our greatest threat, we are currently standing as a house divided, which can't last long. Racial and cultural differences are much of the reason for the division, however, more homogenization as a nation is necessary for us to all get along and grow as a nation.
Wage committee, and Space committee. Education committee would help too.
No, they should have 3 years in office. Two years allows the representative only one year of work before they have to focus on reelection.
The concern about high speed rail going through my district. People are concerned that eminent domain would take their land for pennies on the dollar to build something that doesn't provide any value to them. My solution is for the government to sign a long term lease and pay rent to the landowner for use of their land. Rent rates would be agreed to by both parties so no one feels that they got slighted.
I would initiate bills and support bills for topics that I am passionate about.
Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.
See also
2021 Elections
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ Information submitted to Ballotpedia through the Candidate Connection survey on April 20, 2021.
Senators
John Cornyn (R)
Ted Cruz (R)
Representatives
District 1
Nathaniel Moran (R)
District 2
Daniel Crenshaw (R)
District 3
Keith Self (R)
District 4
Pat Fallon (R)
District 5
Lance Gooden (R)
District 6
Jake Ellzey (R)
District 7
Lizzie Fletcher (D)
District 8
Morgan Luttrell (R)
District 9
Al Green (D)
District 10
Michael McCaul (R)
District 11
August Pfluger (R)
District 12
Craig Goldman (R)
District 13
Ronny Jackson (R)
District 14
Randy Weber (R)
District 15
District 16
Veronica Escobar (D)
District 17
Pete Sessions (R)
District 18
Vacant
District 19
Jodey Arrington (R)
District 20
Joaquin Castro (D)
District 21
Chip Roy (R)
District 22
Troy Nehls (R)
District 23
Tony Gonzales (R)
District 24
Beth Van Duyne (R)
District 25
Roger Williams (R)
District 26
Brandon Gill (R)
District 27
Michael Cloud (R)
District 28
Henry Cuellar (D)
District 29
Sylvia Garcia (D)
District 30
Jasmine Crockett (D)
District 31
John Carter (R)
District 32
Julie Johnson (D)
District 33
Marc Veasey (D)
District 34
Vicente Gonzalez (D)
District 35
Greg Casar (D)
District 36
Brian Babin (R)
District 37
Lloyd Doggett (D)
District 38
Wesley Hunt (R)
Republican Party (27)
Democratic Party (12)
Vacancies (1)
