By Monique Gooch-Brown
Natisha Brooks, who is running for Congress on the Republican ticket from the newly revamped District Five, was recently part of a forum that included Gov. Lee and was hosted by Lipscomb University. Brooks introduced herself as the owner of private school. “We have emphasis on autism and learning disability and this needs to be a national discussion yesterday. Our teachers are suffering curriculum wise. Our teachers and parents and I will defend our governor, governor lee. I am pro-choice educator for parents that they have the right to choose how they want to educate their children,” she told the audience.
Each of the five candidates was asked four questions and allowed an allotted time to answer along with a closing statement. Here are Brooks’ responses.
If elected, what will you do to help the average American?
Ms. Brooks said, “we need to finish the pipeline we’ve got to get that done. That’s first and foremost. The $1 spent at the Dollar Tree is now $1.25 and is all being passed down to us, the Trumpers and the average consumer. If elected the first thing and really the only thing is to be energy independent is to get back to fracking and get back to finishing the pipeline.”
What is your plan to incentivize those companies to drill more so that the prices go down in a way that will be successful? What is your plan to get that price per barrel down?
Brooks responded quickly with a question, “In order to get something, by giving a permit, what are you giving us? This is a humanitarian crisis about oil if you talking about the oil companies if they want permits what are you giving them back? So as far as tax benefits if you want those tax benefits what are the consumers going to get?”
Name one issue where you disagree with President Trump?
All of the candidates had the same response. All of them agreed with Donald Trump’s policies. Brooks added, “As far as policy is concerned, unemployment for African Americans, Latinos was at an all-time low. He did much for the HBCUs. I am an HBCU graduate from Texas A&M. He brought a lot to the table. What I like about him is that he did what he said he was going to do. The only thing I would hold Trump accountable for, is Twitter. If he would have just gotten off Twitter, we would be in a better situation than what we are, but the way he handled Twitter and people could’ve been a little bit better but as far as policies, I did answer your question, there is no policy that I would disagree with. He did so much for minorities when he was in office.”
Knowing that most Democrats and Republicans in Congress always vote within their party, what makes you stand out from the other candidates? How will you buck the train of monolithic partisanship in DC?
Send me to Congress as your congresswoman because these are the issues that are not democrat or republican, these are everybody’s issues: autism, learning disabilities, farmers, we are TN agricultural and agricultural is TN, the miners, educators.What stands me out is we the people elect us to do a job for you, and finally no one has talked about this so far, send me to Congress, we must talk about mental health. Mental health is on the ballot, we are in an epidemic. Send me to Congress as your congresswoman for mental health, adoption and foster care. We must talk about that before we talk about human trafficking. It’s a problem across the states and now becomes a national issue.
Final closing statements:
Brooks said, “I have two cards in my hand, one on the back says ‘Together We Must Unseat Jim Cooper.’ Fifty thousand of these went out, check the FEC report. I was the first in the race for the 5thcongressional district. We ran against Jim Cooper during the 2020 election when he was—when no one was running against him as a candidate and we then in turn turned around to run for Congress in 2022. We didn’t know that Jim Cooper was going to retire. On the 5th congressional district there are only a couple of candidates that were in the old 5th, Davidson, Cheatham, and Dickson before the lines were redrawn. It’s kinda funny that the candidates that are not here, are in the new the 5th district and are not here to represent or say what they want to tell you. We must talk about trade schools. Everyone is not going to college and those who are going to college, the degree must be worth the ink and the paper. We must talk about adoption and foster care, we must get the children out of the system, we must, must, must talk about mental health. We must open up the pipeline, we’ve got to get this inflation down. We need to get the country back on the right track. How do you do that? You send Natisha “Our Miss Brooks” as your congresswoman.”
