Congressional election preview: Flowers campaigns on jobs, education and infrastructure to transform Second District

Republican Second District Congressional candidate Brian Flowers made a day-long campaign stop on Saturday, Oct. 22 during the Homochitto River Festival in Meadville as part of his efforts to meet with as many district voters as possible.

Flowers, a native of Fayetteville, N.C., and 10-year Navy veteran, has called Mississippi home since 2014 when he and his family moved to the Magnolia State when he took a mechanical planning position at Grand Gulf Nuclear Station.

He said he is running on a platform of returning the nation to a constitutionally limited government and supports involvement at the grassroots levels — namely states, local communities, families and individuals — to put the country on a track toward prosperity and a better quality of life for everyone.

“My campaign, which is solely about the people of the Second District, is running on all eight cylinders right now and might have added two more cylinders to it,” Flowers said of his efforts prior to the Tuesday, Nov. 8 general election.

“When I say that my campaign is about the people, I am talking about jobs because the Second District had to pick up 65,000 people — including four Southwest Mississippi counties — following the most recent Census just to make Mississippi’s population balance for seats in the U.S. House.

“My concern is jobs are disappearing and education is declining — two of the biggest factors that got me to run in the first place. I have three daughters who go to a school that has an A rating, but I got to looking at the other schools and it’s fail, fail, fail up and down the Mississippi Delta.”

One example he cited related to education was at Port Gibson High School, which has an 88 percent graduation rate, but only 5 percent of students are proficient in mathematics and 10 percent in English.

On the economic front, Flowers pointed to the situation in Bolivar County’s Cleveland community, which he cited as having no fewer than 12 industries within its corporate limits in the past and that number is now down to just one.

“If you get your education and infrastructure set up to where you have good schools that are meeting their obligations to students along with educational training facilities for potential workers, that’s one part of the solution,” he continued.

“Then, it will take a concerted effort to get the roads and bridges up to standards where businesses can get their commodities and goods to market and bring in the resources they need to make a product. If we do those things, I believe the third part of the equation — jobs — will fall into place.”

Flowers said he believes the Second District needs someone like him, who is not afraid to roll up his sleeves to tackle these issues — in conjunction with state and local leaders — to return common sense and prosperity to the area running parallel to the Mississippi River from Tennessee to Louisiana.

In citing the successful effort to bring Continental Tire to Clinton, Flowers said the industry chose that site because of good infrastructure and solid secondary education districts along with Mississippi College and Hinds Community College nearby.

“The infrastructure and schools were good there and the jobs came in,” he went on to say.

“Corporations and industries are not coming to places that don’t have anything to offer with things like road and schools, the track record to back it up and that look like crap.”

Flowers said he opted to seek this office again in 2022 after initially running for the same congressional seat two years earlier — because nothing has changed since the last election and the region continues to lag in other areas under Democrat incumbent Congressman Bennie Thompson.

“There’s also the issue with things like the Yazoo pumps to address flooding that has been denied over and over again because Bennie Thompson is directly responsible for killing this after he wrote a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency on Nov. 5, 2021, asking for another investigation,” he continued.

“Two weeks later, the EPA shut the project down. If he’s willing to do that to his own constituents even though it might not have impacted one particular person this time … what’s not to say that it won’t impact that person the next time. He doesn’t care.”

Flowers said his interaction with voters in Meadville and beyond has also shown there is a great deal of concern among potential voters about inflation, gasoline and diesel costs along with consumer commodity prices.

“When it comes to things that are hitting people’s wallets then people begin getting a little more concerned,” he added.

“Areas like inflation and interest rates are certainly hot-button issues because the money people make doesn’t go as far as it did just a couple of months or even years ago. The way that we can make a change is to elect new representation that actually knows how to run a business and undo the bad ideas from the Democrat Party that have become national policy.”

In clarifying his point, Flowers said there are a lot of good people who identify themselves as Democrats, but the party that is currently in Congress has made poor decisions that have put the country in the economic position it is now.

“The Republicans are going to call (Democrats) on the carpet and drive home the point that the country is in a recession because the people in power now are trying to reclassify what a recession actually is to hold on to that power,” he noted.

“That, in itself, should raise some eyebrows, but if we not careful, we’re going to be in a financial situation that will take years to come out of. For those who thought 2008 was bad and nothing is done to address the current problems, just wait to see what happens when we get done with this latest situation.”

As congressman, Flowers pointed out he wants to actively protect and potentially expand the buying power of wages and savings to address inflation, which causes people to cut back on what they purchase and work longer hours to make ends meet.

“Inflation is created when the federal government expands the supply of dollars in circulation, which it has been doing for decades and more than ever in the last few years,” he said. “The greatest cause of inflation is the enormous cost of unconstitutional federal programs.”

He also pointed out he believes failed federal government policies have pushed gas prices up, and will continue to increase until inflation is stopped and economic stability is achieved. 

“There are things Congress can do to cut energy costs, such as eliminating onerous regulations and blocking production and distribution, none of which is constitutional,” Flowers said.

Flowers also called attention to concerns about the status of 401K portfolios with people reaching retirement age finding they do not have the available resources to enjoy their latter years.

Other campaign topics for Flowers include border security to curb the flow of illegal immigrants into the United States, state sovereignty and supporting honest elections.