Fifth Congressional District candidate interview: Brett Hueffmeier

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

Six Republicans are competing in the August primary for the Fifth Congressional District seat. Taylor Burks, Rick Brattin, Brett Hueffmeier, Micah Beebe, Berton Knox and Brad Patty are all challenging incumbent Emanuel Cleaver, who has held the seat since 2005.

Congressional districts were redrawn in 2025 during a special session aimed at giving Republicans an advantage in the U.S. House. The once-KC-centric district now stretches from the Kansas border to Osage County. It includes much of Boone County, and all of Cole County.

Erika McGuire: What made you want to run for the Fifth Congressional District?

Brett Hueffmeier: I was really tired of hearing a lot of ambiguous politicians answer questions about policy and not really give an answer. So I thought I've always had a lot of policy ideas. I've always been sort of an intellectual in that regard. I've always, like, looked for solutions, and I just felt like a lot of people are choosing congressional candidates based on who's running and just what's available, and I don't think that they would choose those candidates if they had a better choice. So I think it's one of those things where the American people should really get used to a standard that's higher than what they have right now, because I think, used to it was that way, and we've gotten used to just hearing politicians that don't really give answers, and I think it's time that we expect more.

McGuire: What do you see as the biggest issue right now facing voters in the Fifth District?

Hueffmeier: In the Fifth District, I think there are a couple of things. No. 1 is rural hospitals. I think that's a major issue, especially in those rural areas. I think you can fix that by doing a couple of things. No. 1, is you make healthcare more expansive for veterans, so you could create something on the model of Medicare or run under Medicare that's called Vets Care, I would call it, where they can get access to all of those, you know, options and treatments, and they could get localized care.

That would change the calculus that are being used by rural hospitals, so that they would see it as a profitable venture in the future, and that would allow them to reopen. I think right now they're just looking at a couple of numbers that are dealing with reductions in spending for Medicaid and so forth, and that really changed their calculus. So they decided that it was not a viable option. You can also do it by opening association health plans. These would be health plans where farmers could pull together and buy into HMOs and PPOs, just like a larger company. Small businesses could do the same thing, and that would really help with small businesses as well. The other thing you can do is you can you can get rid of a 1973 ban on doctors owning hospitals, and you could create something like Docs for America, kind of like on the model that they used for Teachers for America, and allow them to move into rural areas, sign up for a 10-year contract to own a hospital, join in as a partnership, and then stay there. We would reduce some of the student loans that they have that are outstanding. So that's one thing.

I think also there have been a lot of farming regulations that are sort of an ... encumbrance to competition, and some institutional investors that are buying up farms, and I think the way that you fix that is you've got to reduce the amount of regulation that's going into this. If you're going to do that, you can do what the courts have done in the past with, say, constitutional regulations where you apply strict scrutiny. So, is there a necessary? Is it necessary in order to achieve a compelling government interest? If you can say that a regulation is, then maybe it should stand. Most of them wouldn't in that case, and I think it's better to sort of reduce those regulations because it is an encumbrance to competition. So those are a couple of issues that I think are really important. We've got to protect, of course, American values, competition from overseas, and we have to make sure that there's plenty of support for farmers and so forth in rural areas, so that they can compete even when there are supply shocks and so forth from, say, from you know trade restrictions and so forth from overseas investors.

McGuire: How would you address the cost of living, including housing, groceries, gas? You know, a lot of people are affected by this right now.

Hueffmeier: So I think that there are a couple of things you can do. No. 1 is, you know, we've got to allow fiscal policy or monetary policy, rather, to sort of take its course. There's reductions in the interest rate, the Fed funds rate, the discount rate; those things are important. We're experiencing a little bit of inflation right now, so they've got to deal with that. Maybe by reducing the amount of reductions in the interest rates right up front. But we can do some other things. I thought a lot about this, and if you were to allow smaller businesses and so forth to pull together and to buy into sort of association supply chains, so if they could buy supplies at a discounted price together, that would allow them to compete with companies like Walmart and Amazon, and they could bring down their pricing too. I think that's really important. Also, I think the reductions or the increases in the amount of, output of oil from the Middle East is going to help a lot. So that's already it's already starting to reverberate throughout the economy, and I think we'll continue to see that happen.

McGuire: What do you plan to do with immigration on the federal level? That's a big topic right now as well.

Hueffmeier: It's a very big topic, and I think for immigration, you have to ... We're a country with a rule of law, right? And I think that that's a really important thing. That is what America stands for. Our institutions are respected because the American people respect the rule of law. So having 22 million or more illegal immigrants in this country, I think, is a difficult thing to swallow. Difficult pill to swallow. For most Americans, it also means that it's really difficult to track them. So, if there are crimes committed and so forth, we've got to look at you know how do we effectively either deport the illegal aliens here or somehow be able to track them properly.

I think that the answer is a combined approach with both. I think that you've got to deport those that are high risk, and you have to establish, we've got to pass a law that really deals with a comprehensive immigration problem. That's something they've been trying to do since the 1980s. Really, the last immigration law that we passed was in 1986, and since then, there have been all kinds of changes that have needed to be modernized. The only people that have been willing to do anything about it, of course, are presidents that have issued executive orders, and that's not really a feasible solution. It's not something that's going to cure the problem overnight, and we've got to have some comprehensive establishments of what the processes are.

So you've got to have more judges, you've got to have more officers to execute these, you know, execute the law, and make detainments, and then you have to deport those ... that are dangerous. And even more, it is a shock to our economy whenever you have this uncontrolled sort of ... immigration of illegal aliens into the United States, and that's something that's got to be dealt with. So we've got to stop the flow over the border. We also have to cause a reduction in the number that we have here, and that's that. Those are just feasible sort of solutions and alternatives.

I think that ultimately, in a perfect world, we would deport anybody that's entered this country illegally. That's sort of respecting the rule of law, but we have to be realistic about that. I think it's going to take a long time to do that, and I think we have to look at some alternative approaches as well that will deal with the problem right now, as far as tracking them, as far as making sure that they're detaining them, and then going through the process of deportation.

McGuire: What would be your top priority if you were elected for the Fifth Congressional District?

Hueffmeier: I was invited to Washington recently, and I went to the White House, and I ... met with a couple of different leaders in Congress. ... We discussed rural hospitals and my ideas for vets care and so forth. He said to me, "Look, this is something that I think could really work, or it's something that we could probably gather votes for on both sides of the aisle to get something passed," and that was one of the greatest compliments of my life, and I think, and I think it's something that we could really do.

So I'm going to push for that because I think just holding myself to a higher standard, I'm going to make sure that I am successful in six years, and that's what I pledge to serve. No longer than that. So three terms. I think the fact that we have politicians in Washington that are serving sort of unlimited periods of time means that all they're doing is focusing on re-election, not focusing on doing the business of the American people. I'm going to focus on that. Since I'm giving myself a time limit, I will get those things done in that period of time. I think that rural hospitals is also something that's very very important that we get something passed on that as well. So, these are, so vets care is part of that sort of rural hospitals package, but it's also for taking care of veterans and then dealing with some of the farming regulations and so forth.

I think probably the other thing would be housing in that affects cities and rural voters alike. I think you can create the American Dream Wealth Building Act, that's something that I've sort of coined. But where you sort of reduce the amount of resources that we're putting into things like Section 8, and instead do it so you're matching some of the savings that are coming out of communities and out of individuals, so that they're, they have money to put a down payment on a house. There's no issue of the American dream is that people don't think it's alive anymore, because they can't afford to buy homes. That's the key. There used to be generational wealth that we would build. Somebody would get a job, they would stay there until they retired, and then they would retire, and they would have some wealth built up. If you're renting all the time, and if institutional buyers are buying up these homes. You can't do that, and it's just causing rents to go higher, and all that money is thrown away. The government is doing the same thing with Section 8. We're just giving subsidies for rent, and we've got to be turning that into subsidies, or not subsidies, but some sort of matching at least for you know for home purchases.

McGuire: Is there anything else that you want me to add, or that I didn't ask that you want voters to know?

Hueffmeier: Well, I just want the voters to know that I have a very sort of traditional and a view of what it means to serve you in the House of Representatives, and I think it's really important to note that Thomas Jefferson once said that the House of Representatives is to represent the passions of the people, and I think that's very true. We're here to listen to you, and I'm here to serve you. I'm going to use technology for something that, you know, to make more democratization, not less. I think a lot of that has been the concern here recently with the flow of, you know, misleading information. We can use it so that we can have more one-on-one interaction with you.

I'm going to leave three hours open in the evenings every three days a week while I'm in D.C., where individuals can just self-schedule meetings with me, and I'm going to hold those meetings over Zoom. I'm also going to come back on the weekends and hold, I have three district offices where I will meet, have open office hours, where people can come in to meet with me on the weekends. And then for those that can't come, I will make house calls because I think they're probably the people that need to be heard the most. So that's something that I think I want the American people or the people of this district to understand that I am absolutely committed to serving you, and I know that trust is earned. It's not something that you just receive up front. I think that you know we give respect freely, but we have to earn trust. I think that I will. I'm going to set out from the get-go to earn your trust, and I think I can do it by doing these things and being responsive to you.