Fifth Congressional District candidate interview: Micah Beebe

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 Democrat 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.

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

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

Micah Beebe: Great question. I think there's a big need in our country for people to step up and to serve, and I'm concerned about the direction that our country is going in. I'm a dad. I have five kids, and I'm concerned about the country that we're handing down to the next generation, to my kids and my grandkids. One of the big platform or part of my platform that I have is focusing on the economy and our national debt, and it's really Congress has had a lot of runaway spending, and we need more disciplined people in Congress that can cut back on that and really bring some common sense legislation to bring that under control. I think that I've got a lot of great ideas to contribute to the conversation, and I think I can make some positive changes.

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

Beebe: Yeah, that's a great question. So I'm in the real estate industry, and for a good 10 years or so, I was selling residential real estate and selling homes. Now I'm on the commercial side of the business, focusing on what we can do in the housing sector is something that I can really speak towards, and I think what we have to do is try to make buying a home much more affordable.

For example, one thing that we can really do on the government side of things is to cut a lot of the red tape and make it easier for people to buy a home, make it easier for builders and developers to build the home, because we have a shortage and we have a housing shortage. One of those things that I've talked about on the campaign trail is in Kansas City proper, because of the regulations and the things that they have in place right now, it raises the cost of a home by 40%, and that is self-inflicted by the city. We need to change things like that. We need to really take a look at: okay, are these are these things that are necessary in order to take care of residents, or is this just more bureaucracy and things like that?

On the energy side of things, I think what we need to do is what the president has talked about, and that is utilizing the resources that we have in this country in a responsible, environmentally friendly way. There's a way to do that. I think using those natural resources that we have at our disposal, because all of us, in one way or another, are in the oil and gas industry, because we're all impacted by it. Our farmers it impacts them a great deal in fertilizers and all those things that they do. Being able to transport goods to where they need to go, and so we're all impacted by the oil and gas industry. We need to look at that responsibly and say how can we increase that supply in order to bring costs down.

McGuire: Okay, and I want to switch to another big topic, which is immigration. What do you plan to do with immigration at the federal level?

Beebe: Yeah, immigration is a big one. I think that we've now seen a picture of what it looks like from one extreme under the Biden administration, where we just had wide-open borders, and we had people just rolling in by the thousands on a daily basis. I don't think anybody can look at that and say, "Yeah, that's a good idea." Thankfully we have a president who has secured the borders and is working diligently in his administration to get the most dangerous illegals out of our country because those are threats to our communities, and we've got some really really dangerous people that are running around that should not be here, but I think that we need to have an immigration system that is for America, that is beneficial for for our country.

I believe in American exceptionalism that we live in the greatest country in the world, and it's why so many people love this country, and they want to come here, and I love that. I want to share our culture with everybody else, and be like, 'look how great it is.' I think we saw that during the World Cup, and that was pretty incredible. I think that was a really unifying moment, and we had a lot of amazing Europeans come over, and we're just blown away. I think that was just awesome to see. I think that was a boost that the country really, really needed and really benefited from. I think that was really awesome.

We're the melting pot of the world, you know, and people come here and that come here legally, and they integrate, and they become our countrymen. They come a part of this country, and I think that's what immigration needs to be about. Those folks who come here in the right way, who follow the laws that we have, and I think that's the fairest way to do that. But also, we need to make sure that we're not having an immigration system where we're so overrun, where there's more people coming in from around the world than there are people in the United States, because when that happens, we start to lose our identity of who we are and what makes us American. I think that's really important. I feel like we're losing our identity in some ways, and I really hate to see that.

McGuire: What would be your top priority if elected?

Beebe: Basically, focusing on our economy, and that covers a lot of things. What can we do as far as the housing crisis that we're facing here in Missouri, and how can we lower those costs in a really practical way? How can we increase the supply, and also just working with the president, and I think he's got a fantastic agenda that he's been working towards over the last two years, I think we've seen a lot of successes over the last two years. The media doesn't really like to talk about it a lot, unfortunately. But we have seen a lot of successes and a lot of great economic investment from all over the world.

I would want to come alongside the president and continue to help with that agenda and move that forward, but really focusing, like I said, too, on how can we help our rural hospitals? How can we come alongside our farmers? One of the things that I intend to do if elected is that, you know, when I was talking to the Missouri Farm Bureau, this is a conversation that we had, is that I want to set up an ag committee. I've seen candidates in other congressional districts have done the same thing, and so that way, when you go to Washington, you need to be tied into the community, and so you can appropriately represent the people that voted for you or maybe didn't vote for you, within your district, and so it's important to hear those voices and to listen to those voices, and that's something that I'm really focused on doing is listening to the voters. We need people in office that actually listen and communicate well, and I think that's been really lacking in a lot of ways across the board, so you know that's something that I really want to change.

McGuire: Okay, and I think that's it. Is there anything you want to touch base on that I didn't ask?

Beebe: Yeah, actually, just a little bit about me. I am a native Missourian. I was born and raised here. I grew up in the heart of Kansas City, right off of Truman and Topping, kind of a rougher part of Kansas City. This place is my home. This is my community, and it's incredible that I get to run for the United States Congress and have the opportunity to potentially represent my home, and so that's just that's a blessing to me.

My wife and I, we're about to celebrate 17 years of marriage ... and we've got five kids. Our older three kiddos we adopted from the foster care system, and as a sibling group of three, and then right after that, we had two little ones of our own back to back. So we went from zero to five in like two years. So it was pretty wild, it's been an awesome ride.

My dad was a cab driver in Kansas City, and my mom homeschooled four of us kids, at a time when, unfortunately, the Kansas City school district had lost its accreditation. Which I mean, that's education. That's another topic. I won't jump into that. We could go on and on and on, but I won't do that to you, Erika. Anyways, that was that's that's basically it. I just want people to know who I am and the kind of person that I am, and that I'm a man of my word. I'm a man of integrity, and so I want to bring some trust back to Congress, and so approval ratings are quite low over there. So we need to work on that.