How would you describe your work ethic?

I believe in professionalism, hard work, attention to detail, being very organized and focused, and not going home until you get the job done.  I am proud in my career to be noted as a workhorse, not a show horse.

Please describe what you believe are the most significant issues in this race and why.

As Montgomery County continues to grow at a rapid pace (#1-#3 in fastest growth depending on the publication), the County Clerk’s office must continue to adapt and modernize to meet the growing and everchanging needs of our citizens.  With an increase in population, so shall we see an increase in document filings and requests.  As a result, the next County Clerk must have the experience, temperament, ability, customer service focus, management and budget background, and the desire to run the office in a fiscally responsible manner.  This is not a job for someone who just wants to be an elected official.  It is a full-time working position that our citizens rely on which must be running smoothly at all times. 

This is a Republican primary race.  Do you promise, if elected, to abide by the RPT platform? And if not, please enumerate what problems you have.

Yes, I do.  The RPT platform in combination with my Christian conservative values will be my guiding principles in the County Clerk’s office.  I have also been a part of the RPT platform process over the years as a delegate and alternate to many Texas state conventions and appreciate that it is a very comprehensive list of the views of most issues in our Texas Republican Party.

What are the three main reasons you are running for this office? Do you see any potential conflicts of interest?

Practical/On The Job Training

• 27 years of experience working with the local, state, and federal government in capacities that complement the County Clerk’s office.
• Have already supervised dozens of employees and handled budgets in excess of that at the current County Clerk’s office.
• Have handled the key functions of the Clerk’s office in previous positions.
• Have received training from the State of Texas on human resources, records retention, budget creation and management, public information requests, customer service, and transparency.
• I pride myself on being highly organized with a great attention to detail.
• Realize that there is always something more to learn – so keep an open door for folks to provide advice and feedback.
• Understand the legislative process locally, in the state legislature, and in Washington DC – which can be helpful to the Clerk’s office – as we see things that statutorily should be fixed or updated as our County grows, I have the understanding of the process and the relationships in Austin to get reforms passed.

Education

In addition to my undergraduate degree from George Washington University, which provided classes on diplomacy and making policy change, my master’s degree in Public Affairs/Administration with a specialization in Urban and State Affairs Management from the University of Texas at Austin provided me with the book smarts to compliment my practical understanding of how to manage an office like the County Clerk’s office. 

Further, Texas leadership selected me to their exclusive training programs for state employees they expected to be future state agency leaders and for future large state agency chief fiscal officers.  These two vigorous programs included in-depth problem solving and scenarios running large state agencies (i.e., Texas Health and Human Service Commission or the Texas Education Agency) from a position of scrutinizing everything from the budget to human resources to records retention to state law requirements (Texas Governor’s Executive Development Program and Texas Chief Fiscal Officers’ Academy administered by the University of Texas).  I have also been a part of many leadership courses from a variety of civic and industry associations that have been helpful in ongoing efforts to perfect my management style.

I also managed comparably sized offices while working for the State of Texas, where I supervised a variety of functions (public relations, human resources, procurement, records retention, public information requests, etc.) and a private company where I supervised government relations functions at the local, state, federal, and international levels, as well as community and external relations functions.  In both of these positions, I also supervised numerous outside consultants, their budgets, their Request for Proposals (RFPs), and their reporting requirements.  In five other positions working in government, I supervised and managed budgets for a smaller amount (12-18) of personnel.  In addition, I have served as the Chairman or Program/Policy Director for several associations that included large budgets and a large mix of paid staff and volunteers.

Is the board seat you seek to be elected to effectively fulfilling its role? How or how not?

Yes, I believe that our current County Clerk, who has been in the position for seven terms, has come a long way in modernizing the office and, according to his budget presentation a few years back, has been a good steward of the taxpayers’ dollars and provided a good deal of transparency.  I believe that modernization must continue considering our County’s continued growth and that the office must continue to provide more of its documents and processes online to keep up with the new technology as more citizens prefer to do their business online.  It also appears that the storage, replication, and certification of official documents has been handled well.

Why are you seeking this bench and what 3 primary goals do you have in mind if you are elected?

• I am running for the position of Montgomery County Clerk because this is my hometown community, and I love our citizens.  Montgomery County is an amazing place to live, work, and raise a family.
• The County Clerk is a work position, it requires someone who is highly organized and has experience fighting against the government bureaucracy, has a great knowledge and experience of supervising dozens of employees and a multi-million-dollar budget, and who will provide even better customer service and create new efficiencies in the County Clerk's office.
• With my 27 years of public service and work as a state agency department head and CFO, I have the human resources skills, records retention knowledge, and budgetary understanding to root out waste, fraud, and abuse that will save the taxpayers money while keeping the office organized and customer friendly.
• I am also the only candidate with a lifetime of public service. Since 1994, I have served the people of Texas by supporting our Members of Congress in the US House of Representatives, our Texas Governor, and our state's largest airport system.
• I am a proud 6th generation Texan and Conroe High School graduate, who believes in preserving and spreading my Christian conservative values at home, at work, and in our community.
• Serving as your County Clerk would be an honor in this amazing county where I was born and raised, and as it continues to grow so quickly, now is not the time for on-the-job training.  We must have an experienced person take over from our current County Clerk to ensure continued, competent running of this critical, yet low visibility office.

I hope to accomplish three primary things:

1. Run the office in a fiscally responsible and transparent way, always looking for efficiencies and best practices, as well as rooting out any waste, fraud, and abuse.
2. Modernize the office operations, especially working to provide more documents for the public online to reduce the need to come to the physical office.  I also want to provide more explanation online of what you can and cannot do electronically – posting “how to” videos would help folks like my parents better understand and utilize the website.
3. Continue to build good relationships with key local figures like the District Clerk, Commissioners Court, and our judges as well as provide good customers service (to our local citizens and attorneys).  Part of good customer service will be to remove/rework the existing COVD barriers to provide better access for our citizens.

Who is endorsing you and what is their relationship to you?

Due to my late filing and the holidays, I have not yet sought group endorsements.

I plan to do this is the coming days but do not plan to seek any endorsements that could appear to be the result of any quid-pro-quo or lead to an appearance of a conflict of interest.  The best endorsement I can receive will be from the people on March 1.

What have you done, or will you do, to reduce the size of the government?

Government in general – while I worked for several conservative Members of the US House of Representatives, I worked on several bills that would have reduced the size of government, a good example:  HJ Res 1 of the Contract with America which was a tax-limitation balanced budget amendment.  I worked with grassroots organizations and think-tanks like American for Tax Reform, the Heritage Foundation, Free Congress Foundation, American Conservative Union, Concerned Women for America, American Family Association, Eagle Forum, Family Research Council, Citizens for a Sound Economy, and Citizens against Government Waste.  Together, we moved my boss’ bill through a 2/3rds vote in the US House and fell ONE vote short in the US Senate.  (A liberal Republican Senator named Mark Hatfield of Oregon was the culprit).  Just imagine how prosperous our nation would be today if Congress was forced, like they are in the Texas legislature, to pass a balanced budget to fund the federal government.

Another example of my efforts was using some of these same grassroots organizations or their successors, to pass a bill for my boss in 2001 to use the Congressional Review Act (CRA) for the first time.  The CRA allows a Congress to review and overturn a previous Administration’s regulatory policy or guidelines issued by an executive department or independent agency.  In this case, we worked to overturn an onerous and crippling Department of Labor regulation on ergonomics.  If left in place, this new rule would have forced small businesses to wastefully spend millions of dollars based upon the unproven claim of one employee.  They would then have to provide the “cure” of the issue to all of their employees regardless of whether it was an issue for them.  (For example, John has a bad back and says he cannot work without an ergonomically designed chair that costs $500.  The small business of 28 employees, without any medical certification by a doctor, would have to supply John with the $500 chair – AND – supply the other 27 employees with the same chair to make the office “safe” by the new regulation.  You can extrapolate out all of the random examples that were supplied to us from other supporting groups like the National Right to Work Foundation, National Association of Manufacturers, the US Chamber of Commerce, the National Federation of Independent Business, National Restaurant Association, and National Retail Federation. Needless to say, defeating this was a top priority to many business and conservative groups.  Fortunately, we were successful in getting my boss’ bill passed in the House, approved in the Senate, and signed into law by President George W. Bush. 

I am also proud of efforts my efforts working to reform the federal budget process by reining in earmarks, instituting pay as you go requirements (you can only increase spending when you make a corresponding cut of something else), moving to biennial budgeting to provide one year for spending and one year for review of spending (to ensure the government is not buying things like $50 nails), increased incentives for identifying and removing waste, fraud, and abuse, creating a supermajority vote to raise taxes or borrow money, etc.  Unfortunately, despite strong grassroots support, we were unable to get passed all of the internal Congressional institutionalists who did not want to see positive and transformative budget policy changes that would reduce their authority.

Finally, while running a Texas state agency, I was able to cut its budget (funding and personnel) every two years by finding efficiencies and modernizing its operations.  I take my role as a steward of taxpayers’ funds seriously and have no tolerance for those who “empire build” their department, division, agency, or elected office.

The County Clerk’s office – I will review the budget, all of its expenditures, functions, and the corresponding responsibilities of all employees to ensure that best practices are being used, that all fiscal efficiencies are being utilized, and to ensure that no duplication of efforts or tax dollars is occurring.  If there are inefficiencies, duplicity of roles or function, or waste that are found, they will be eliminated, with the savings returned to the County treasury.

What have you done to prepare for serving in this role?

I have done a great deal of research by reviewing Texas law, local county regulations, a review of Montgomery County Commissioner Court meeting minutes and documents (i.e., the collections department responsibility being added to County Clerk’s office), reviewed Texas Municipal League information, reviewed the Texas Association of Counties 2018 Guide to Texas Laws for County Officials, and reviewed briefings and materials provided to me by the County and District Clerks’ Association of Texas. I have also spoken with and reached out to a variety of current and former sources of information on the County Clerk’s office including:  current Montgomery County Clerk Mark Turnbull, current Montgomery County Chief Deputy Clerk Darin Bailey, current Montgomery County District Clerk Melisa Miller, former Republican Harris County District Clerk Chris Daniel, former Republican Harris County Clerk Stan Stanart, and several of the County Clerks from our neighboring counties.  These calls/meetings have provided helpful advice and background, as well as created or renewed friendships with these officials that will lead to better collaboration and best practices.

What other endeavors/responsibilities do/would you have besides being the clerk?

None, serving as the Montgomery County Clerk is a full-time job, and as such, I would give fulfilling the office’s mission in a fiscally responsible, transparent, efficient, and customer/citizen friendly fashion my total attention.

Do you favor term limits? Please explain why or why not.

I think they can be helpful in certain situations.  For example, on the federal level, because I believe that the cost of elections and the institutional support that an incumbent receives is very hard to overcome.  This leads to the politician being comfortable and insulated from the voters since overcoming name identification, big money, and endorsements is very difficult (96% of Congressional incumbents re-elected).  I believe that the Founding Fathers called Congress a “citizen’s legislature” because they expected Congress to make laws and then go live with them, amongst their peers and fellow citizens.  Unfortunately, it feels like this no longer happens. 

On the local level, the closest level of government to the people, I believe that the citizens can be responsible enough and educated enough to decide whether an elected official has done a good job and that with their experience they should continue on in office.  As a believer in our democratic system, I still hope and feel that the local voter can make an informed decision and choose the best person for the job.

Please describe the best way for the average voter to determine which candidate for this office is best.

I believe that this race is about experience.  The average voter needs to look at both candidate’s background – practical and formal education and see who has the knowledge and understanding necessary to succeed as your next County Clerk.  While they may not have dealt with the County Clerk’s office to date, it is a critical function for our citizens.  Organizing, safeguarding, and providing our vital records as well as handling our county court juries and the processes that go along with that, not to mention creating and administering a complex multi-function budget, is not something you can learn on the spot.  I have 27 years of practical experience handling similar roles as the County Clerk’s office and the formal education and training too.  I am the only candidate who will be ready Day One to handle an office of this size and scope.

Civic, Political or union organization or individuals to whom you have contributed (five years):

NO union organizations – Right to Work!

Leadership Montgomery County – Class of 2022 Member

Montgomery County Republican Party – Life Member (since approximately 1997)

Montgomery County Pachyderms – Sustaining Member

Montgomery County Tea Party – Member

The Woodlands Republican Women – Associate Member

Lake Conroe Area Republican Women – Associate Member

North Shore Republican Women – Associate Member

Conroe Noon Lions Club – Member

Montgomery County Fair Association – Life Member

Texas Navy Association

Montgomery County Sheriff’s Academy – Class of 2021 – also Association member

Texas Lyceum – Former Executive Council Member and Board of Directors

Texas Home School Coalition

Texas Right to Life

Texas Values

Texas Public Policy Foundation

The Federalist Society

The Conservative Policy Institute

Texas Travel Industry Association - Past Chairman, former Executive Board Member and Board of Directors Member

Various events at: The Woodlands Chamber of Commerce, East Montgomery County Chamber of Commerce, Conroe/Lake Conroe Chamber of Commerce, Montgomery Chamber of Commerce, Magnolia Chamber of Commerce, and Northwest Houston Chamber of Commerce.

How will you improve the transparency and access to financial and other records for the public?

The records protected and provided upon request by the County Clerk’s office are public records – meaning they are owned by the public.  Every effort should be made to provide these quickly, efficiently, and as accessible as possible to the citizen’s legally requesting them.  As mentioned earlier, I want to continue to make sure that as many documents as possible are safely provided online including clear transparency of the office’s budget and expenditures.  The County Clerk’s office appears to be fully transparent currently.  However, the office’s transparency and accountability measures will be reviewed, if I am County Clerk, to ensure that they continue to be at their maximum level.

What are the top 3 areas where the budget for this office needs to be adjusted?

I would need to get into the office and thoroughly review the budget and its various functions (court, documents, records management, collections, etc.) to best answer your question.  From a 2018 budget presentation by the incumbent County Clerk, it appears that he has run a lean operation to that date.  However, as the County continues to grow and additional courts are added, personnel shifts may be needed.  For example, the 12 person staff handling court cases is currently split evenly between the civil and criminal caseload.  However, with a new county court coming along this may necessitate a shift of personnel to the civil side as the staff may need to be divided up better to accommodate the new court.  There was public discussion of adding 2 new staff to handle the new court and a possible statutory probate court, but I do not know whether that will occur in this fiscal year or next prior to a new County Clerk taking office.  I would also want to be sure that current staff in other functions are fully tasked and could not be moved over to handle that new task.  If no new staff are allocated, then a careful caseload review will need to take place to determine the allocation or reorganization of current staff.

Is there anything in your background of an embarrassing nature that should be explained before your election? Arrests/Convictions? Bankruptcys?

No

Do religious and moral views have any role in the county governance process? Why or why not?

Yes, while the County Clerk’s job is very defined as to its duties with very little leeway, one should always be guided by their faith and moral compass.  If not, then a person would be apt to stumble ethically when those gray areas or “spirit of the law” issues occur.

Are you, in any way, related to any MoCo elected or appointed officials or to other MoCo employees?

No

List Civic, Political or union organization or individuals to whom you have contributed time or money (past five years).

American First Policy Institute (my wife is the General Counsel for AFPI, a think-tank for the former Trump Administration)

Heritage Action

Club for Growth

National Right to Work Foundation

Please see earlier list – time given to most of those groups

What basic principles guide your proposals and decisions as it relates to public policy?

My faith, my ethics, my fiscal responsibility, my conservative philosophy, and the law.

Please explain the role of the County and District Clerks Association of Texas and whether or not you would become a member.

The County and District Clerks Association of Texas is a very helpful tool as the association for our state’s district and county clerks.  I have already used the information on their website to help familiarize myself with the role and to connect with others who could talk to me about how they see the job of County Clerk evolving.  (There 277-page 2020 County Clerk Manual is very comprehensive.)  Further, since the County Clerk is required to perform 20 hours annual of continuing education, this association will be critical since it is the clearinghouse of educational programs in Texas that will keep me up to speed on best practices and issues that could be of importance to Montgomery County as it grows and technology changes.  If elected, I would plan to attend their next conference in July to further my education about the Clerk’s office and future challenges, unless there is some issue with this group that I am unaware of or if there is some slant to their conference materials. I will investigate this further upon election and solicit advice from other conservative county clerks and organizations like yours, before I become a member.

Do you believe Americans should be forced to provide medical care and public education to people who are in our country illegally?

No, I believe that our hard-earned tax dollars should be used to take care of our county’s, state’s, and nation’s citizens.  However, I also understand that federal law currently mandates care for anyone who shows up in dire need at an emergency room.

How would your election affect you financially?

While I could make more money in the private sector, I greatly enjoy being able to serve and give back to my community.  As a result, the loss of income is rewarded by helping our citizens through good work at the County Clerk’s office.

Are you active with any Tea Party or conservative grassroots organization? If so, list which, how long and what capacity? If not, what's your opinion of Tea Party groups here as to their effectiveness?

My wife and I are members of the Montgomery County Tea Party and have been since last summer.  We look forward to becoming more active in the new year.  We are also members of the Montgomery County Pachyderms, American First Policy Institute (my wife is the General Counsel for AFPI), Texas Home School Coalition, Texas Right to Life, Texas Values, Texas Public Policy Foundation, the Federalist Society, and the Conservative Policy Institute.