Two third-party candidates filed with the Texas Secretary of State's office to challenge Republican nominee Jodey Arrington in the November general election for the U.S. House District 19 seat.

No Democrat is running to replace retiring U.S. Rep. Randy Neugebauer, R-Lubbock, who has held the seat since 2003.

That means Arrington, who won in a Republican primary runoff election in May after the field was narrowed from nine to two candidates, will be the only candidate from the two biggest parties. He's likely to receive the most financial support in the Republican-dominated district, that has elected a GOP congressman since Larry Combest won the seat in 1984. But that's not to say the third-party candidates won't put up a challenge in an attempt to turn some heads.

Libertarian Troy Bonar and Green Party candidate Mark Lawson have filed to run. Bonar, 42, is a former airman stationed at Dyess Air Force Base, author, speaker and safety manager for Buffalo Gap Instrumentation & Electrical Co. in the oil and gas industry.

We're still months out from the Nov. 8 election, but A-J Media spoke with the two candidates ahead of campaign season to talk issues and expectations. The interview with Lawson will be in Wednesday's Avalanche-Journal.

Below is the conversation with Bonar, edited for space and grammar:





Why the interest in running for office now?

I see where we are going economically and politically, it's become such a circus. The two-party system is failing - it doesn't matter what you vote for or what you don't vote for, they are going to stick some type of attachment in that bill to make it look either good or bad for you either way you vote. It's become this big game that's not gaining any progress.

I don't see true representatives of the district. I see people that are career politicians, whereas I'm more concerned with people knowing what's going on in our government; and to also look out for the district and the people.





Why run on the Libertarian ticket?

Well, most people are Libertarian but they just don't realize it. I was a big time GOP'er when I'd never heard of the Libertarian Party before. If I had, it was in passing and I never really understood what it was. All you hear from the media and a lot of sources is just the two parties.

It really comes down to what the Libertarian party principals are - don't mess with other people's stuff and leave people alone. That's really simplifying what the party principals are. But the freedom of an individual to live as they want to live as long as they don't harm other people; don't take other people's stuff, and that includes the government.

As long as you live by those principals, that's basically what the Libertarian party stands for.





How does that differ from the Republican Party?

One thing that's gotten me disassociated with the Republican Party is they threw the word conservative around and people are now confused with what the true meaning of the word is. The problem I have with the Republican Party is we should never be using our government to legislate morality on anybody.

I found that the Republican Party attempts to do that every chance they get - to regulate and implement some type of morality on other people. It's just the same in the Democratic Party. I'm tired of people manipulating people's religion, race and gender to get votes or to promote a political philosophy. We need to remember that the Founding Fathers had a reason why they kept religion separate from government.





You obviously have a tough task ahead of you. How can you get Republicans to vote for you?

I'm counting on smart Republicans. I'd love to win this. I know I'm running against a guy that has tons of funding and campaign support - and who knows where that comes from? Are we buying our seats in the House now?

We have two terrible candidates for president right now (in Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton), and really the only option is (Libertarian) Gary Johnson. By him running, it's getting people to open up their eyes and try to learn a little bit about the Libertarian Party. Hopefully people start to understand they don't just have to vote the way they've always voted.

There's a lot of federal funds in agriculture, colleges and universities, Dyess Air Force Base and hospitals, which are big in the district. How can you cater to them while also saying government needs to stay out?

We've got a lot of issues with government regulation. In agriculture, we're stuck into the same types of crops because we're not allowed to grow other crops to some extent. I grew up in a county where agriculture is very important. It's tough to make a living in general. I understand in agriculture there's a lot of things that are difficult, especially when we're trying to compete against the larger corporations and the far reaching finger-hold they have on the ag business - from germination, to property rights to a lot of different things.

As far as the (Dyess Air Force) base goes, I come from a strong military background. I understand the strategic aspect of why we have the military we have now. I also believe we tend to not spend smart money; we tend to be stuck in the use-it-or-lose it mentality that ends up hurting us more than helping us.





Talk about your stance on foreign policy and terrorism, because that was brought up a lot in the primaries.

We've really gotten a black eye on the global scale and, unfortunately, I don't know what's going to remove that black eye.

But we have the technology and capability to monitor people's cell phones and there are algorithms we can use to track different types of behavior and trending. Why not focus that technology instead to monitor people who are more of a considerable threat instead of focusing on our citizens?

As far as immigration, I hate the fact that the media wants to build up people's fears and play on those fears. The immigrants are usually not the problems. We do have an immigration issue - the system is very slow and there's a lot of bureaucracy in that system that causes delays. I know people personally that have had cases over two years where they haven't been decided yet. You know, we've got a lot of great people here that are immigrants, and they want to see border control and some type of better control because they're losing jobs and also because somebody coming across the border tomorrow can take their job, often times for less. We don't have the control, but we also don't have the right expedited process.





Why were you so quiet in the primaries?

I felt that it was very important to not interfere with the Republicans' decision making and allow them to make their decisions based on the potential candidates for the party, not the potential candidates who will be on the ballot. We saw some of the true colors of politics in the Republican race. We saw a lot of money invested to win the coveted historically career politician position. We also saw communities and citizens gain knowledge and interest in our political process. My hope is that now we can focus on the future of the district, Big Country neighbors, the Republic of Texas and the United States of America.

matt.dotray@lubbockonline.com • 766-8744

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