April Brown has always been dedicated to public service. She fulfilled her duties in the Oklahoma National Guard and the United States Army before transitioning into a civilian role with the Department of Defense. Currently, she contributes to the community as the in school restriction teacher at Pauls Valley Junior high where she seeks to make a difference in the lives of our most-challenged students.
April has been married for 23 years to her husband Damon who shares her commitment to serving the community. After retiring from 22 years in the Army, Damon now works at Mid-America Technology Center and as an ordained pastor. They are parents of four daughters and grandparents of three granddaughters and one grandson.
Now, April has agreed to step up for a different type of service.
She's challenging the six-year incumbent state representative in order to restore dignified, conservative representation for our district.
In 2023, the Oklahoma Republican Vice Chairman led a group that conducted a comprehensive audit of the Legislature's 2023 votes.
It compared those votes with the Republican Party Platform. It found that our incumbent State Representative voted just 28.70% in accordance with the Platform. She has failed us in the issues that define us as Conservative Republicans. There were literally Democrats voting more in sync with our party's platform than our representative.
Similarly, the 2023 Oklahoma Conservative Index, Oklahoma's gold standard for ranking legislators' conservatism ever since 1979, ranked our representative as voting at just 43% conservative.
April knows that we are a conservative people: we should be represented by—a conservative. She has heard the call to step up and do her part to bring true conservative representation to our district. She will also prove her commitment, and she will do her best to avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest.
April will reject all lobbyist money: both gifts AND political contributions. She believes this money has ruined many legislators.
Our six-year incumbent is taking thousands and thousands in gifts and contributions and is then dolling our millions in corporate welfare.
While this may be technically legal, April thinks it is nothing less than “legalized corruption” and she will refuse to participate.
While other legislators are living the nightlife with the lobbyists, April will be at home, studying the bills and will be set to defend our values, without fear of what the lobbyists or their employers think.
Checking in on Oklahoma Tourism Dept's attempt to get out of cp and bid laws. Did anyone see how this bill got past the House in the first place? On a scale of Raymond Gary to Dade Phelan, where does @missosu89 rank? @nondocmedia @tylertalley22 @batesline @MarvenGoodman pic.twitter.com/pSpCwdY7Hk
— PopulistCafe.com (@populistcafe) April 29, 2024
House Bill 1712 has proven to be one of the most consequential bills in the modern history of the Legislature. It tasked the transportation bureaucracy with advocating for the "track-and-tax, every-road-a-toll-road" plan. Tammy Townley green-lit this effort, while April Brown will oppose it.
When Tammy Townley voted for House Bill 1712, she initiated a process that, once fully matured, would effectively make every road in Oklahoma a toll road.
It's been described as one of the most consequential votes in the recent history of the legislature: HB 1712, the plan to convert every Oklahoma road into a toll road.
Known as the Road User Fee, or Track-and-Tax, the plan, funded by the Biden Department of Transportation, would track every mile we drive and charge us a fee for each mile.
One can only begin to imagine the potential abuses of giving the government access to our travel data and the potential for them to assess variable rate taxation/tolling based on our travel habits.
Do you drive an old car that "isn't good for the environment?" Then maybe you will pay more.
Are you driving too many miles this month? Then maybe your rate will increase so as to discourage you from driving so much.
Did you travel to a gun show? Then, the FBI and ATF might just target you under their latest, expansive, new interpretation of "red flag" laws in order to take away your 2nd Amendment rights. Or, maybe you will want to cross state lines or even attend church during the next national health emergency shutdown. Now, the government will know about it.
All of these abuses are possible, and many more that we can only imagine.
April Brown possesses a natural skepticism of new government programs, and she would never vote to create or advance a program such as this; but, unfortunately, our current six-term incumbent representative, Tammy Townley, did.
Townley voted for HB 1712 to kick off phase one of the plan: the pilot program to test the feasibility of the plan.
Her vote, and the vote of other so-called, “Republican” legislators, gave life to the track-and-tax plan in Oklahoma.
It's supported by transportation special interests and the Biden administration's Department of Transportation.
That pilot program wrapped up in December. They released a report. The report shows that phase two, "voluntary" participation, is expected to come before the legislature in 2025, after the election, when Townley can again vote for the plan while hoping the voters will forget about her bad vote before the next election.
After phase two, we can look to Oregon to see what likely comes next for us: "mandatory participation."
Oregon, like Oklahoma, started with a pilot program, and now their Legislature has been considering the forcing of mandatory participation.
We must stop this plan in its tracks. On June 18th, we must replace Townley, someone who had the bad judgment to support this plan, and might do it again, with April Brown, a principled conservative who would never give the government access to our vital information such as travel data, who opposes the toll road concept and who will oppose the track-and-tax plan when it comes up for a vote in 2025.
