The Politics of Serving: Kevin Brady and His Mission of Community

THE WOODLANDS, TX – There are few things in life that trigger people’s emotions more than politics, and politicians are inescapably the volunteers that are caught in the crossfire. They take center stage in our lives and are many-times the subject of our conversations at home and work. Like religion, politics can be narrowly viewed through the prism of a process, but eventually it is understood that politics is really about a relationship with an individual. Politicians are elected to serve their communities. The size of those communities vary but the premise is the same. They are supposed to serve the needs of their community and are expected to do this selflessly. Most candidates promise this relationship, but few fulfill that obligation. It is a great thing to get to know the people serving you better, so we wanted to ask US Congressman, Kevin Brady some questions regarding his life and final term in office.

Click here to view Kevin Brady's Retirement Announcement

Calling The Woodlands Home

Kevin Brady has served his community as the US Representative for District 8 for over 23 years. Woodlands Online has covered him throughout his entire career as congressman. We have a unique perspective about Kevin that many in the community might not see. Having observed him relate to groups at various events as well as interacting one-on-one with people, we have seen Kevin on camera and off camera. We have interviewed him multiple times and he has been a guest of ours on several of our video shows. He is unique in the fact that when working towards the place he calls home, he doesn’t consider Washington DC his home. He considers The Woodlands and district 8 his home and works to build that relationship. This dedication has made a large difference in how Brady raises his family and how he addresses his job in Washington DC. We sat down with Kevin for about an hour to talk to him about politics in general, his agenda for his remaining time in office as well as some off-trail questions about his likes and hobbies.

Serving the community to the moon and back

One fact that some people may not know about Kevin is that he commutes to Washington DC every week. He does not live permanently in Washington DC when he serves. He has done this from the start. He smiled at us and joked that “his traveling over the years was equivalent to traveling to the moon and back three times”. He has clocked millions of miles for his work. He made the decision early on in his career to not live in Washington DC full-time. He wanted his family to live a normal life and be free from the influence of Washington DC. Kevin, his wife Cathy and their two sons are residents of The Woodlands. His youngest son just graduated from College Park High School. He also has an older son that works in Magnolia. We asked Kevin if either of his two sons have aspirations to work in politics. He said that they have zero desires to work in politics as he was motioning a zero with his hand. They may eventually pursue a career in politics, but as of now, politics is not on their radar of career pursuits.

A love of baseball

Kevin is a huge baseball fan. He loves to watch and play the game, so when he was invited to play at the annual congressional baseball game at Nationals Park, as a newly minted congressman, he took the opportunity to play for his republican team. This isn’t the first time he has gone to bat for his party and it wouldn’t be the last time either. He normally plays second base. It is an event that started in 1909 and has been hosted in various venues around Washington DC for over 100 years. It currently is played at Nationals Park. Initially when they first started this annual event, the teams were made up exclusively of House members. Today, the teams consist of both House and Senate members. This addition of Senate members didn’t happen until 1949. An interesting note is that the first grand slam ever hit at this event was by then Representative of Michigan, Gerald Ford. It is an event that is much anticipated by the members of Congress and will be held this year on September 29, 2021.

Click here to learn more about the Annual Congressional Baseball Game

While Kevin is overnight in Washington DC, he shares a townhouse with three other members of Congress. One of those members of Congress was at the time, U.S. House Majority Whip Steve Scalise. Steve Scalise was shot by a political activist in 2017 while practicing that year for the congressional baseball game. Kevin had left the field about 4 minutes before Steve was shot. It was a traumatic event that Kevin remembers vividly. Scalise is also a second baseman and was shot in the hip. He was bleeding profusely and dragged himself off of the field. Other people were shot as well. Many noted that the situation could have been even worse. Because Scalise was the House Majority Whip, the Capitol Police were present at the practice and when the shooting started, they were able to pin the shooter down and prevent him from shooting other members of congress. Scalise underwent multiple surgeries to repair the damage and made a full recovery. In all, 5 people were injured from the incident but made full recoveries. Two of the individuals injured were capitol police. The shooter was also shot at the scene by officers and later died from his injuries.

Click here to learn more about Steve Scalise

Kevin on Border Security

We asked Kevin some policy questions intermixed with personal questions. One of those policy questions concerned border security. Kevin mentioned that he had toured the border between Texas and Mexico and has seen the crisis up close. He has never witnessed such an increase in the flow of illegal immigrants while in office as he has seen recently. He mentioned that it is a very dangerous situation and he stressed that this is not only a tremendous crisis for the country, but it is an even greater crisis for individual states that border Mexico, specifically Texas. There has been a sharp increase in fentanyl, drug and sex trafficking in Texas this past year and with Houston being one of the largest human trafficking hubs in the country, the policies of the Biden administration is making these volatile situations even worse. Kevin told us that reversals of proven strategies like having migrants remain in Mexico until they can be processed is giving a green light to migrants in other countries to come here illegally. The risk to children traveling thousands of miles and the exploitation by coyotes is a real problem. He feels that the current administration is in denial about this grave reality. These important issues are falling to states to address as well. He said that this issue should be addressed by the US congress and the president, but with the current administration in control, many options are gone for congressional republicans. On June 10th, at a press conference in Del Rio, Texas Governor Greg Abbott made a statement saying that Texas has plans to move forward with building a border wall. Although Kevin believes that this should be addressed federally, he does support states rights in addressing these issues at the state and local levels. Kevin mentioned that he met with the ambassador from Mexico as well as their secretary of trade. He noted that to their credit, Mexico is discouraging migrants from Central America from entering Mexico and they are also offering asylum seekers jobs in Mexico. Mexico is supportive of continuing the “remain in Mexico” policy. With this cooperation from Mexico, Kevin wondered why Biden isn’t taking this opportunity to stem the tide of illegal immigrants using that willingness from Mexico.

Dropping A Beat in College

Kevin told us about various areas of his family life during our interview. He said that he really loved music and pointed to his iPhone commenting that he has over 3,000 songs in his iTunes account. He loves songs and listens to various artists while traveling. Family members know that if they are going to buy him a gift, they might as well just come to the realization that what he would really use and appreciate is a loaded iTunes card. He didn’t specify which genre is his favorite. He said that he likes a cross-section of genres including, country, pop and disco. Yes, disco. I had him repeat that answer. And yes, disco was still in that list. We didn’t ask him which disco songs were on his iPhone, but we were silently humming “I Love the Nightlife” and “Staying Alive” unbeknownst to him for the remainder of his interview.

Since we are on the subject of music, Kevin mentioned one thing that we thought was kind of funny. Like other college students, he worked various jobs to put himself through school. He told us that he was employed in maintenance for a while, but he also said that for a period of time, he worked as a DJ to earn money. Yes, a DJ. You know, the guys that play songs at parties and get-togethers. While he was telling us this, we were trying to visualize Kevin Brady, the guy that is on the extremely powerful Ways and Means Committee, probably the most powerful committee in Washington DC, dropping a beat at a local gathering when he was younger. When his term in office is complete, we were wondering if he would take up DJing in his spare time again. We asked him about adding a photo gallery to this article, but any DJ pictures being included in this gallery of him dropping a beat was said to be off the table. In addition to music, Kevin likes movies. One movie he mentioned liking was the movie Gladiator. We thought it was kind of appropriate for him to like a movie about extreme fighting. He loves to read and enjoys mystery novels and books about history. He said that reading and music helps him relax and takes him away from the Washington environment for a while.

Kevin’s Connection to Mount Rushmore

During our interview, we talked about American patriotism and US Presidents. Mount Rushmore came up in our conversation and Kevin made an interesting comment. He told us that he was raised in the Black Hills of South Dakota. That is where he also started his political career. He mentioned that his grandfather knew, Gutzon Borglum, the sculptor of Mount Rushmore. We thought that bit of information was really unique. While Kevin’s mom and her sisters would play in the area, her dad, Kevin’s grandfather went on the mountain with Gutzon during the sculpting of the under construction Mount Rushmore. That had to have been a great experience for both his mom and his grandfather.

An indelible memory

There are many things that Kevin experienced while in congress, but one of the most moving and emotional moments for him that he recalled was right after the 9/11 attacks. He remembers that when he went outside in the aftermath of the attacks that you could hear a pin drop. It was that quiet. People, businesses, and time itself seems like they just all stopped. He remembers Congress gathering in front of the steps of the Capitol and both Democrats and Republicans in unison singing “God Bless America”. As he looked out towards Washington, he said you could still see smoke rising up from where the Pentagon was still burning from the attack. It was a memory he will forever hold close to his heart and mind. The aftermath showed unity amongst both parties. It was short-lived, but it existed nonetheless.

Unity between Republicans and Democrats

We asked Kevin if there were other opportunities to get to know his colleagues across the aisle. It seemed like news outlets always focus on the parties fighting and the extreme conflicts. Always the bad stuff. He mentioned earlier that he participated in an annual congressional baseball game. What we didn’t mention was that this event wasn’t just to get to know the other side or create some unity within the parties. This event was a bipartisan effort to raise money for charity. Every year, the ticket sales and sponsorship money for this event go towards worthy Washington DC area charities. These charities include The Washington Literacy Center, The Boys and Girls Club of Greater Washington and the Washington Nationals Dream Foundation along with the United States Capitol Police Memorial Fund. This is an event that has brought the two parties together since 1909. We wondered if there were other ways that both parties met to find common ground on important issues. Kevin mentioned that congressional caucuses were a great place to bring the parties together. There are various caucuses formed to address specific topics or places. Kevin is a part of several of those caucuses and leads a few of them. He mentioned leading the Brazil caucus, the New Zealand Caucus and the eTechnology Caucus. What is never covered in the media is the bipartisan efforts that go into these caucuses. Kevin gave us an example of a bipartisan effort. He said -

“So after tax reform, we had new tax code, I believed we needed a new tax collector as well. So we went about to reform the IRS. We reached out to John Lewis, the civil rights icon from Georgia, and he agreed to lead the effort to reform the IRS along with an accountant, from Kansas, Lynn Jenkins, a Republican conservative. They worked together to achieve the first reform in the IRS in two decades. Each gave up something but we all found a lot of common ground. That happens much more often than you think.”



Top priorities for this final term

We asked Kevin what one of his top priorities was while in his final term. He replied -

“My top priority right now is stopping Joe Biden's crippling tax increases that are sabotaging the economy and hurting working families. If they become law they will move US jobs and companies overseas. We already know this because that's what's happening now. It’s what happened the last time Joe Biden was in the White House with President Obama. Every month or few weeks we read about another US company closing down and moving their manufacturing or their headquarters overseas. All that stopped when we passed HR1, the Tax Cuts & Jobs Act that I authored. And not only did we leapfrog America to the most competitive economy on the planet, but we brought back hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs, headquarters, research investment in the United States, and lifted millions of Americans out of poverty. President Biden wants to reverse all that with these tax increases.”

Kevin’s thoughts concerning the man or woman that will replace him in congress

We asked Kevin what type of person he would like to see replace him and carry on his mission of serving the community and the people of District 8. He replied -

“It's their characters or values. It's their beliefs. It's also finding someone who you can trust, to listen, who will do their homework, and will work hard for the district. I look at all of those things. Finding a person who you can believe in, and has the character to do the right thing, even when it's not politically popular, which isn't much fun, but you still have to do it. I think that’s important and I’m confident we'll end up with a really good member of Congress from our district.”

Dedication to Serve

We wanted to give Kevin the opportunity in this article to give the community some information about himself as well as updates regarding his efforts in congress. We will interview him again as he gets closer to the end of his term. The next article will focus more about his overall time in office. This particular interview mimicked his approach to how he serves his community in Washington DC. We reached out to Kevin to do an interview and although he does many interviews for every major media source, he took time out of his schedule to visit with a media outlet in his hometown. He met us at our office instead of his to make it more convenient for us and he arrived right on time. When we started the interview, before he would let us interview him, he asked us about our families and background to get more familiar with the people that were interviewing him. We mentioned earlier that we have seen Kevin on camera and off, at large events and at small gathering. He is consistent in his approach to the people he meets. He is always a friendly and kind individual. You can debate policies and politics, but it is an admirable thing to serve the community you represent and not the place you work.