Former U.S. Marshal who worked border patrol has new ideas for Congress
Chance Ferguson was recently inspired to take up politics after spending a lifetime in public service. He has worked for such agencies as the U.S. Marshals Service, the Marines, and even the U.S. Postal Service. Ferguson hopes to unseat four-time elected Representative Jodey Arrington this fall.
At the recent Taylor County Republican Candidate Forum held February 5, Ferguson noted that while this is his first experience with politics, he is just "running against the establishment."
The race is crowded with two other newcomers who may serve to split the vote: former stuntman Vance W. Boyd and self-proclaimed (on his campaign website) "political prisoner" of the January 6 riots Ryan Zink. If no one candidate of the four receives more than 50% of the vote, the Primary could go to a runoff election held May 28.
Grassroots campaign
Ferguson was born and raised in Merkel, Texas. He later went on to become a U.S. Marshal in Alpine, Texas where he "served on the border." There, he "arrested people that were on the terrorist watch list even then."
In 2015, he went on to become the deputy of the office, overseeing 28 counties. At the Taylor County Forum, he noted that he has "real world experience to answer those problems" of drugs and human smuggling at the border. As a result of his experiences, Ferguson said in an interview with Reporter-News that he is not against immigration, however, he is against illegal immigration.
Ferguson also discussed how the COVID-19 pandemic was his inspiration to enter into the political sphere. In his opinion, when the pandemic hit, "everybody kind of lost their minds and started forcing everybody in the country to take the COVID vaccine, which I was completely against."
Instead, he said he is "pro constitution" and is vehemently against the vaccine, and what he said was the citizens' constitutional rights to not take the vaccine. This in turn inspired him to enter into politics, as he sees Congress as being reactive instead of proactive. He saw lawmakers in Congress exempt themselves from taking the vaccine, while forcing it upon others.
'Our immigration system is broken'
While Ferguson's campaign is self-run and does not have a campaign website, he does have some interesting and novel ideas for Congress, if elected.
Ferguson believes the federal government should currently be sanctioning Mexico amidst the border crisis, claiming that Mexico has "every resource to catch them (illegal immigrants) and deport them back to South America." Additionally, the U.S. government "should be shutting down all of our ports of entry" to include Canada as well.
Ferguson here emphasized that "our immigration system is broken," and that families wishing to immigrate shouldn't have to wait a year and a half to enter the country legally. Instead, Ferguson said the government should "revamp our immigration system" and "put the burden on the employers."
He believes that the solution to the border crisis includes placing the burden on employers by requiring them to file immigrant workers with the immigration office. In turn, immigration would then fingerprint them, do a background check, and give them a work visa and a social security number.
Federal sales tax as a solution?
One of Ferguson's biggest and novel ideas is "to move away from our IRS system" and away from an income-based tax system, instead heading toward Texas with a new federal sales tax. Currently, according to the Texas State Comptroller, the state of Texas has an 8.25% sales tax rate.
Ferguson believes, however, that "a 10 or 15% sales tax on the federal side" could help the "16 million illegal aliens that are here that aren't putting into our system" pay into the current federal system. When illegal immigrants would in turn purchase food or clothing, they would pay federal taxes with a new federal sales tax across the board. He believes this could help alleviate the government's current debt.
Early voting has begun in Taylor County and will continue through Friday, March 1.
This article originally appeared on Abilene Reporter-News: Former U.S. Marshal last candidate vying for Arrington's seat
