In Florida’s First District, a Millennial Republican Hopes to Shake Up Congress

As Republicans attempt to appeal to young Americans and females, why not try this? Send a Millennial woman to Congress.

Rebekah Johansen Bydlak fits that demographic bill — and more. As a passionate activist for limited government, she would become a leading voice for fiscal conservatism on Capitol Hill. But first, she must win Tuesday’s primary in Florida’s first congressional district, in and around Pensacola.

“There is a $19-trillion problem in this country, and without dedicated political outsiders across America stepping up to take on a stale political class, my generation and every one that follows will be left picking up the pieces,” Bydlak says from her home in Cantonment, Fla. “I’m running for Congress to be part of the solution, and I can’t wait to be the youngest-ever female member and make history by actually taking on spending and debt for the next generation.”

Bydlak recently turned 26. If successful, she would become the youngest woman ever elected to Congress.

Despite her limited years, however, she already has established herself as a stalwart proponent of fiscal restraint. As director of outreach with the Coalition to Reduce Spending, she has helped voters and decision makers understand that federal outlays today represent little more than threats of future tax collections. New government programs grow, public obligations expand, and an ever-swelling national debt screams to be serviced. All of this eventually translates into higher taxes or, also menacing, monetization of this throbbing debt — a.k.a. printing money.

Speaking of taxes, Obama’s IRS abused the Coalition to Reduce Spending as part of its covert political-profiling operation against center-right organizations. CRS and 425 other outfits appear on an IRS enemies list that emerged during a lawsuit by pro-freedom groups against the federal tax bureaucracy. As the class-action litigation states, “the IRS and/or its agents targeted the dissenting groups for intensive and intrusive scrutiny, probing pervasively into their members’ associations, speech, activities, and beliefs.”

“For years I’ve worked to reduce our national debt and stop Washington’s wasteful spending so that the next generation of Americans can enjoy the same opportunities I have,” Bydlak said in June. “And how did my government pay me back for this service? They targeted our not-for-profit group because our conservative values threatened Obama’s liberal agenda. The IRS doesn’t scare me — I’ll continue to fight them and the big spenders in Washington.”

When they were not being hammered by Lois Lerner and her minions, Bydlak and her husband, Jonathan, spearheaded the Reject the Debt Pledge, which has allowed candidates to promise publicly to oppose any legislation — aside from a congressional authorization of military force — that would increase America’s national debt, currently $19.4 trillion and climbing like a vine. So far this year, some 144 federal and state legislative candidates have taken this pledge, which promises to do for expenditures what Americans for Tax Reform has done for tax reduction.

Bydlak is proud to have put her Jane Hancock on several government-limitation pacts.

“I was the first candidate to sign the Obamacare Repeal Pledge,” she said. “I’ve also signed the U.S. Term Limits Pledge, Americans for Tax Reform’s Taxpayer Protection Pledge, and, of course, the Coalition to Reduce Spending’s pledge to Reject the Debt.”

Her efforts, successes, and aspirations have generated warm words from fellow free-marketeers who want to see her join the 115th Congress.

‐“Rebekah Johansen Bydlak is the best new liberty candidate anywhere,” said Representative Justin Amash (R., Mich.). “Rarely does a candidate as talented and principled as Rebekah come along. I’m thrilled at the prospect of serving with her in Congress.”

‐“Rebekah has witnessed first-hand how Washington is broken and [she] has policy solutions that can reduce federal spending at its source, knowing we cannot tax, spend, and regulate our way to a balanced budget,” said Diana Banister, executive director of Ronald Reagan’s former PAC, Citizens for the Republic. “She will be a tremendous asset to the citizens of the first congressional district in Florida and to the nation.”

‐Morton Blackwell, a veteran conservative activist and founder of the Leadership Institute, said: “Rebekah Johansen Bydlak is a brilliant, principled, energetic constitutional advocate.”

‐“Rebekah possesses a wisdom born of years in the trenches, fighting to advance the cause of liberty,” said Jenny Beth Martin, chairman of the Tea Party Patriots Citizens Fund. “We find her youth a positive selling point: She is untainted by experience in the cesspool that exists in our nation’s capital, and will approach public-policy problems with a fresh set of eyes and an open mind for new solutions.”

‐Former congressman Ron Paul (R., Texas) said: “Rebekah is the type of leader the GOP, Florida, and the country need.”

#share#What does Bydlak plan to do, if Sunshine State voters send her to Washington? She hopes to focus on three chief areas as a freshman.

“I would work to end budget-busting programs like Obamacare while taking on the dysfunctional budget system that lets so much waste continue,” she tells me. “We have to get back to regular order, take on the broken appropriations process, and target things like baseline budgeting that encourage big spending.”

Second, Bydlak would “push for real VA solutions and accountability, including large-scale reforms that will allow us actually to fire failed bureaucrats, as well as fix Veterans Choice and push for vouchers and other free-market options.”

Third, and more broadly, Bydlak would “fight back against federal encroachment wherever it next comes down the pipeline, whether on gun rights or religious liberty.”

The first district is the western tip of Florida’s Panhandle. The R+21 district has gone Republican every year since 1994 and features that state’s highest GOP registration, according to the Cook Political Report. Voters in Tuesday’s closed GOP primary will choose among eight candidates, one of whom most likely will replace retiring eight-term Republican Jeff Miller. The GOP nominee will face Democrat Steven Specht, an Air Force veteran who is flying unopposed.

Bydlak’s family has been in the first district since before American independence. She is a direct descendent of Mariana Pingrow Bonifay (1760–1829), known as “the Mother of Pensacola.” While rearing ten children, Bonifay thrived as a businesswoman. She owned property in her own name, built some 600 homes, and operated a cattle ranch and a brickyard.

Bydlak’s great-, great-, great-, great-, great-grandfather was Don Manuel Gonzalez (1767–1838), after whom Gonzalez, Fla., is named. Don Manuel was born in Spain and sought his fortune in the New World. He acquired much of what is now Pensacola through land grants from the Spanish crown. When King Ferdinand VII transferred Florida to the United States in 1821, Andrew Jackson accepted the deed in Gonzalez’s home. Florida’s legislature first met in that residence, dubbed Gonzalia.

#related#In contrast to Bydlak’s nine-generation-long link to Florida, her ties to me stretch back about three years. During that time, I have had the pleasure of working with Rebekah and Jonathan Bydlak as a member of the Coalition to Reduce Spending’s board of advisers. Her professionalism, enthusiasm, and idealism have impressed me throughout this time.

America would be lucky to have in Congress a young leader as dynamic, creative, and dedicated to conservative principles as Rebekah Bydlak. I am delighted to endorse her candidacy and urge patriots in Florida’s first district to support her in the August 30 Republican primary.