KANSAS CITY, Mo. — State Sen. Rick Brattin is eyeing Rep. Vicky Hartzler’s seat in the U.S. Congress.
He filed a Statement of Candidacy form Oct. 25, 2021, with the Federal Elections Commission.
Brattin, 41, a staunch conservative from Harrisonville, announced Monday that he’s running for the 4th District seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.
He’s part of the Missouri legislature’s “conservative caucus,” which has clashed with the GOP majority on several issues, including taxes and Medicare expansion.
Brattin, who owns a construction company and served in the U.S. Marine Corps, is a former Cass County auditor and served in the Missouri House of Representatives from 2010-18 before being elected to the Missouri Senate, where he was elected in 2020.
He repeated the false claim that former President Trump defeated President Biden in the 2020 election during a press conference to announce his candidacy, according to the Missouri Independent.
Brattin grew up in Greenwood and graduated from Lee’s Summit High School.
Hartzler will not seek re-election and instead is running for U.S. Senate in a crowded field to replace retiring Sen. Roy Blunt.
The field to replace Hartzler also has become quite crowded.
State Rep. Sara Walsh of Ashland, Missouri, whose husband died from COVID-19 in August, and former news anchor Mark Alford are running for the GOP nomination along with cattle farmer Kalena Bruce and former Boone County Clerk Taylor Burks.
Walsh’s husband previously served as Hartlzer’s press secretary. She also contracted COVID-19 but recovered.
Former state Sen. Ed Emery also was running for the seat before he died in August.
Burks currently leads the field in campaign fundraising through the third quarter of 2021, which ended Sept. 30, but Bruce isn’t far behind. Both have loaned themselves a substantial amount for the campaign.
Alford and Brattin did not declare for the race until after the third quarter ended, so fundraising totals for them aren't yet available.
The primary is slated for Aug. 2, 2022.
Two Democrats also declared for the primary, but JD Leathers ended his candidacy on Sept. 1 and Anthony Osborne has yet to report any campaign contributions to the FEC.
The primary winners will square off in the general election on Nov. 8, 2022, but the Republican winner is expected to win that seat by a landslide.
The 4th District extends from south of Kansas City east to include a large chunk of mid-Missouri, but that could change when new congressional boundaries are drawn next year based on the 2020 U.S. Census.
Brattin has made headlines in the past for filing controversial bills — including proposed laws that would require a woman to seek a man’s permission before having an abortion, require public schools to teach intelligent design or add an option for use of a firing squad to Missouri’s death-penalty statute.
He also has sought to end tenure at Missouri universities, limit what food SNAP recipients can use benefits to buy, tried to strip Mizzou athletes of their scholarships over the 2015 player boycott, and insinuated that homosexuals aren't human beings in speech on the Missouri House floor in 2017.
Most of Brattin's efforts to court controversy have been stifled in committee by the Missouri legislature.
