Congressman Bean addresses Republican men

Congressman Aaron Bean described the political climate in Washington as a race between good and evil in his talk to the Republican Men of Clay on Jan. 18.

The former Florida Senator who represented Nassau County said his party and the Democrats each are racing to implement their respective versions of the future of the United States.

“I firmly believe there is a race on,” he said. “There is a race to the tipping point. There are those that are in the business to save our country, to save our values, to bring fiscal sanity back to our country.”

Bean added that the nation’s most pressing issue now is the border crisis.

“The other side is purposely having an open border,” he said. “They are doing everything they possibly can to bring every person they can to make our country unsafe— as fentanyl pours in— as just more mouths to feed— whatever you want to say, there’s a problem.”

Bean said he plans to visit the border soon— if he can find it.

“We’re going to go to the border,” he told the crowd at Santioni’s Italian Restaurant in Fleming Island.  “And the joke is, where is it? We don’t even know because there is no border down there. A country without a border is no country at all.”

The congressman also predicted the Democrat’s next strategic move in the immigration debate.

“We’re on to what’s coming,” he said, adding that the Democrat’s next move may come six months from now or two years from now.

“Amnesty,” he declared. “They’re already here. Let’s let everybody stay.”

However, Bean had his own proposal for dealing with the immigration crisis.

“Here’s what we’ve got to do,” he said. “There’s a process for becoming a citizen, and that process has to be in the line that starts in your own country’s embassy.”

That’s where you need to go,” he added, “and that’s the only incentive to go back.”

Election of House Speaker

Bean also talked about the contentious struggle to elect a Speaker of the House, with Kevin McCarthy winning the post on the 15^th ballot.

Bean likened the election of the House Speaker to everyone in the room at Santioni’s agreeing on what to order for dinner. 

“If I said to this group that we need 98% agreement on what we’re all going to order, how long would it take?” he asked. “How long would we be here until we had 98% agreement? And by the way, while we’re debating, I’m going to put some cameras on everybody, and let’s have that live debate going down.”

Bean explained that because of the Republican’s narrow majority in the lower chamber, McCarthy had to get 98% of the GOP members to support him to become speaker.

“There are 222 (Republicans), and we need 218 (to elect a speaker),” he said. “That’s 98% agreement.”

Bean also said that 20 Republicans were elected to the House from districts in which Joe Biden won by over 10 points.

“Now those Republicans probably don’t have the same politics that you or I or anybody here in Clay County has,” Bean said, “but we have to remember without them, we don’t take control, we don’t have the majority, so we have to find a candidate that everybody, 98% could agree on.”

District director hired

Bean announced to the crowd that he had hired his first local staff member.

He said he had hired former school board candidate Bryan Campbell as his district director. Campbell is also the husband of Orange Park Town Manager Sarah Campbell.