{"id":25009,"date":"2019-02-15T14:34:36","date_gmt":"2019-02-15T20:34:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=25009"},"modified":"2019-02-15T14:56:11","modified_gmt":"2019-02-15T20:56:11","slug":"brandt-brings-rural-issues-to-the-capitol","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=25009","title":{"rendered":"Brandt brings rural issues to the Capitol"},"content":{"rendered":"

Above: Sen. Tom Brandt on the family farm with wife Sandra and their children Mariah and Evan.<\/em><\/p>\n

Sen. Tom Brandt never envisioned being a politician. The fourth-generation farmer from Plymouth was content working his 1,100 acres, but the misconceptions that some Nebraskans had about rural life bothered him.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople that aren\u2019t farmers have this pastoral image in their mind,\u201d Brandt said. \u201cWe have the same amount of poverty, we have the same amount of kids in need in our schools, but you just don\u2019t see it. I came up here to give voice to those concerns.\u201d<\/p>\n

After filing his candidacy just before the deadline, Brandt took up the unfamiliar tasks of hiring a campaign manager, knocking on doors and walking in parades. For a man who\u2019s slapped bulls and stared down angry rams\u2013\u201cI had one knock me flat one time,\u201d Brandt said\u2014it was a learning experience.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a hoot,\u201d Brandt said. \u201cI learned that is if someone writes you a check for $25, they\u2019re going to tell you what to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t the first time he\u2019d stepped out of his comfort zone. When Brandt graduated from the University of Nebraska in 1982, he\u2019d hoped to work for a company that manufactured agricultural implements, but the prolonged farm crisis meant virtually nobody was hiring, even his family.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn 1982, my dad said \u2018We got enough work for three people and not enough money for one, figure it out,\u2019 \u201d Brandt said.<\/p>\n

He took a job as an industrial engineer with Oscar Meyer-Louis Rich.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can build you a meatpacking plant,\u201d Brandt said.<\/p>\n

And he did so in places like Dakota City, West Liberty, Iowa and Amarillo, Texas. It was at that last stop where he met Sandra Rodriguez, a native of El Paso. The two eventually married and moved to Nebraska.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first few winters were quite a struggle,\u201d Brandt said. \u201cThere\u2019s not a lot of snow in El Paso.\u201d<\/p>\n

The couple has two kids\u2014Evan, who ran the family farm while Brandt was campaigning, and Mariah, who is a captain in the U.S. Air Force. She\u2019s had tours in Afghanistan and Kuwait, and is currently on her third tour overseas.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe can\u2019t tell me anything,\u201d Brandt said. \u201cIf I can find where she is on Google, I can make all the assumptions I want but she won\u2019t confirm anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brandt would love to provide opportunities for Evan and Mariah\u2019s generation; improving rural internet access is a must.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you don\u2019t have adequate broadband in rural areas, the young people are not going to move home. They need broadband to telecommute, to shop, to do their homework, to be entertained; it\u2019s critical infrastructure,\u201d he said. \u201cI can buy a new combine that has NASA-type technology that we can\u2019t use because we don\u2019t have an adequate cloud.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sen. Tom Brandt never envisioned being a politician. The fourth-generation farmer from Plymouth was content working his 1,100 acres, but the misconceptions that some Nebraskans had about rural life bothered him. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25006,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18],"tags":[247],"class_list":["post-25009","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-senator-features","tag-sen-tom-brandt"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/MeetBrandt_blog.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25009","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25009"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25009\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25013,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25009\/revisions\/25013"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/25006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}