For all those of you who made it yesterday to Chief Culp's Speech in Prosser, we are all grateful that you made it! You were probably just as happy as we were to hear Chief Culp. For all those who didn't make it, you really missed A LOT. Below, the transcript of his speech - thank you for sharing it, Chief, and thank you for stepping up and sacrificing for this State! (Ligia Brubaker) ____________________________________________________________________
Thank you all for being here, this is incredible. If someone would have told me as a young man growing up that this would be happening right now I would have told them they are crazy.
But my name is Loren Culp and I am running for the office of Governor of Washington State!
I have never ran for political office, so, you might ask, why am I doing it now? Well I’ll tell you why. I’m sick and tired, as I know you are, of seeing career politician after career politician trampling on our rights and spending our money like a drunken sailor. And I mean no disrespect to any drunken sailors who might be with us today we love our veterans.
As many of you know, I stood up against the unconstitutional anti gun initiative 1639 in November of 2018 and there are now about 24 Sheriff’s in this state who have done the same thing. If there is anyone left on this planet besides Bob Ferguson and Jay Inslee who don’t believe it’s unconstitutional to restrict someone’s God given rights then look up Section 24 of the Washington State Constitution and have a 6th grader tell you what it means, because it’s one simple sentence. “The right of the individual citizen to bear arms in defense of himself of the State shall not be impaired”!
If anyone believes that the constitution doesn’t protect the right to own a semi automatic rifle because they weren’t invented when it was written then I guess the same thing applies to typewriters, computers and the internet when it comes to the 1st Amendment.
If you think that any law that restricts the rights of law abiding citizens is going to have any influence on a criminal that’s intent on doing someone harm, then why hasn’t the law against committing murder taken care of the problem? Criminals don’t obey the law. Rest assured folks, It’s not about making us safer, it’s about control. All you have to do is look at history.
Jay Inslee and Bob Ferguson intentionally misled the voters of this state and they continue to push laws restricting citizen’s rights to this day and they are proud of it. I have personally talked to some of those voters that were misled and they aren’t happy, in fact they are downright mad about being misled.
Martin Luther King said and I quote:
“There are two types of laws; just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.”
I was thrust into the national spot light because of my position on this. I became a voice for you. Not by my planning and not by my design. It just happened. You see, I took a public oath, not once, not twice, but 3 times: once in the US army, once as a police officer and once as the Chief of Police. That promise that I made when I took that oath was to you, my friends and my family. I promised that I would uphold and defend the constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of Washington. I have kept that promise, even at the risk of my career because I believe in keeping my word and I believe in our founding documents.
Before anyone takes office they say the same oath. Sadly, far too many don’t keep their word to you. They go through the motions and repeat the words but 5 minutes later they forget all about it. That oath is not to one amendment or one part of the Constitution, it’s to the whole thing. The beauty of our founding documents is that they protect everyone equally, but only if they are followed by elected officials.
The Declaration of Independence says that governments are instituted to protect citizen’s rights. That is the founding principle of our government. It’s not the role of government to take care of us from the cradle to the grave. If you elect me as your next governor I will ensure that any bill crossing my desk will pass three tests. Is it Constitutional? Is it needed? And do we have the money to pay for it?
I don’t care what your race or sex is, I don’t care if you are a Democrat or a Republican, liberal or conservative or somewhere in-between. We are all citizens of Washington State. We are all supposed to be equally protected under the Constitution. Most of us have the same goals in life. Live peacefully, love our friends and family, work hard and if we are lucky, live long enough to retire. But in the process of that we don’t need a bloated government in Olympia telling us what to do at every turn and taxing us like there is no limit.
If you elect me as your next Governor I will be a governor for all of the citizens of Washington State. I will work tirelessly to reduce the size and scope of government interference in our lives and businesses. When I took over as the Chief of Police of Republic we cut about 25% from the police department budget in the first month, saving the tax payers about $120,000 per year. That is a huge amount for a small town and reducing the budget can be done at the State level as well, it just takes the will to see it done!
Free people don’t need government telling them what to do all the time. If you elect me, you will have a Governor who respects the rule of law and respects citizen’s rights as outlined in our Constitution. That is my promise to you and I have a pretty good track record of keeping my word!
I’m just a common man, willing to work for common people, for a common purpose, which is freedom! Freedom from high taxes. Freedom from excessive regulations. Freedom from a government in Olympia that doesn’t share the same values that we do and treats the working hard playing hard citizens of this State as a cash cow.
Now, I have no experience being a politician. I have no doubt that my opponents, whoever they may be, will try to use that against me. But career politicians have been running things for decades in this State and look where we are. Are you happy with the results?! What have you got to lose by giving me a chance to fix things using common sense with a 20 year business owners background. Restrictive laws, high taxes, massive regulations, human feces on the sidewalks of our major cities, dirty needles lying around and criminals that go through a revolving door or don’t get charged to begin with. That’s what we have now.
We currently have a governor who is running around the United States acting like we don’t notice he is spending our tax dollars for his vanity run for President. By the way I think Jay Inslee and I are tied in the race for President and I’m not even running.
Jay Inslee says it’s lawful for him to spend tax payer money for his campaign. But remember Martin Luther King’s quote about just laws? Is it a just Law you are hiding behind Mr. Inslee? Is it just, for you to spend the people’s money like you are for your own ambitions? I can’t imagine, even if it was lawful, for me to ask the citizens of Republic to pay my salary for a job, if I wasn’t there doing it, but not only that, pay extra for my security detail like he is.
Have you had enough of career politicians yet?! Our founders didn’t have experience running a free country but they had the will, the determination and the common sense to get it done and they did a dam fine job!
I will probably make some mistakes along the way. I don’t have degrees from an Ivy League university to hang on my wall. I don’t have millions of dollars in the bank. But what I do have is common sense and a strong work ethic. Common sense isn’t something you can learn from reading a book or taking a class. It is so lacking in our States leadership right now. Common Sense is what I have and what I will bring to the table as your next Governor.
Folks, We are citizens of America, right, left, conservative, liberal, black, white, brown, it doesn’t matter to me. We are all one State, we are all part of one Nation and we are all one people. I plan on representing all citizens of Washington State. We have become so divisive lately. Some have forgotten what it means to be an American and how to have a dialog with each other about issues we may differ on. We can still be different and have different points of view on things but we can still respect each other.
Let me tell you a true story. When I was a Sergeant in the U.S. Army in 1983, I was stationed in South Korea for 357 days straight. My little boys didn’t even recognize who I was when I got home but I was serving a higher purpose. While I was there I participated in a joint military exercise called Team Spirit. All of the branches of the US military along with South Korean Forces were involved. It was huge. There were ships and tanks and aircraft all around the country. We would travel long distances in large army trucks and jeeps along small dirt roads, all around Korea. There were small villages dotted along the roads in the country side and all of them were surrounded by rice paddies.
When the convoys of trucks loaded with GI’s and equipment would get close to a village. All of the people who lived there, including little children, would hear the trucks coming and they would all run up and line the edge of the road. They would wave to us with one hand, big smiles on their faces and in their other hand they waved small American Flags as we drove by. They didn’t care what race or political affiliation the men and women were inside the trucks. They cared about what we represented. What we meant to them. What we stood for. Which was Freedom and liberty. We need to remember here at home to stand up for that same freedom and liberty. That is something that people in other countries realize more than we do sometimes. There have been too many flag drape coffins of our nations heroes for us not to stand up.
We need to get back to the basics folks. Back to what made this country so great which is a small, nonintrusive, simple government. A government that isn’t involved in your daily lives with its hand in your pocket. Back to what our founders said in the Declaration of Independence; that government was created to protect citizen’s rights.
If you elect me as your Governor I promise you I will fight for smaller government every single day! Somebody once said “A government that can give you everything you want can take everything you have”. And it’s true, you can’t have freedom and liberty with a big bloated government ruling over you!
I’ve been married to my wife Barb for 41 years this year. I was a small business owner for over 20 years starting in 1988 in the Olympia area. I know the struggles of running a business. I started out with a 1976 Datsun pickup that I bought from my Grandpa for $600. I started my business doing concrete foundations around Olympia. I had to make multiple trips in that old small truck to get the concrete forms moved from one job site to another and I only had one employee at the time. But I was free, working for myself, experiencing the American dream. I built that business up from nothing to having multiple trucks and multiple employees doing big and small projects all around Puget sound. My youngest son still runs that business to this day.
Government didn’t help me do that, government hindered me with taxes and regulations and it’s gotten a lot worse since then. Ask any small business owner in this state and they will tell you that taxes and regulations make it very hard on them and many struggle to keep the doors open. I’m not anti government but I am anti big government.
A couple of days ago I was traveling back home after going to the Grant County Fair. I stopped in Soap Lake for dinner at the Coulee Cruisers diner. I talked to the owner of that business as I have many small business owners and she was very upset. Upset that the government was telling her what she had to pay her employees. She could barely afford to keep the doors open as it is and said if they raise the minimum wage to $15. She would be forced to go out of business. Big chain restaurants can afford to put in automated checkout, like you see in McDonalds and Wal-Mart but small mom and pop operations can’t. The State is hurting the very people it claims to want to help. The State is on a collision course with small local businesses and it is running them out of business.
When was the last time you heard of taxes being lowered and rules and regulations being cut? Never! Taxes keep getting higher and regulations more restrictive. Our State government acts like we work for them instead of the other way around. That will change when I’m elected! Lower taxes and fewer regulations lead to more individual freedom and a powerful economy. That’s something all Washingtonians should embrace.
Let’s talk about the so called Homeless Crisis for a minute.
I could say so much about this. First of all I don’t agree with the term Homeless Crisis. I don’t believe this issue is all about homes. I believe there is a major problem with mental health and addiction that is causing the majority of this problem. Here is where common sense comes into play. If you reward bad behavior, you get more of it. That’s what is going on right now under the nose of Jay Inslee and Bob Ferguson. Seattle and other places around Puget Sound have stopped arresting and charging anyone with 3 grams or less of heroin. That is a felony in this state and they are ignoring it.
What would do you think would attract more heroin users to an area more than not having any punishment for possessing and using heroin? And guess what? The drug dealers who are pushing this poison adjust to this new policy and only carry small amounts on them at a time. The go out and deal 3 grams and then go back to their stash and get 3 grams more. That is what is going on with this so called “homeless crisis”. Reward bad behavior and you get more of it. Not only that but we as tax payers supplement their income with EBT cards. Why don’t we have random drug testing for people on public assistance like we do for people who work for a living? Isn’t that common sense?
Tough enforcement and compassionate treatment is what is necessary for people with addictions to get clean. That is what has worked in my career as a police officer and that’s what can work on a bigger scale all across the state. It just takes someone with common sense and the will to do it, I will be that person. There is no bigger reward than to have experienced what I have as a police officer. Many people hate me when they get arrested and taken to jail for narcotics crimes.
They are forced to make a decision by the courts. Go to rehab and get clean or go to jail. Most choose getting clean. When they finish treatment, get clean and get their family back, their life back, they tell me I saved their lives and they are very thankful. I’ve experienced that multiple times in my police career. That’s how you show compassion, with tough love.
On the other hand our States attorney general and Governor turn a blind eye to these felonies because they prefer to go after constitutionally protected rights and sue the Trump administration. Meanwhile these people continue to suffer in addiction and they are joined by more and more people from different places around the country because they won’t face consequences in Seattle. That is the major reason the streets are filling up with tents, feces and needles.
Mental health facilities in this state are a joke. For example, Western State hospital has a budget to upgrade the infrastructure of the hospital that treats the mentally ill to the tune of over 30 million dollars. 23 million has already been spent and nothing works. Who is in charge of this? Jay Inslee! Who is being held accountable for this waste? Have you heard? No one that I know of. This is gross mismanagement.
When the police pick someone up who has tried to kill themselves, most of the time, there is no place for them to go so they are sent home after only a couple hours. Does that sound like common sense to you? These people are crying out for help but sorry, the state is wasting millions and has no place for you to get help. This can’t continue, it is absolutely unacceptable.
I could go on and on but I won’t because you’ve got better things to do with your day. I’m not the type of person who likes to hear myself talk. I prefer action over words. Lots of politicians can talk circles around people until you forget what they are even talking about. I think they prefer that but I’m not that way, I will tell you direct how I feel or I’ll think on it and get back to you if I don’t have an answer for you right away. That may upset some people but that’s the way I am. I don’t want to talk things to death I want to get to work and I will work for you like no one you have ever seen, if you give me the chance. I know the answers to these problems, it’s just good old fashioned common sense folks.
It’s going to take a lot to turn this ship around but we are about to hit the rocks if we don’t. We need donations to make this happen there are no two ways about that. Even small donations will add up. These nice ladies will take donations here or you can go to our website at CULP FOR GOVERNOR DOT COM and donate online.
I do have some good news though. The citizens of Washington State are not alone in this fight. We are getting individual donations from all across the United States. People in Alaska have joined our fight. California and Oregon have joined our fight. Vermont and Florida have sent financial help. America is watching what we are doing right now and ladies and gentlemen we are going to make history right here in Washington State!
People in other states are helping because they care about freedom and liberty just as much as we do even though this isn’t their state. Freedom resonates with all Americans. And guess what part of Washington has the most people donating right now? From Everett to Tacoma and the greater Seattle area. That is where the most donations are coming from right now. That is amazing and I haven’t even talked to any major news outlets in Eastern Washington yet. This is going to be huge and I’m so glad you are all a part of it.
May God Bless America and May God Bless Washington State! So, who’s ready to send common sense to Olympia!? Let’s Do what we do!