Ernest's Speech at his 2026 Campaign Launch Event Iin Lewisville, Texas

Thank you all for coming.                Launch, October 2, 2025        We all have Busy lives and competing priorities, so for you to take your time to be here with us is very meaningful to me.        As much as we put in to putting this together, I’m so excited to see all of you here.

       I want to especially thank our MC, Michael Baumgartner, my Pastor, Pastor Paul Mussachio, Span Executive Director, Michelle McMahon, and speakers, Paige Dixon, Brandon T Jones, and Delia Parker-Mims.  It is indeed humbling to follow these community heroes.  And also, Joe Grizzel with his sound equipment, and Maxine Davis for helping pull all of this together, as well as the good people of Sparrow on Main for working with us, and more.  Thank you all.

Hi, I’m Ernest Lineberger your host, and I’m so grateful for your time, curiosity and support.

Before I get started, I want to recognize any elected officials who might be in the audience.  Please stand or raise your hand. ------ Thank you for being here and for what you do for our community.

If there are any other candidates for office in our audience, please raise your hand now ----- when we enter the Q&A portion, please come down to the mic and introduce yourself – briefly.

As I was introduced, we played a song that was meaningful to me from a very early age.  Anchors Aweigh.  It’s upbeat, positive and energetic as the very act of pulling up the anchor, releasing the ship from its constraint, initiates the beginning of a voyage.  A trip to somewhere important. Now, more vigilance is needed to keep the ship on course and avoid any hazards.  The destination is clear.  Congress!

We are here to announce my continued candidacy for a seat in the US House of Representatives for Texas Congressional District 26.  So much has changed since my late entry into the 2024 race for this seat, making this race in 2026 all the more critical and urgent.

In 2024, I was motivated by the majority Republican House of the do nothing 118^th congress that set a record for doing so little that it caused or inflamed some major issues with inactivity.  Ukraine, for example, ran out of ammunition while the Republican Speaker of the House refused to bring up a bill to authorize more defensive aid… for nine months.  As a veteran, I could not just stand by knowing that good Ukrainian warriors were dying due to our inaction.  It was cruel, immoral, and wrong for the modern peaceful world order.  There were many other issues impacting household economics and personal autonomy.

With the 2024 elections, Republicans have taken control of the Senate and the Executive branch in addition to keeping the House and the Supreme Court.  The new administration has gone on a purge of anyone they can remove.  With Doge, the One Big Bill, and other actions they have reduced the VA, FEMA, FAA, CDC, NIH, IRS, and so much more.  They have totally eliminated the life saving and world partner creating benefits of the USAID organization.  All of this under the false mantra of “cutting Fraud, Waste, and Abuse”.  But with no study of the impact of these changes, no concern for the consequences, they simply wacked to return obligated funds to the general budget.  And to what end?  Not to balance the federal budget.  Not to make life more bearable for millions of struggling Americans.  But to give massive tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans and the largest corporations.  On top of that, there were two winners of huge funding increases in the One Big Bill – Defense Spending and Homeland security to support ICE raids and indiscriminate mass deportations.

Our Representative, Brandon Gill, went along with all of this.  He emphatically supports all of it.  He told us he would fully support Trump and he has been a strong vote for all that they have done.  And why wouldn’t he?  He is on the high, wild ride of his life.  He started off in the financial world.  He left that to enter a life of deceitful propaganda, full of fear, hate and disinformation that he continues even while in office.  His frequent congressional updates are full of partisan emphasis and false proclamations of the evils of the left.  No where in his history do you see service to country or community.  Only disinformation, fear and hate mongering, meant to confuse and separate his followers from reality.

When we travel, we need to be alert.  Watch your wallet.  Keep up with changes in the travel procedures and departure times.  At home, we are more relaxed.  My opponent has taken advantage of that.  He and a strong array of right-wing broadcasts have slipped in to become the trusted uncle.  But they are not worthy of this trust by any of us.  Please be alert.  Be on your guard.  We keep one Ace.  The people’s vote.  But they attack that too.  Making it more confusing and more difficult to vote intelligently to reduce our numbers.  Since my opponent serves only the rich and elite, he needs to use culture wars to divide us and take the votes from those he can. 

Let me be clear.  I’m running for the benefit of all people, regardless of economic class or other means of division.  All.  Not Red vs. Blue.  Not urban vs. rural.  But for the Red, White and Blue together serving all people and putting the people’s needs first!

As many of you know, I am a retired naval officer, specialized in nuclear power, served tours on multiple warships including the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz.  These were times of sacrifice and service, long hours and hard work requiring specialized training and dedication.  After retirement, I worked the technicalities of semiconductor manufacturing at Texas Instruments in Dallas for another 29 years.  These were years of working to keep high paying jobs in this critical industry here in America. 

Long before that, I was the youngest in a family of six where my father was a navy chaplain and Lutheran minister.  We moved a lot and interacted with a wide variety of people.  As I grew up listening to my father’s sermons, my faith developed.  It’s easily boiled down to Love your neighbor and we are all neighbors. 

Our modest middle-class family had a few perks due to my father’s role, including meeting Roger Staubach during his time at the naval academy, witnessing my dad talking to the pope in Rome, and the blessings that come from having many good people in our lives.  I have sought out opportunities to serve, like food banks, sewing encouraging capes for kids with severe illnesses, helping to build wheelchair ramps, being a hospice volunteer, being a reading mentor, an HOA committee chair, a board member for Span/Meals on Wheels of Denton County, an active donor to CCA, United Way, KERA, KIVA, among others.  All of this and more has brought me to the point where I’m ready to serve in a larger role.  I clearly see that we cannot let this seat stay Red unopposed.  Forty-Two years is enough.  We need to take action and take this seat.  We need to make it Red, White and Blue.  We need to flip this seat from perversion of the facts and harm to the community and country, and make it a seat of service and prosperity.  To make it a seat of economic fairness and the rule of law, equal for all.  Texas is a Southern state, but no longer shackled to weak ideas of domination and control.  What we need are good, fair policies.  Policies that help everyone achieve their full potential, establish and maintain a comfortable quality of life with real hope for the future.

Can you imagine what the economy would look like if everyone could afford to live?  With more people paying their bills, hospitals and businesses would be thriving and opening rather than closing.  Growth would add jobs at every level.

But today, we have tariffs, either misunderstood or just falsely characterized by our president, adding a new and extensive tax on consumers.  This takes money from our communities, puts it into the federal budget just to give to the wealthiest in tax cuts, or worse, to be used for ICE detention facilities.

Today we have shootings, some more publicized than others, but we have them every day, in multiple places.  We need to put Responsibility back in Responsible gun ownership.  Enough with the far right trying to have the most lenient gun laws.  We need training, certification, background checks, red flag laws, storage requirements and more.  That has been the norm from my experience, from the Boy Scouts and in the military.  Weapon security.

You don’t have to look far to find reasons to oppose the current administration.  High costs, low wage growth, warrantless raids in our communities, Medicaid reductions, disrespect for others, incompetent cabinet officers, legal attacks with no basis, and more.

As a naval officer, I’ve taken the same oath of office as a congressman multiple times.  Once on commissioning and with each of my promotions.  I’m sworn to support and defend the Constitution.  That includes the bill of rights and all of the other amendments.  Meanwhile, our president says that he isn’t sure that he has to follow the constitution!  And my opponent, runs interference for him, helping prevent congressional action to check his illegal moves.  Well, I say “Enough! Yes, he must follow the Constitution, and we are here to make him do so.  By winning this campaign, we will ensure the right to live in peace with your neighbors.  By winning this campaign, we will ensure the right to enjoy the blessings of liberty and pass them on to our posterity.  By winning this campaign, we will ensure the right to health care unencumbered by excess regulation.  And we will constrain the president from unauthorized use of imaginary emergency powers, and bring the wild ride of tariffs to a controlled stop.  We will address taxation fairly and effectively, ensuring that the working base of our economy are not bearing an unfair share of the burden.

I believe the government’s role is to provide reasonable regulation of business to avoid the unfair power of monopoly and extremely large business, but to also assist business to grow and thrive.  In other words, to make a level economic system by which all who work full time can afford a good and decent quality of life, and to maintain and ensure the social safety nets that keep those at the lower economic levels out of despair.  To provide for the common defense; including a strong national defense against aggressive foreign powers; but also supporting local authorities with training and methods to ensure domestic tranquility; staying at the forefront of research on disease to provide the best available health defense; to manage ports, airports, interstates and more to provide the best defense against unsafe travel and related calamities; to stay alert for new arenas such as the internet and artificial intelligence where Americans require a strong common defense.

There is so much to do.  We need to clean up the mess of the Supreme Court, where they have let money take control of our politics rather than reasoned thinking.  Where they have upended settled law, like Roe v. Wade.  Where they have prevented District courts from making nationwide decisions even where it makes sense.  Where they have given excessive immunity to the Executive Branch almost guaranteeing corrupt activity.  Where they themselves fall prey to ethical disruption with no restraint.

And internationally, we need to do more to help our friends and allies when they are under attack, and also equally restrain our friends and allies when they aggressively take advantage of a weaker neighbor.  The world changes fast.  We have a pivotal role to play in bringing more counties to work together in peace. 

These are the things that I propose to work for when elected.  Not solely focused on the petty details of getting re-elected, or putting down one group in favor of another, but to treat all people equally and with fairness.  There are many more particulars, but I believe this is enough to set the clear difference between myself and my opponent.  When I’m elected, my entire self will be devoted to these measures.  If I fail to win, then you will be saddled with the representative who only works to his own satisfaction and not yours.

I’m Ernest Lineberger, a retired naval officer, running for congress to return the office to dedication and decency to provide real service to the people, to you and all Americans.

As you know, campaigns cost money and require volunteers.  We have such a big job to reach more voters.  Last election, I got over 138000 votes.  We need more.  That will take a multi-faceted approach with ground and electronic voter contacts.  Please donate and share our message to others to increase our reach.

I’m so grateful for you being here, and I welcome your questions.