As Brandon Gill rumbled along on a tractor at his family’s cattle ranch in Texas, it was not country music that helped him pass the time.
Instead, even as a child, Gill listened intently to talk radio shows and audiobooks by conservatives. Political chatter was his preference.
So it is not surprising that his early love led to a desire to serve in Congress. He is now a freshman lawmaker representing Texas’s 26th Congressional District.
Love of a different kind led Gill to find himself engaging in lively discourse with one of the most prominent commentators in conservative politics over holiday meals.
That is because the young Texan married Danielle D’Souza, daughter of political commentator Dinesh D‘Souza. Danielle D’Souza has hosted a show on The Epoch Times’ video platform, EpochTV.
“Dinesh is a sort of political mentor of mine,” Gill told The Epoch Times. “But most importantly, he’s my father-in-law and grandfather to my little daughter.”
They converse about history, economics, and philosophy—not just politics, Gill said.
“It certainly makes for really interesting Christmas dinner conversations.”
Young Republican
Gill paid attention to conservative pundits’ thoughts even as a young child, he said.
“I grew up listening to Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck and Michael Savage and talk radio, grew up listening to audiobooks by conservative authors,” he said. “So that was the sort of environment I was steeped in. I’ve been interested in this for a very long time.”
Economist and philosopher Thomas Sowell also helped shape Gill’s conservative beliefs.
“On a fundamental level, conservatives and liberals have very different views of human nature,” Gill said.
He said that Sowell’s book “A Conflict of Visions” explains that according to conservative philosophy, humans ”are made in God’s image.” The book, he said, outlines how “conservatism acknowledges the importance of human dignity and freedom and opportunity and the value of life.”
Conservatism, Gill said, recognizes that humans are not infallible and that they “need institutions to help mediate imperfect human behavior.”
In the United States, Gill said, conservative values include a desire for “limited government,” as well as “the principles of the Constitution and freedom and liberty and the principles of the founding [of the country].”
Goals in Congress
Gill succeeded former Rep. Michael Burgess (R-Texas), who served in Congress for 22 years before deciding not to run for reelection in 2024.Burgess, a physician, focused on health care in Congress.
Gill said he aims to tighten border security.
Fighting Injunctions
On March 18, Gill filed a resolution to impeach Judge James Boasberg of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.Boasberg said he based the decision on numerous factors, such as the likelihood that the plaintiffs would succeed in the case. The plaintiffs had sued the Trump administration, saying that five Venezuelans involved in the deportation were not members of the gang.
“By making a political decision outside the scope of his judicial duties, he compromised the impartiality of our judicial system and created a constitutional crisis.”
In February, Gill took on Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), best known as part of the unofficial group of Democrats known as “the Squad.”
Omar immigrated to the United States from Somalia in the 1990s. Now a U.S. citizen, she has been in Congress since January 2019. The district she represents has a large Somali population.
“Disclosure of your name, immigration status, and the mode of entry is not mandatory,” Omar said. “Learn the laws and prepare yourself and refrain from disclosing information that you would prefer them not know.”
But he said that “given the past four years of open borders,” he sees a “serious problem” in how Democrats are “facilitating the invasion of [the] country by illegal aliens.”
“My colleague Ilhan Omar was advising illegal alien Somalis on how to evade ICE detection,” he said. “That is as un-American as you can possibly get.”
Words of Wisdom
When away from Capitol Hill, Gill said, he likes to read and spend time with his wife and their 18-month-old daughter, Marigold.He told The Epoch Times that if he could go back in time to give advice to himself as a younger person, he would say this: “Spend a lot of time getting to know other people and learning from them as much as possible. I think that you can learn a lot from not only peers, but older people and mentors.
“And then spend a lot of time reading. It’s a good way of getting into somebody else’s head, a really smart person’s head.”
That is a lot like what he did as a child, bouncing along while perched on a tractor seat.
Now, the cattle ranch kid who cultivated conservative ideals under the blazing Texas sun is putting those ideals to work in the halls of Congress.
