Conservative Champion: Ben Brown
Ben Brown is a fighter. He’s battled in various arenas, from the wrestling ring and mixed-martial arts cages to standing up to government overreach.
And now in our state’s capitol, he’s advocating for a stronger Missouri.
This is his story.
Before he became a state senator, Brown was a business owner. Before becoming a business owner, Brown was a mixed martial arts (MMA) fighter and wrestler.
Brown has always had a knack for competition, and the ring was where he learned most of life’s most important lessons. Wrestling taught him humility and showed him that an individual’s success depends on their work ethic and resilience.
Brown would tell you firsthand that his wrestling career didn’t get off to a strong start. In fact, in the beginning, he lost all his matches. Those failures didn’t stop him but fueled him further.
William Author Ward’s quote, “Adversity causes some men to break and others to break records”, quickly became his mantra. He put his nose to the grindstone and went to work.
The results? Becoming a state medalist by the end of high school career.
In college, Brown transitioned from wrestling to MMA during his time at the University of Missouri. It was during that time that he trained with greats like Tyrone Woodly.
Around this time, Brown started thinking about owning a business.
When he wasn’t competing, you could find him reading business books. It wasn’t long until he started developing concepts of his own, specifically in the restaurant business.
He eventually came across a restaurant that was for sale. It was called Satchmos.
Where many saw a floundering business, Brown saw opportunities. He knew that if he approached the challenges of running a business like he had in his wrestling days, then he would succeed. He decided to go all in.
The results came quickly. As soon as he assumed ownership, he grew the business of Satchmos by 10% each year.
In 2020 he was on pace for a banner year, but then COVID happened.
Owning a restaurant during that time was especially difficult. The government essentially shut the industry down.
One day, Brown decided enough was enough. He started to mobilize and created a digital petition that garnered support from over 4,000 activists.
He created calls to action for the industry to be reopened. The result of his efforts led to positive change. He became the driving force behind the “Curbside cocktails” effort.
After achieving this victory, things started to normalize.
Brown thought he was done with politics, but then the city of Washington implemented a mask mandate.
Seeing this as a direct violation of the 1st Amendment, Brown went to work again.
Brown took his message to the city council. At one of the hearings, Brown exposed the mayor of Washington for being at a party where there were no masks. Considering the mayor’s role in advocating mandatory masking, this was a classic “rules for thee, but not for me” moment.
Brown exposed this hypocrisy and this caught the attention of folks in the area.
The mandate was challenged and there ended up being a split vote on the mandatory masking. This left the tie-breaking vote up to the mayor.
In a surprising move, the mayor ended up voting against the mandate proposal that she created!
Another victory for Brown! There would be no rest for the weary though.
Brown and all restaurant owners were notified that St. Louis County Executive Sam Page was shutting down restaurants due to “health code” violations.
Those that stayed open would have their health permits taken away by the health department.
Brown went to work again, building a coalition of restaurant owners to fight this. All received letters threatening fines and imprisonment, which caused some owners to succumb to the pressure.
But not Brown! This only brought more media attention and increased pressure to comply.
But he didn’t back down. He knew that he was setting an example for his kids. They needed to understand the importance of standing on principle, even if it costs you something.
He sued DHSS claiming that the covid mandates were unconstitutional due to a separation of powers violation. He ended up winning and delivered another victory for the people of Missouri. Later on, Eric Schmitt used the ruling in that victory to end mask mandates in schools across the state.
The people recognized Brown as their champion, and they wanted to see him continue his service in Jefferson City.
Brown would run for the state Senate and win. He has only delivered for the Show Me State since taking office.
Thanks to Brown’s efforts, Missouri has taken great strides in becoming a national leader on election integrity.
His leadership in shepherding legislation to ban non-citizen and ranked-choice voting through the general assembly has the opportunity to take effect after November 5th.
Passing Amendment 7 will ensure that only citizens can vote in our elections, and that left-winged voting systems cannot be used in our state.
Brown doesn’t plan on stopping there. He knows there is still work to be done to secure our elections. One of his priorities includes banning the foreign funding of state ballot initiatives.
Will this bring another fight?
We know that there are other champions like Ben Brown out there, but we cannot find them by ourselves. We need YOUR help.
Know a strong Conservative like Ben Brown? We want to know about them. We want to share their story. Nominate a CONSERVATIVE CHAMPION today!
Spencer Bone
Executive Director
Liberty Alliance USA