U.S. Congressional District 19 covers a portion of the Texas panhandle from north of Lubbock down to Abilene. For ten years, the district has been represented by Congressman Jodey Arrington.
Arrington is not running for reelection and there are seven other candidates hoping to earn the spot to represent the Republican party in the November general election.
KTTZ in Lubbock and KACU in Abilene have partnered to provide in-depth interviews with the candidates. KACU attempted to reach out to candidate Ryan Zink, but did not get a reply before deadline.
Dr. Donald May is a veteran, farmer, and non-practicing retina surgeon in Lubbock. He has served on the city's board of health, served university and international medical centers, and worked with veterans to provide trauma care.
You can find interviews with other District 19 Republican candidates here.
Early voting runs Feb. 17-27 and Election Day is March 3.
The following transcript has been edited for clarity:
Brad Burt: Thank you, Dr. Donald May for joining us today. Just to get started, you're a doctor here in Lubbock.
Dr. Donald May: I'm a retina surgeon. I am not practicing medicine. I'm doing other things in consulting at this time, but my career has been based on retina surgeries, particularly the repair of severe trauma, military and civilian.
Brad Burt: You also served on the Board of Health in Lubbock, didn’t you?
Dr. Donald May: I served on the Board of Health for four terms. We shut down Planned Parenthood, and we did a lot of other good things, provided good care for the people, vaccinations and such. So we did some good things with that Board of Health, and it's still going strong.
BB: What are some things that you learned while you were on the board that may influence how your decisions are made if you are elected to Congress?
DM: I would say I brought things to the board. I didn't necessarily learn anything while I was there. Decisions made in Congress are going to be based on my experiences as a military person, as a farmer. I'm a sixth-generation farmer. My wife is a third-generation farmer. We've been developing and using artificial intelligence on our farming operation for almost 20 years. I've been working with people in Silicon Valley for almost 42 years, since I met my wife, who farms out there, and I've got a background in artificial intelligence. I was out there in the fall of ‘24 when the four computers talking with each other started excluding the humans, and everybody got excited and went to President Trump. And President Trump said, we can't let the Chinese get ahead of us. So we have to forge onward. So Brad, we're going to be the epicenter of artificial intelligence in the world here. We've got Texas Tech, we're bringing in nuclear power to run these. We have phenomenal, phenomenal opportunities.
BB: AG Commissioner Sid Miller has talked about these data centers that have come up in West Texas. His concern is both on the water that is used by some of these facilities, as well as the land that they take up in a big agricultural district. Do you share any of these concerns?
DM: Well, we need to have land. West Texas, the United States, we feed the world. We can provide all the fiber, all the food, all the energy for the entire world. Think of that. The capabilities and we here in West Texas are again at the center of that. Land, I believe, is more of a state issue. That's a zoning issue. And I don't know that the federal government should be getting into local zoning issues. And I don’t know that the federal government should involve itself in that. The other issue is control of how the data is being developed, and we're more concerned of how the safeguards are put in. What do we keep the Chinese from getting? I do not agree with President Trump on giving, selling Chinese high tech chips. I don't think that's a good idea.
BB: You have been campaigning for a while now. What are some of the big issues that you're hearing from West Texans that you've spoken to?
DM: Well, what West Texans are concerned about, Sharia law. They don't want foreign law coming into the country. For the last 100 years, people have been citing foreign law in Supreme Court cases and others that doesn't have a place there. People are concerned about prices: farmers, myself included, oil people, gas producers, are not getting a lot of money for their product, but the inputs that we pay are enormously high. So if it costs more to raise a pound of cotton than you get for it, or to produce a barrel of oil, or to produce a pound of corn, that puts the farmer or the oil producer in significant risk. We use older equipment on our farm. My tenant's very excellent mechanic, has a good crew, and we use somewhat older equipment. We upgrade it with computers. Like I said, we've been using AI for more than a decade, and we repair our own equipment. I think that needs to be an option for the farmers; when they buy new equipment, that they be able to do some of the repairs of axle brakes or something. If they've got the shop to do it, they should be able to do it and to save some money and get themselves on the way.
BB: You talked a bit about the concerns around Sharia law and Islam in Texas. But, I mean, is that really a major issue for West Texans?
DM: West Texans are concerned, like most people are. Because when you have some people stand up and say, ‘We are superior, you will submit,’ it gets people's attention.
BB: But judicial experts have already said that they can say whatever, but the Sharia law is not judicial law. I mean, they can –
DM: Right, that's the whole point. People don't want it to become. Again, this is something going the people are afraid of. We need to address it. We have freedom of religion in this country. That means we're free to practice our religion, as long as we do not impinge on somebody else or put down their rights. That includes our Muslim friends, our Buddhist friends, our Hindu friends. Everybody's protected, but people can't come and say, we're going to impose our law on you.
BB: President Trump's tariffs. Do you think that they have been helpful or harmful to the West Texas economy?
DM: They have been overall helpful, because what they've done is allowed him to negotiate and get the problem we dealt with coming in was the huge tariffs other countries had on us. Canada, for instance. If I sold corn, I went to Canada, there was a 10% tariff. If people sold dairy goods, it was much, much higher. It was almost impossible to sell dairy goods from Michigan and Minnesota into Canada, which wanted them.
BB: Are you concerned about the President's recent proposals for the Argentine beef imports affecting ranchers in our area with the current cattle shortage?
DM: Bringing down the price of beef by increasing the supply. The old supply and demand: if there isn't a lot of beef, the price of beef goes up. So I'm all in favor of the American rancher getting a good price for the beef. Contrary to that is the Americans consumer. Do we want lower prices for the consumer? Yes. Do we want good prices for the farmers? Yes. It's a difficult balance.
BB: Kind of flipping it to the meat packing side, to the processing side. Donald Trump has called for investigations on some of the companies over the meat packing industry, over concerns for price fixing. Would you support investigation in some of the–
DM: I think anytime we've got concern, we need to look at it. That doesn't mean – investigation does not equate to guilt. We need the meat packers to be able to make a good profit. It is tough, dangerous work, and we have skilled people in there, semi-skilled people who need to be paid well, the people who own the companies. And we don't want the Chinese owning those companies.
BB: The Farm Bill is a responsibility of Congress. What do you think West Texans need to see out of the Farm Bill?
DM: Well, Jodey Arrington has done some really good things. I think he's our – he’s done more than all the other people combined in the last 75 years. The Farm Bill is mainly food for the poor, and we need to do that. But there's two separate parts. There's the farmer part, and then there is the SNAP, and other part to feed people. More of that feeding responsibility needs to come back to communities, come back to the states, the food banks and so forth. We need to get a better way of doing that. What do we farmers need? We need good markets. Trump is working to do that. That's one thing. We need better working relationships with the providers.
One of the problems, just like in the pharmaceutical industry, is most of the money is sucked out by the middlemen. Not big pharma, not the pharmacy, but the people who are in between. The same thing happens with inputs. We want big pharma, because [if] we don't have big pharma, we're not going to get the miracle drugs and the cancer cures of the future. We need multi-billion dollar industries who can do that. Same thing as we need multi-billion or trillion dollar industries producing our oil, and gas, and our automobiles, and everything else. Because these companies make money because they produce a good product, and they sell it at a good price to the consumer.
BB: Let's talk about health a little bit. Rural hospitals have been experiencing staffing shortages. Do you think there's anything that Congress could do to make sure that these hospitals are still providing access to health care?
DM: We need to look at how funding is done. Funding is done mainly now by our federal government. With the advent of Medicare, Medicaid, Medicare Part D for pharmaceuticals. I sat on the advisory board of the American Pharmaceutical Association for about 10 years before Medicare Part D came in. My major position there was we found ways to provide free medication to poor people. Logical people need to sit down and say, ‘how do we fix this problem? How do we get a fair price for the patient so the patient can afford it?’ We can't have people dying or going blind because they can't afford their medicines. Again, this needs to be looked at. This is a problem because the American people are getting squeezed on pharmaceutical prices. And one of the great solutions is this program that the private industry and Donald Trump came out with. For every child born, you put $1,000 in, and if you don't do anything with that, and you put that in select stock and bond funds – about a 60-40 break stock to bonds, there's going to be an average of $80,000 there when that kid turns 18. And if mom and dad, or grandpa and grandma, or some company, or the employer puts more in, that kid could have two or $300,000 and if We did that same thing, Brad, with our Medicare and and our social security and gave patients individual accounts, and then in healthcare allowed us to have health savings accounts where we could take pre-tax money, and our employer could take pre-tax money, or the government could take pre-tax money and put it in there, And we've got that money to spend on our pharmaceuticals, our healthcare and so forth.
So when people go in and the doc says, ‘hey, I think I do this $5,000 MRI on you.’ Well, why? Well, I don't have a good reason. Or then we'll just make sure. Well, the patient may say, ‘You know, let's just dribble the ball here a little bit. Maybe, I don't think, maybe we need this.’ Or get a CT scan and, you know, ‘No, I really don't want my chance of cancer increased.’ The patient can come in and help make decisions. And the other thing we have to do is get a handle on the liability. Patient goes into the ER here, unknown to the ER, has a headache in the middle of the night. Is it a migraine? Is it some type of vascular headache? Could it be an aneurysm ready to blow? Could it be a cancerous tumor ready to bleed? Nobody knows, but the patient doesn't leave until their head's been scanned, because otherwise, if something goes wrong, the trial lawyers are going to be down in the butt of that hospital and shut it down.
BB: They got to get treatment.
DM: And again, we got to protect hospitals. Before I came here, I was chairman of Ophthalmology at Tulane in New Orleans, and I helped run Charity Hospital. Largest charity hospital in the country, 1,200 beds. Again, things go wrong. One week, they killed about a dozen patients with blood transfusions. Bad mistake, bad management. The head of the – physician who was head of it got fired, but the feds came in and said, ‘We're going to shut you down.’
Problems come up, but we need protection. We need better control. We need better things. And the feds came in, and I was sitting at a table, about 15 of us around the table, a couple from the federal government, couple from the state, bunch of nuns who ran the hospital. And then there were some senior surgeons like me and Fed said, ‘We're going to shut you down tonight, remove all your patients.’ I said, ‘We got 1200 patients here. Where are you going to put 1200 sick patients?’ Well, the hospital stayed open. We worked with the feds. We got things fixed out, we got reaccredited, and we got things done. Before that, I was at University of California Davis, the hospital was surgery was discredited by some things going on that shouldn't. I not only got them fully reaccredited, but we got them a full accreditation for multiple years. And while I was doing that, I made that the first level one – I made it the first smoke free hospital in the country. Came here, met good people, Tom Shires and other people here. And we made this the first level one trauma center in Texas, one of the first in the country. So we can do things. I've got a background, I understand how to get these things done. And we need, number one, to protect the American people. We need to protect our country. We need to make sure that entities providing for us can make a fair profit and have good competition. Yes, I want America First. I want us to lead. Why do I want us to lead? Because we do things well and we're good people. And we need to be that shining light on the hill and spread that to the rest of the country.
BB: One of the big priorities for the Trump administration has been immigration. Current activities from I. Has drawn some protests, and polls are showing low approval of the current enforcement efforts. But do you support the methods the President is using? Do you have any reform that you would offer to the immigration system if you were elected?
DM: Reforms and changes will come with time and regarding the issues, because I don't know what the issues are going to be there in 10 months. But I am very much number one getting violent criminals out of our system. And I think everybody should be, Democrat and Republican. I'm a trauma surgeon. I've seen what happens in war. I've seen what happens in violence. I see what happens in the bars here in Lubbock when three-in-the-morning, somebody gets mad, angry, and takes a long neck bottle and breaks it on the bar and sticks the other guy in the eye. And then I've seen what the drug cartels do to people. And I've done surgery on drug cartel people. I've done surgery on bad people. I've done surgery on good people. I've done surgery on innocent people.
We need to keep criminal elements out. There is no excuse to allow a criminal, a violent criminal, to go back on the streets. From what I understand from what I see in the news, like you do, what I see in talking with law enforcement is ICE is selectively taking out the worst of the worst. Unfortunately, it's been politicized. In my opinion, there's been a lot of bad information put out there against ICE saying that they're doing things that they shouldn't. Problem comes in with children; somebody robs a bank here. You know, he might have a wife, or she might have a spouse and children at home, but they still go to jail. I mean, this is something we've dealt with. You don't get a pass on robbing a bank because you got a baby at home. I mean, there's ways that's taken care of. The same thing with illegal aliens. With the aliens, they've been very careful, I believe, in keeping families together. One of the problems is several 100,000 children came into this country, and they're finding those children, and they're rescuing them because a large number of those children are being put into the slave sex trade. And the slave sex trade is something that we, both sides of the political aisle, Brad, have not adequately addressed. How many sex slaves do we have in Lubbock? I don't know. I would guess a couple dozen or 100. I don't know, but I've seen websites where they advertise, openly advertise, prostitution services, here in Lubbock. Go there and you pick out your prostitute and whatever. How many of those are sex slaves? So this is something we need to address, the children, the sex slave issue.
We need immigrants, every one of us. Your ancestors, my ancestors, we all came from somewhere. Just like if I have somebody come to my house or my business, I want to know who they are. I don't want them just coming, coming in the door. We need to know who they are. We need to bring good people here. My great grandfather told me stories of his grandparents who came over and told stories of when they got here. They were carefully screened, they were checked out medically, they were made sure that they were able to work. And people who weren't, they were put on a boat and sent back, because we wanted people here who could take care of themselves, and help each other, and protect their families. So we've got a lot of work to do. We need immigrants here. We need skilled immigrants. I've worked with dozens, hundreds of medical professionals who come from – physicians and surgeons and nurses and technicians who have come from India, the Philippines, Japan, and added greatly to our country. Same thing in nuclear physics. And we need people here. We need skilled workers. We need semi-skilled workers.
BB: What are some issues that you would be willing to work with Democrats on if you were to be elected?
DM: Every issue. I don't have anything that I wouldn't work with a Democrat on. There's nothing, nothing that I won't work on. I mean national security. I think we all believe that we need to be protected. We all need to protect the people. I believe that welfare and education belong at the state level. I think welfare education is from the home, the immediate community, the immediate school, immediate health care, the county. You know, if we have county hospitals to take care of the people in that county, and then the next level is a state, national security. I don't think any of the Democrats want to have to learn Chinese, any more than they wanted us to have to learn Japanese or German. There isn't anything that I can't work with on Democrats, but that doesn't mean that I'm going to acquiesce or let them do things that I don't think are good. But we learn from each other. If I work with a Democrat, they understand how I think. If I work with a Democrat, I understand what they see as the problems. Okay, these aren't we're all human beings. We want what's best for this country. We darn well better get together and do this. And we got to keep the deep state out. We've got to have a strong military, one of our candidates does not want us involved in foreign wars. Well, I've seen what wars do. I don't want foreign wars either, but the only way you prevent foreign wars is keep bad guys from getting in power.
BB: There have been some concerns with Trump's executive orders and the powers that he's taken. Some concerns that Congress may not be asserting itself to the level that it is intended for with the division of powers. Do you think that Congress still has the ability to assert itself, holding the executive branch to account?
DM: Well, the executive– the legislative branch and the executive branch are two separate entities. They're co-equal powers. They have checks and balances on each other. When our constitution was put together, Article One, Article Two, the legislative branch and the executive branch. Article Three, the Supreme Court was created as a lesser entity. It has brought itself up, and politicians have brought it up, to a stronger level than it was intended to be.
I do not see that Trump is overgoing what he's doing. If people don't like what he's doing, they could have not voted for him. He's doing what he said he was going to do. If Congress doesn't like what he's doing, the house has the ability to write law. That's the purpose. So they can write a law which limits his power or changes what he is doing, and it gets passed by the House, gets passed by the Senate. He has veto power, but Congress – if he's doing something wrong, they can override his veto and make it law. Supreme Court can affirm it. So we have those checks and balances in place.
BB: Congressman Jodey Arrington represented District 19 for 10 years. Would you do things differently than Arrington if you were to be elected and how so?
DM: I think Jodey, like we said before, I think Jodey did more for our country and for West Texas and all the other people before him. He seemed to be, he’s dedicated. He did good things. The Farm Bill, AI is coming in here, he understands nuclear. I would be a lot more aggressive. I'm able to speak from the floor. If somebody gets up that says something I don't agree with, I'm able to, five minutes later, get up there and articulate what is going on. I don't need — and again, this is nothing against Jodey or anybody else — I don't need college graduates to research things for me and tell me what's going on. I can talk to the top-level people, whether it be the generals or the nuclear scientists.
One of the areas I'd like to talk with is nuclear propulsion, so we can get up to Mars and back in a matter of weeks, rather than three years. Because, as we just saw with our space station, somebody got ill up there.
But I will be a lot more vocal. I'm going to bring up a lot more issues. I'm not going to be just there waving my hand and say, ‘Yeah, I support this, I support this.’ No, I'm going to be in there helping to write. If I'm on the committee, or if there's something going on on another committee that I'm not involved in, but I'm interested in, have expertise, I will be involved. Example being, back on nine September when Obama had a joint called the joint session of Congress to talk about Obamacare. I got a call from Congressman. He says ‘the leadership of the Republican Party needs somebody here who can listen to this, know what's going on, and explain it to us. You're the person that we pick in this country to do that.’ Reagan had a great sign that influenced me on the desk. He says, ‘If you don't worry about who gets the credit,’ I'm not quoting exactly, ‘if you don't worry about who gets the credit, it's amazing what you can get done.’ So that's the way I approach life. We want to get things done.
I'm not looking for fame. I'm not looking for power. I'm not looking for money. As I've said in the campaign, I'm financing my own campaign people. Some people are giving me money. That's fine. I don't want to be obligated to anybody. Mr. Sell and Mr. Abraham, they've gotten six figures from Super PACs, and there's nothing illegal about that, there's nothing wrong. I'm not casting dispersions, but if you get money from somebody, they're going to expect you to do something. They're going to expect favors back. I don't think that's how we should run the government. Again, entities need things done. I don't have any problem with that, but I have problem when lots of money gets in and money is the only factor that is picking people. I think this is service. As I've said, I'm going to go up there and serve. I think Jodey set a good precedent with five terms. I'm in favor of term limit, because if people are up there too long, they get used to power, they get used to money, they get used to fame. And power corrupts, and people need to go up there to serve.
We're in a difficult time. We've got lots of challenges. We need to stand up to these challenges. We need to fix them. It's like when that, when the Constitution was being written in Philadelphia, they weren't getting anywhere. And Benjamin Franklin, who people say wasn't religious, but was a very religious man, stood up and said, ‘Look, if God – if a sparrow can fall and God doesn't miss it, certainly he's going to help this nation.’ And he said, ‘We're going to bring a preacher in here every morning.’ And they started praying, and at two months, they had the Constitution done. And it may – people may say it's not perfect, but it's the greatest, greatest document that humanity has ever written. And it's different than any other government document that was written, because inherent in it is a total distrust of other people. The Founding Fathers did not trust other people. They did not trust themselves. That constitution was put together with checks and balances, as we talked about earlier. And the constitutions of other countries, like Russia and China, it's implicit in there, the person who's in charge, the party leader, you trust them. Well, in our country is no you don't trust them. That's what makes us great.
BB: Dr. Donald May, Republican candidate for Congressional District 19. Thank you very much for joining us.
DM: Brad, thank you. This has been absolutely delightful. I look forward to talking with you again.