EDMOND — EDITOR’S NOTE: This is one in an occasional series profiling 2010 candidates.

Rick Flanigan has spent the past 20 years making an informed vote for elected government officials, he said.

He can’t remember a time when he didn’t classify himself as a patriot, said Flanigan, a Republican candidate for the Congressional 5th District.

Other Republicans running for Congress include James Lankford and Dr. Johnny Roy, both of Edmond, former state Rep. Kevin Calvey of Del City, and state Rep. Mike Thompson of Oklahoma City. State Rep. Shane Jett announced his entry into the race Friday afternoon.

Independent candidate Clark Duffe, of Edmond, also is in the race. No Democrats have announced their candidacy for the Congressional 5th District seat currently occupied by Republican Mary Fallin, a 2010 gubernatorial candidate.

A tea party at the state Capitol last summer marked Flanigan’s first political rally. His wife, Cathie, minded their battery store in Bethany. Flanigan is not generally a loud voice, he said.

“I do my protesting at home but I felt like it was important for the numbers to be there at that tea party,” said Flanigan, 40.

“Throw all the bums out,” a man yelled beside him. At the time, Flanigan was thinking that throwing out “the bums” would probably bring another batch of political bums.

Most politicians enter public service with good intentions, Flanigan said. But human nature makes people elected to power lose sight of the communities they were elected to serve, he said.

“Where the problem comes in is when they get a taste of that power,” Flanigan said. “Then they’re willing to trade anything for it including their scruples, their integrity.”

Flanigan realized at the tea party that he is just as culpable as anybody else in the nation’s problems because he had never worked hard to help elect the right guy to office. He decided to campaign for whoever he decided would be best for the 5th District.

“Three months later, I realized there really wasn’t one of them that I was willing to invest my heart and soul in,” said Flanigan, a Navy veteran.

Flanigan wants to pass a better life to his two sons and daughter and the next generation of Americans.

“We’re not handing off a better country in better shape with more opportunity — with more freedom — we’re not doing that anymore,” he said. Instead, people are requesting their government take over their responsibilities, he said.

“When we slide that coin across the table, we’re also sliding our liberty,” Flanigan said. “You cannot give away your responsibility without giving away your liberty.”

Flanigan said health care legislation that would force citizens to buy insurance is unconstitutional, and the Democrat majority in Congress is working against the majority will of Americans. There is not a right for free health care, Flanigan said.

“There is not a right to health insurance at all,” Flanigan said. “Health insurance is a product. There are no products that we as individuals have a right to.”

So the health care bill supported by President Obama is in direct violation of the Constitution of the United States of America, he said. The “general welfare” clause in the Constitution does not refer to the welfare of an individual but that of the U.S., he continued.

“There’s nobody that doesn’t have health care,” Flanigan said. “In this country, if you have no insurance, no income, no money, you’re still going to be treated somewhere by somebody.”

Problems in the health care system cannot be solved by a federal health care system, Flanigan said. The role of federal government does not involve health care, he added.

“I am a charitable person; I am a charitable soul,” Flanigan said. He said it feels good to give to people who need help.

“Government has no soul; government has no heart,” he said. “As a Christian I believe that charity comes from the soul. There’s a reason it feels good to help. That’s because it touches you on a much deeper level than any intellect you could ever comprehend. It’s part of our soul. It’s part of what God put into us.”

Transferring the responsibility of charity to the federal government causes people to give up their liberty to choose how their charity is used, he said.

| 341-2121, ext. 114