Brad Zimmerman

Bradley Isaac Zimmerman (b. January 2, 1960) is a Georgeland politician, the founder and leader of the Rally for Freedom, a right-wing populist group. A former Conservative Chief Minister of Scoita, Zimmerman served in the Georgeland Senate from 2013 to 2018, when he resigned over sexual harassment allegations. Zimmerman, who maintained his innocence, subsequently formed the Rally and contested the 2019 federal election for the Conservative seat of Belfast. He was elected, alongside ten others, to the House of Commons.

Several media outlets have referred to Zimmerman as 'Georgeland's Donald Trump' due to similarities in the style and ideology between the two men. Zimmerman has embraced the comparison.

Template:Prettytable |+Brad Zimmerman |-

|- |Position || 21st Chief Minister of Scoita |- |Term in office || 8 March 2007- 23 June 2011 |- |Preceded by || Mick Pearson |- |Succeeded by || Neil Connors |- |Political party || Conservative (1992-2018)
Rally for Freedom (2018-) |- |Total time in office || 4 years, 3 months, 15 days |- |Born || 2nd January, 1960 |- |Spouse || Mandy Bullock (m. 1986) |}

Early Life

Zimmerman was born in Sergiocitta, Bradmarch to a Jewish mother and a Roman Catholic father; he is Jewish by faith. His parents were active Conservative members; his father, Joseph Zimmerman, was a minister in the Bradmarch state government from 1970 until 1973, when he died of a heart attack. In 1974, Zimmerman and his mother moved to Aliceport, Scoita, where they both reside to this day.
Zimmerman attended the University of Scoita where he graduated in 1982 with a legal degree. He was admitted to the Bar in 1985 and began a career as a barrister.

Political Career

Zimmerman was selected as the Tory candidate for the Aliceport seat in the Scoita state legislature at the election of 1992. He was elected, and held the seat continuously until 2011. In 1996, when the Conservatives swept to power under John Sutherland, Zimmerman was appointed as a Parliamentary Secretary. He became Minister for Roads and Transport in 2002.
In 2004, with Mick Pearson's replacement of Sutherland as Chief Minister, Zimmerman was promoted to the important position of Minister for Police. He gained a reputation as a hard-liner against drug offenders and juvenile offenders, and caused controversy with his suggestion that young offenders be incarcerated in other states and banned from re-entry upon their release in a bid to stop re-offending. Nonetheless, after the 2005 election, which the Tories won, Zimmerman was elected unanimously by the party room to become the new Deputy Chief Minister, following the retirement of Vaughn Lewis. He was also appointed as Minister for Housing, Works and Transport.

Chief Minister

On March 8, 2007, Pearson stepped down as Chief Minister to concentrate on his campaign to succeed Patrick Gunning as Governor of Scoita. In the ballot among the 52 Conservative legislators to replace him, Zimmerman was elected with 29 votes over Paul Capuccio, the Attorney General, who had only 23 votes. He was immediately appointed as the state's 21st Chief Minister by Governor Gunning.
Zimmerman is the first Jewish state Chief Minister. He is also the first non-Catholic to be Chief Minister of Scoita, and the first Chief Minister of any state to profess a faith other than Christianity. This is perhaps more notable than it would otherwise be because Scoita is heavily Catholic, and a perception had existed for decades that only a Catholic could ever hope to lead the state.
In January 2008, Zimmerman faced his first serious challenge. The controversial Justice Act, a bill to institute a series of harsh penalties and greater police powers, particularly against terror suspects and juveniles, was passed by the state legislature. However, newly-elected Governor Don Mendez refused to sign the bill. After a stand-off between the Chief Minister and the Governor, Zimmerman called a general election for February 8. In the press conference announcing the election (which Mendez was required to approve), Zimmerman stated that if the Conservatives were re-elected he would request the Governor sign the legislation or resign. At the election, the Tories were re-elected, but with a substantially reduced majority of only 47 seats out of 87, a reduction of 21. This began the Conservative downfall in its historically strongest state. For the first time, the Green Party won multiple seats and the Liberal Democratic opposition were emboldened. Mendez signed the legislation, which became law. Following this, Zimmerman embarked on an agenda of economic growth, signalling changes to state-based industrial laws, reduction in stamp duty, and policies to promote investment. During the period of the global financial crisis of 2008, Zimmerman publicly called for significant tax cuts, at odds with the more modest proposals of the federal Conservative government. At the 2011 election, called a year early in response to three high-profile resignations from Zimmerman's cabinet, the Tories were defeated for the first time in fifteen years. The Liberal Democrats formed a minority government, led by Neil Connors. Zimmerman was defeated for the leadership of the Tories by his former Treasurer, John Grainger, and in August 2011 resigned from the state legislature.

Senate career

In March 2013, Zimmerman was selected for the top position on the Conservatives' senate ticket in Scoita. Under Georgeland's electoral system, the Senate is chosen by Single Transferable Vote, meaning Zimmerman had little difficulty being elected. The party won only 32% of the vote in Scoita, its lowest to that time, but this was still sufficient to elect two Tory senators - Zimmerman and Alice Hicks. Zimmerman was appointed immediately to the Tory front bench as Shadow Minister for Employment, and became Shadow Minister for Finance in 2015. After the 2016 election, he succeeded a fellow former Scoitan Chief Minister, John Sutherland, as the party's Deputy Leader in the Senate.

Resignation

Zimmerman was caught in the ongoing campaign against sexual harassment and assault by Georgeland political figures in early 2018. Three different women accused him of sexual harassment, one claim dating back to his time in state politics. Zimmerman adamantly denied the allegations. Despite his repeated denials, he was pressured to resign by the party and its leadership, and did so on March 21 (see Controversies section below for more information). He was replaced in the Senate by Alyssa Freeman.

Rally for Freedom

Soon after his resignation, on 3 August 2018, Zimmerman launched a new party in Scoita, the Rally for Freedom. Claiming his departure from federal politics had been a conspiracy by 'activists and socialists' inside the Conservatives, Zimmerman's launch created significant media interest due to his outspoken and at-times controversial views. Further, with the Scoitan Tories bankrupt, and polling so poorly, Zimmerman's party benefited from a series of high-profile defections in the Scoitan legislature. On 31 August 2018, a Rally-affiliated candidate, Cassie Flake, won the Garrington by-election, also triggered by a sexual misconduct allegation. As the Rally was launched during the by-election campaign, Flake was not able to nominate as a Rally candidate but pledged to join if elected, which she did. Her 31% of the vote was more than double that of the Tory candidate. At the state election held in January 2019, the Rally had been expected to win as many as twenty seats, having largely (but not entirely) picked up the Tory vote. As it was, due to the preferential voting system, they won just six seats. Zimmerman contested the seat of Portrush but was defeated by the Alliance incumbent James Lee.

At the 2019 federal election, Zimmerman stood for the seat of Belfast in Emilypolis's outer suburbs. The campaign attracted great media interest as Belfast was held by a high-profile incumbent, Tory deputy leader Lisa Chan. Other candidates were the Alliance's Kent McDaniels, who had held the seat from 2016-17, and Liberal Democrat Jim Hourigan, who had represented the area in stet politics previously. Zimmerman won 23% of the vote to Chan's 22% and Hourigan's 18%, with McDaniels winning 12%. Zimmerman defeated Hourigan on preferences in the final count.

Political views

Abortion

Zimmerman is strongly pro-life and has made multiple comments against abortion rights. In 1998 he was one of sixteen Scoitan legislators involved in challenged the constitutionality of the Medical Terminations Act which legalised abortion nationwide. In 2008, he introduced a bill to recriminalise abortion, which was struck down in committee on constitutional grounds. He said in 2019 that if the Rally ever formed government, abortion would again be "on the national agenda".

Climate change

Zimmerman rejects the scientific consensus that climate change is caused by human activity. It was due to Zimmerman's influence that the Tories opposed the Renewable Energy Act. In speaking on the bill, he called climate change a "PC science conspiracy", a claim he re-iterated in response to the Strike for Climate in 2019. Also in 2019, Zimmerman attacked climate change campaigner Greta Thunberg as an "abused, troubled girl" and said he "pitied her for her gullibility and lack of attention".

Foreign policy

Zimmerman is a staunch supporter of Israel, and opposes Palestinian statehood. He referred to himself as a zionist in a 2015 speech. He strongly opposes Georgeland leaving the Commonwealth of Nations. During the 2016 Brexit referendum, Zimmerman publicly endorsed the Leave campaign. In 2018, Zimmerman said he did not favour withdrawal from the United Nations, but instead championed reform of the organisation including expansion of the Security Council and a ban on non-democratic nations holding seats on UN institutions.

LGBT issues

Zimmerman opposed same-sex marriage in Georgeland in 2004, though he was not in federal politics at the time. He opposed the Birth Registration Act of 2015, which allowed transgender people to change their birth certificates. Zimmerman has referred to the "rainbow agenda" in tweets multiple times, and has strongly opposed activism by the LGBT community. Zimmerman mocked gender activism in his 2019 campaign launch, suggesting if the "PC Rainbow Squad" continued to gain influence, there would be "sixty-seven genders and unicorns in every bathroom stall."

Media

Zimmerman favours the complete privatisation of all government media including the GBC, which he has called a "haven for cultural Marxism".

Taxation

In his 2019 federal campaign launch, Zimmerman said a Rally government would establish a flat tax, abolish almost all federal taxes and return taxation powers to the states (a power taken from them by referendum in 1907).

Controversies

Zimmerman has been involved in a number of controversies throughout his career, often caused by his outspoken nature and use of social media.

Comments about Islam

In March 2010, Zimmerman made a speech to the National Civic Council of Georgeland Jewry in which he described Islam as a "danger to Western and Judeo-Christian values". The NCCGJ rejected his comments and officially rescinded his invitation to other events. Later that year, in October, in the state legislature Zimmerman spoke of the 'dangerous threat of Islamism to Western society' and tied Islamic migrants to crime statistics. He repeated the claims on a GBC interview that evening, stating that the rise in violent crime and the increase in immigration from Pakistan, Somalia and the Middle East. Zimmerman once again repeated these claims in a speech on the Migration Act in 2015. In the Senate he referred to the murder of Isaac Shefrir as a "direct consequence" of "fundamentalism imported from Islamist nations through an open-border migration policy". Tory leader Matthieu Solberg publicly repudiated Zimmerman's position, but did not take action against him.

On the occasion of the 70th anniversary of Israel's foundation on 14 May 2018, Zimmerman referred to the Palestinian state as an "Islamist fantasy" and said Israel was "the civilised state among the barbarians".

Sexual harassment allegations

In January 2018, Zimmerman was called before the Select Committee on Sexual and Harassment and Misconduct, set up the previous year, to face questions regarding two allegations of sexual harassment that had taken place during his time as a Senator. One woman working for the Tory head office, who was not named, accused Zimmerman of grabbing her breasts and undoing her bra strap at a meeting, and that he repeatedly commented on her body during a political strategy meeting. The same day, in response to the story, Globe and Standard journalist Stephanie Berkujian said on Twitter that Zimmerman had "groped" her at a parliamentary dinner in 2015, and that he spent most of the evening sitting uncomfortably close to her, propositioned her multiple times, and suggested he could spike her drink. Berkujian's allegations were the primary focus of the committee's investigation and the journalist herself testified before the committee. During her testimony, Berkujian confirmed her initial accusations, and added that on another occasion in 2015, Zimmerman had sent her a sexually explicit text. When asked why she did not report these allegations at the time, Berkujian said she felt 'intimidated' by the matter and that a 'culture of cover-ups' of sexual harassment existed within the parliamentary journalism community. These allegations opened the investigation wider, and led to multiple further resignations from both Parliament and the journalists attached to it. Zimmerman continued to maintain his innocence throughout the proceedings. He denied the anonymous allegation and accused the party of manufacturing it to force his resignation, and accused Berkujian of lying as part of a "witch hunt" and "sustained campaign of harassment". He threatened to sue Berkujian, either unaware or deliberately ignoring the fact committee testimony is covered under parliamentary privilege. Zimmerman repeatedly said all the allegations against him were due to "socialists and activists" within the Conservatives, and that the entire affair was manufactured by his enemies within the Tories, most notably the moderate faction. On 21 March, Zimmerman resigned from the Senate. Continuing to claim he was innocent, he said he would not be leaving politics but that he was taking time to "regroup".

After his resignation, Georgeland Alliance state legislator Alison Tenneson said that Zimmerman sent her sexually explicit texts and emails in 2011, while Chief Minister. Zimmerman responded on Twitter by calling Tenneson a "leftist stooge" (Tenneson was a Conservative staffer from 2000 to 2010).

Comments on women

Zimmerman has made several comments widely attacked as sexist or misogynistic, though he has denied any intention of being so. In December 2009, at an Aliceport hotel, he was reported to have repeatedly abused a female member of the hotel staff, and a similar incident was reported as far back as 2004. In 1995, during an off-the-record interview with the Emilypolis Herald, Zimmerman reportedly called women "too stupid to vote". These comments were reported again in 2016, when Zimmerman retweeted several tweets which featured the hashtag "#RepealThe19th", referring to the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution, granting women the vote. Zimmerman denied he believed women should not vote, and said his retweets were ironic.

Ties to far-right groups

In 2017, while still a Conservative senator, Zimmerman addressed a conference hosted by the far-right, anti-immigration Georgeland Pride. He has retweeted several other far-right groups, including the anti-Islam Defence of the Realm Committee. Zimmerman has denied connections to far-right groups. In launching the Rally for Freedom, Zimmerman rejected any similarities with the National Front, and he has repeatedly attacked the NF for anti-semitism and their belief in a strong central government.

Social media

Zimmerman is an active and prolific Twitter user, often using his account to attack his opponents. He regularly defends his social media use as "stirring the pot" and claims to tweet or retweet controversial things in order to aggravate the left. He regularly replies to journalists insulting their reporting. In May 2019, Zimmerman proudly boasted that he had been blocked on the microblogging site by more than a third of the current parliament.

Comparisons to Donald Trump

Zimmerman has been compared favourably and unfavourably to US President Donald Trump, for his social and political views, Twitter use, and speaking style. Zimmerman has been an enthusiastic Trump supporter since 2015, and retweets Trump regularly. In response to one article comparing him to Trump, Zimmerman said he was "flattered" by the comparison and tweeted the acronym "MGGA" ("Make Georgeland Great Again") a reference to Trump's campaign slogan. Zimmerman regularly refers to "fake news" in a Trump-like manner, and has said he considers the US President a role-model.

Personal life

Zimmerman married Amanda Bullock in 1986. The couple have two adult children. Zimmerman is a practicing Jew, the only Jewish person to have led a Scoitan government. He regularly quotes Jewish scripture in his speeches and social media, and has stated his faith has given him 'clarity' on his politics.

Zimmerman ministry (2007-2011)

• Chief Minister, Attorney General and Minister for Police: Brad Zimmerman
• Deputy Chief Minister and Minister for Health, Welfare and Human Services: Paula Galvin
• Treasurer: John Grainger
• Minister for Finance: Paul Cappucio
• Minister for Industry, Business & Consumer Affairs: Dianne Needham
• Minister for Urban Services, Minister for Housing, Works & Transport: Terry Boone
• Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Trust: Hugh Haggart
• Minister for the Arts, Sport, Tourism & Youth Affairs: Roy Stephen
• Minister for Industrial Relations and Minister for Federal Relations and Local Government: J.T. Whitfield
• Minister for Education: Sean Johnson
• Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Natural Resources: Michael O’Hara
• Special Minister of State: Edwina DiStasi

Preceded by Mick Pearson	Chief Minister of Scoita March 7, 2004 - June 23, 2011	Succeeded by Neil Connors
Preceded by Vaughn Lewis	Deputy Chief Minister of Scoita August 3, 2005 - March 7, 2007	Succeeded by Paula Galvin