Todd Young

Todd Young
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Indiana's 9th district
Incumbent
Assumed office January 3, 2011
Preceded by	Baron Hill
Personal details
Born	Todd Christopher Young August 24, 1972 Lancaster, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Political party	Republican
Spouse(s)	Jennifer Young
Children	Abigail Ava Annalise Tucker
Alma mater	U.S. Naval Academy (B.S.) University of Chicago (M.B.A.) University of London Indiana University (J.D.)
Religion	Christianity
Website	Campaign website
Military service
Allegiance	United States
Service/branch	United States Marine Corps
Years of service	1995–2000
Rank	Captain

Todd Christopher Young (born August 24, 1972) is an American politician who has been the U.S. Representative for Indiana's 9th congressional district since 2011. He is a member of the Republican Party. Young has announced that he will not seek re-election in order to run for the Senate seat being vacated by Dan Coats' retirement.^[1]

Early life

Young was born August 24, 1972 in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, the second of three children of Nancy R. (née Pierce) and Bruce H. Young.^[2] He lived in Marion County for several years before settling in Hamilton County, where he attended public schools and won a state soccer championship. In 1990, Young graduated from Carmel High School.

Military career

Just a few weeks after graduating high school, Young enlisted in the United States Navy and reported for duty in Newport, Rhode Island. In May 1991, Young received an appointment from the Secretary of the Navy to attend the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, where his classmates elected him a class officer and he earned a varsity letter as a member of Navy's NCAA Division I soccer team. He graduated cum laude in 1995,^[3] earning a B.S. in political science, and accepted a commission in the U.S. Marine Corps.

Upon graduating from Annapolis, Young trained for six months as a rifle platoon commander at The Basic School in Quantico, Virginia, where he qualified as an expert rifleman. In 1996, he completed the Naval Intelligence Officer Basic Course in Dam Neck, Virginia and was entrusted with a Top Secret security clearance. Young then led the intelligence department of VMU-2, an unmanned aerial vehicle squadron based in Cherry Point, North Carolina, where he participated in various military operations, including counter-narcotics activities in the Caribbean, and was trained in Anti-Terrorism/Force Protection. In 1998, Young was transferred to Chicago, Illinois, where he managed all Marine Corps officer recruiting operations in the greater Chicago and northwest Indiana region. Meanwhile, Young attended night school at the University of Chicago's Graduate School of Business, earning an MBA.

Post-military career

Young was honorably discharged from active duty in 2000 as a captain. After leaving active duty, Young spent a year in London, England attending the University of London's Institute of United States Studies. As class president, Young regularly advised IUSS's chairman, former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, on student concerns. After writing a thesis on the economic history of Midwestern agriculture, in 2001 Young received his MA in American politics.

In the summer of 2001, Young traveled to former Communist countries in Eastern Europe where he studied the transition from centrally-planned economies to free markets through an executive education program with the Leipzig Graduate School of Management, the first private business school in eastern Germany.

He worked as an adjunct professor of public affairs at Indiana University's School of Public and Environmental Affairs and attended law school at night. In 2004, Young joined Indiana-based Crowe Chizek and Company as a management consultant, helping state and local government clients improve service delivery to Indiana citizens.

In 2006, Young earned his J.D. from the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law, where he was President of the school's Federalist Society chapter. He joined Paoli, Indiana-based Tucker and Tucker, P.C. upon graduation.^[4] Young is a member of the 2007 class of the Indiana Leadership Forum.^[5] Since 2007, Young has also served as a part-time Deputy Prosecutor for Orange County, Indiana. In 2008, Young's peers elected him president of the Orange County Bar Association.

Early political career

In 2001, he moved to Washington, DC, where he briefly worked at The Heritage Foundation, a conservative public policy think-tank. Then he joined the staff of U.S. senator Richard Lugar as a legislative assistant^[6] for energy policy. In 2003, Young volunteered for Mitch Daniels' campaign for governor of Indiana.

Young was a delegate to the Indiana Republican state convention and as a vice precinct committeeman. In 2007, Indiana's Young Republicans named Young the "Southern Man of the Year" for his leadership on behalf of the Republican Party in southern Indiana. In 2007, Young also founded a fiscal responsibility advocacy group, the National Organization for People vs. Irresponsible Government Spending.

U.S. House of Representatives

2010 election

On January 26, 2009, Young announced that he would run for the United States Congressional seat in Indiana's 9th district as a Republican.^[7][8][9]

Young competed with fellow Republicans Mike Sodrel and Travis Hankins for the party's nomination for Congress and won, challenging incumbent Democrat Baron Hill in the general election. Young received endorsements from former Vice-President Dan Quayle.^[10] Other state Republican endorsements include: Lieutenant Governor Becky Skillman, Attorney General Greg Zoeller, Secretary of State Todd Rokita, Auditor Tim Berry, and Treasurer Richard Mourdock.^[9]

Young won the primary and general elections, defeating incumbent Baron Hill on November 2, 2010, and was seated in the 112th Congress in January 2011.^[11]

2012 Congressional campaign

Young defeated Shelli Yoder by a 55–45% margin in the newly redrawn 9th district.^[12]

Tenure

Since being elected, Young has voted with the Republican Party 95% of the time.^[13] In July, he took over as the lead sponsor of the REINS Act, a bill that passed the House in 2011 and would require congressional approval for rules with greater than $100 million in economic impact.^[14]

In the 112th Congress, Young was a member of the House Budget Committee and the House Armed Services Committee. On the latter, he focused on seapower, electronic warfare, and military grand strategy of the United States. During the first session of the 112th Congress, he employed one of the German Marshall Fund's Congressional Fellows as military legislative aide.

In 2010 Young signed a pledge sponsored by Americans for Prosperity promising to vote against any Global Warming legislation that would raise taxes.^[15]

Sponsored legislation

• Fairness for American Families Act (H.R. 2668; 113th Congress) (H.R. 2668) – Introduced by Young on July 11, 2013, this bill would "amend the Internal Revenue Code, as amended by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, to delay until 2015 the requirement that individuals maintain minimal essential health care coverage."^[16] The bill was proposed in response to a July 2, 2013 decision by the Obama Administration to delay the employer mandate found in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, but do nothing to the individual mandate requirement.^[17] When he introduced the Fairness for American Families Act, Young argued that "rather than driving healthcare costs down, the individual mandate is imposing a new tax and burdensome costs on middle class families" and therefore "hardworking Americans deserve the same exemptions that President Obama is unilaterally granting to businesses and labor unions."^[17]
• Save American Workers Act of 2013 (H.R. 2575; 113th Congress) – is a bill that would change how the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act defines full-time worker in order to remove the incentive some companies may have to reduce their employees' hours in order to avoid the employer healthcare mandate.^[18][19] Young introduced it into the House on June 28, 2013.^[19]

Committee assignments

• Committee on Ways and Means
  • Subcommittee on Select Revenue Measures
  • Subcommittee on Human Resources Caucus Memberships
• Congressional Cement Caucus

Electoral history

Indiana's 9th Congressional District Election, 2010[20]
Party		Candidate	Votes	%
	Republican	Todd Young	118,138	52.2
	Democratic	Baron Hill	95,387	42.2
	Libertarian	Greg Knott	12,377	5.4

Indiana's 9th Congressional District election, 2012
Party		Candidate	Votes	%
	Republican	Todd Young	165,332	55.4
	Democratic	Shelli Yoder	132,848	44.6
Total votes			298,180	100.0

Indiana's 9th Congressional District election, 2014
Party		Candidate	Votes	%
	Republican	Todd Young	99,810	63.1
	Democratic	Bill Bailey	52,659	33.3
	Libertarian	Mike Frey	5,679	3.6
Total votes			158,148	100.0

U.S. Senate race

Young announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination in the 2016 election to fill the Senate seat of the retiring Dan Coats. Also filing for the Republican primary was U.S. Representative Marlin Stutzman. Although Young was certified as having submitted enough signatures to qualify for the primary ballot, that official certification was challenged, and a tally by the Associated Press concluded that Young had fallen short.^[21] The state Election Commission scheduled a hearing on the challenge for February 19, 2016.^[21] The state Election Commission voted down the challenge with a 2-2 vote and Young remains on the ballot.

References

1. "Todd Young enters crowded GOP primary for Dan Coats' Senate seat". Indystar.com. 2015-07-12. Retrieved 2016-02-16.
2. "Todd Young ancestry". Freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com. Retrieved 2016-02-16.
3. "Class Listing". Usna.com. 2001-11-09. Retrieved 2010-01-11.
4. https://web.archive.org/20110817174235/http://hats2.courts.state.in.us/rollatty/roa2_out.jsp?sel=62. Archived from the original on August 17, 2011. Retrieved November 4, 2010. Missing or empty |title= (help)
5. "ILF Alumni, Class of 2007". Indianaleadershipforum.com. Retrieved 2010-01-11.
6. "Todd C Young, Congressional Staffer – Salary Data". LegiStorm. Retrieved 2010-01-11.
7. "Ninth District Drama". Capitol Watchbolg. Retrieved 2010-01-11.
8. "NRCC adds 32 to Young Guns program". The Hill. Retrieved 2010-01-11.
9. "Indiana poised to play major role in battle for Congress". fwdailynews.com. Retrieved 2010-01-17.
10. "Quayle Picks Dold in Competitive Primary for Kirk's Seat". CQ Politics. Retrieved 2010-01-16.
11. Republican Todd Young wins easily over incumbent Baron Hill, Louisville Courier-Journal, 2010-11-02. Accessed 2010-11-03.
12. "Central Indiana Election Results - 13 WTHR Indianapolis". Wthr.com. 2016-02-04. Retrieved 2016-02-16.
13. "Washington Post Votes Database". The Washington Post.
14. "Davis passes REINS Act to Young". Wfpl.org. Retrieved 2016-02-16.
15. (PDF) https://web.archive.org/20120601131811/http://www.americansforprosperity.org/files/Young_Todd.pdf. Archived from the original (PDF) on June 1, 2012. Retrieved October 13, 2014. Missing or empty |title= (help)
16. "H.R. 2668 – Summary". United States Congress. Retrieved 16 July 2013.
17. Kasperowicz, Pete (July 12, 2013). "House releases texts of health insurance mandate delays". The Hill. Retrieved 16 July 2013.
18. Kasperowicz, Pete (2 April 2014). "House advances bill to end ObamaCare's 30-hour workweek". The Hill. Retrieved 3 April 2014.
19. "H.R. 2575 – Summary". United States Congress. Retrieved 3 April 2014.
20. "Congressional Election Results". Indiana Secretary of State. Retrieved 2010-11-08.
21. Slodysko, Brian (February 11, 2016). "Two top Indiana Republicans said Thursday they were surprised U.S. Senate candidate Todd Young may have failed to gather enough signatures to qualify for the ballot". U.S. News & World Report. Retrieved 2016-02-14.

External links

• Congressman Todd Young official U.S. House site
• Todd Young for Congress
• Todd Young at DMOZ
• Appearances on C-SPAN
• Biography at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
• Profile at Project Vote Smart
• Financial information (federal office) at the Federal Election Commission
• Legislation sponsored at The Library of Congress