Mike Gallagher (American politician)

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Michael John Gallagher (born March 3, 1984) is an American politician who is the U.S. Representative for Wisconsin's 8th congressional district. He was elected in the 2016 elections and took office on January 3, 2017.

Video Mike Gallagher (American politician)

Early years

Gallagher lived in Green Bay through middle school. After his parents' divorce, he went to Mater Dei High School in Santa Ana, California, where he was Valedictorian, Class of 2002, spending summers back in Wisconsin.

Military

Gallagher was a United States Marine Corps officer, serving seven years (2006-2013) on active duty. He twice deployed to the Al Anbar Province, Iraq, serving on General Petraeus' CENTCOM Assessment Team as a commander of intelligence teams. He assessed American military strategy in the Middle East and Central Asia while as a counterintelligence officer, and member of the CENTCOM (Central Command) assessment team.

Education

He went to Princeton, where he first studied Spanish and did a summer internship abroad with the Rand Corporation, working on a strategic study of terrorist groups such as the Basque separatists in Spain. After 9/11, he changed his major from Spanish to Arabic.

He earned his B.A. from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs / Near Eastern Studies, at Princeton University, 2002-2006. He earned his MSSI (Master of Science in Strategic Intelligence), at National Intelligence University, 2009-2010. He studied at Georgetown University 2010-2015, earning his Ph.D., Government - International Relations, 2010-2015; M.A., Government, 2011-2013; and M.A., Security Studies, 2010-2012.

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Political career

Gallagher served as a Republican staffer on the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. Scott Walker, the Governor of Wisconsin, hired Gallagher as a foreign policy advisor in February 2015, in preparation for his 2016 presidential campaign.

After Walker dropped out of the presidential race, Gallagher worked as a senior marketing strategist for Breakthrough Fuel, a supply-chain management company. The firm's CEO hired Gallagher after hearing him speak about national security at a business luncheon. Gallagher was looking for additional work as an adjunct instructor for the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay when twenty Green Bay area business people signed a letter urging him to run for Wisconsin's 8th congressional district seat, for which Reid Ribble was not seeking re-election. Gallagher won a primary against Wisconsin state senator Frank Lasee and Forestville village president Terry McNulty. Gallagher then squared off against Outagamie County Executive Tom Nelson in the general election.

In September 2016, County Board supervisor Mike Thomas endorsed Gallagher in the Appleton Post-Crescent, contrasting his background in business and the Marine Corps with that of Nelson, a "consummate career politician" who "makes decisions based on political implications and the impact it may have on his public image." Gallagher, wrote Thomas, "would be a true citizen representative in Congress."

During the campaign, Nelson ran an ad saying that Gallagher's failure to denounce certain statements by GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump was a sign of a lack of moral courage. Gallagher replied with his own ad, in which he pointed out that Nelson was questioning the moral courage of a Marine who had done two combat tours. In the end, Gallagher won the election 63 percent to 36 percent, a larger margin than the 16 percent margin that the race was polled at in August 2016.

Committee assignments and caucus memberships

Committee assignments

United States House Committee on Armed Services
United States House Committee on Homeland Security

Caucus memberships

Republican Study Committee
Republican Main Street Partnership.

Positions

Gallagher has said that his top issues are cutting regulations on businesses and simplifying the tax code, improving national security by building up the nation's military, attacking radical Islamic terrorists and supporting the country's allies, especially Israel, reducing the nation's debt by cutting spending, and increasing revenue through economic growth. In April 2018, McClatchy wrote that Gallagher had earned an "unusually independent reputation in today's Republican Party", and that he had broken with the White House on issues such as the firing of FBI Director James Comey and Russian interference in the 2016 election. Gallagher said, "It's not my job to just salute everything the White House does."

Health care

Interviewed in May 2017 about GOP health care proposals, Gallagher said: "We have gone to great lengths to ensure that people with pre-existing conditions are covered....It says that its illegal for any insurance provider to deny someone coverage based on pre-existing conditions, that is the standard in law." He complained that ObamaCare was unsustainable, with family premiums going up by an average of $5000. "Premiums are ready to go up 40 percent more in the next go around," he said. "So doing nothing is not an option."

Foreign affairs

In a 2016 profile in the Green Bay Press Gazette, Gallagher recalled "giving books, soccer balls and school supplies to Iraqi children in the last days of his U.S. Marine Corps deployment in the Al Anbar Province in Iraq in 2008." For him, he said, the experience underscored "the positive influence the United States can have on real people across the globe" and highlighted "the detriments of 'leading from behind,' which he portrays as the disengagement of career politicians from the people they represent and America's backsliding reputation around the world." The profile noted that "the village Gallagher served in and helped stabilize" had since been overrun by ISIS, a situation Gallagher blamed on Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Gallagher's "frustration over the Democratic administration's handling of foreign policy," wrote the Press Gazette, "has shaped the core message of his campaign: Restoring the country's dominance as the No. 1 world power, dismantling incentives for lawmakers to prioritize elections over policies and strengthening the U.S. economy." Gallagher said: "We lost the peace in Iraq, and we sacrificed so much. We had politicians just flush it down the drain."

Term limits

In May 2018, Gallagher received Donald Trump's "full-throated endorsement" to "push for congressional term limits", during a meeting at the White House. He has received support from Brian Fitzpatrick, Jodey Arrington and Vicente González. His plan consists of limiting senators "to two terms and representatives to six terms", totaling 12 years each. It would be grandfathered in order not to apply to sitting members of Congress, except for the so-called "freshman class".