Todd Young

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. He lived in Marion County, Indiana for several years before settling in Hamilton County, Indiana, where he attended public schools and won a state soccer championship. In 1990, Young graduated from Carmel High School in Carmel, Indiana.

Military career

Just a few weeks after graduating from high school, Young enlisted in the United States Navy and reported for duty in Newport, Rhode Island. In May 1991, he 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, 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.

Post-military career

Young was honorably discharged from active duty in 2000 as a US Marine Captain. After leaving active duty, Young spent a year in London, attending the University of London's Institute of United States Studies. 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, he 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. Upon graduation he joined the Paoli, Indiana-based firm Tucker and Tucker, P.C. Young is a member of the 2007 class of the Indiana Leadership Forum.

Early political career

In 2001, he moved to Washington, D.C., 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 for energy policy. In 2003, Young volunteered for Mitch Daniels's campaign for governor of Indiana. He 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 founded a fiscal responsibility advocacy group, the National Organization for People vs. Irresponsible Government Spending.

2010

On January 26, 2009, Young announced that he would run for the United States congressional seat in Indiana's 9th district as a Republican.

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 as well as Lieutenant Governor Becky Skillman, Attorney General Greg Zoeller, Secretary of State Todd Rokita, Auditor Tim Berry, and Treasurer Richard Mourdock.

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.

2012

Young defeated Shelli Yoder, winning 55% of the vote in the newly redrawn 9th district.

Tenure

Young is a member of the Republican Main Street Partnership along with three other Republican senators. The Main Street Partnership is considered to be an association of moderate Republicans. In 2013 the National Journal gave Young an overall composite rating of 69% conservative and 31% liberal, an economic rating of 69% conservative and 30% liberal, a social rating of 57% conservative and 42% liberal, and a foreign policy rating of 77% conservative and 15% liberal.

In the 112th Congress, Young voted with the Republican Party 95% of the time. During the 113th Congress, the Human Rights Campaign, which rates politicians' support for LGBT issues, rated Young 30%, indicating a mixed record. In July 2012, Young 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.

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 stated that he was uncertain what was causing the observed heating of the planet, that it could be sunspots or normal cycles of nature, and that "the science is not settled." That same year he signed a pledge sponsored by Americans for Prosperity promising to vote against any global warming legislation that would raise taxes.

In 2011, he voted for the Energy Tax Prevention Act of 2011. In 2014, he said that it is "not necessarily the case" that there is a scientific consensus on climate change.

Sponsored legislation

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."

Committee assignments

Caucus Memberships

2016 Election

Rather than run for reelection to the House, 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. The state Election Commission scheduled a hearing on the challenge for February 19, 2016. The commission voted down the challenge with a 2-2 vote and Young remained on the ballot.

Young easily defeated Stutzman in the May 3 primary, taking 67 percent of approximately one million votes cast. He was initially slated to face former U.S. Representative Baron Hill, whom Young had defeated in 2010 to win his congressional seat, but on July 11, Hill announced he was dropping out of the Senate race. Hill was replaced by former U.S. Senator from Indiana Evan Bayh. Young defeated Bayh in the November 8 general election, winning 52% of the vote to Bayh's 42%.

Young's campaign benefited from about $3,000,000 of spending by the Koch family and approximately $2,800,000 in spending by the National Rifle Association.

Committee assignments

Personal life

Todd Young and Jennifer Tucker married in 2005; the couple has four children. Jennifer is the niece of former Vice President Dan Quayle, whose former U.S. Senate seat Young now holds.