Sneha Girap (Editor)

Will Hurd

Updated on
Edit
Like
Comment
Share on FacebookTweet on TwitterShare on LinkedInShare on Reddit
Preceded by
  
Pete Gallego

Name
  
Will Hurd

Nationality
  
American

Role
  
U.S. Representative

Political party
  
Republican

Party
  
Republican Party

Religion
  
Southern Baptist


Will Hurd Black ProLife Candidates Tim Scott Mia Love and Will


Born
  
August 19, 1977 (age 46) San Antonio, Texas (
1977-08-19
)

Alma mater
  
Texas A&M University, (B.S.) (2000)

Known for
  
CIA past, member of the U.S. Representative

Education
  
Texas A&M University (2000)

Office
  
United States Representative since 2015

Residence
  
Helotes, Texas, United States

Profiles

From cia to congress an interview with us congressman will hurd


William Ballard Hurd (born August 19, 1977), is a U.S. politician who is the U.S. representative for Texas's 23rd congressional district, a district which stretches eight hundred miles, from San Antonio to El Paso, along the U.S.-Mexican border. He took office on January 3, 2015, becoming the first black Republican elected to Congress from Texas.

Contents

Will Hurd National security39 candidate Former CIA officer runs for

Will hurd us congressional candidate speech to supporters


Background

Will Hurd Rep Will Hurd blasts IT spending encryption backdoors

Hurd is the son of Robert and Mary Alice Hurd. He is a graduate of John Marshall High School in the San Antonio suburb of Leon Valley. Hurd attended Texas A&M University, in College Station and served as the student body president, in 1999, at the time of the Aggie Bonfire collapse. He graduated from A&M in 2000 with a degree in computer science and a minor in international relations.

Will Hurd A sense of duty a sense of honor Congressman Will Hurd

Hurd worked for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for nine years, stationed in Washington, D.C., including a tour of duty as an operations officer in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India. He speaks Urdu, the national language and lingua franca of Pakistan, where Hurd worked undercover. One of his roles at the CIA was briefing members of Congress, many of whom he said could not distinguish the Sunni and Shia divide at the center of Islamic civil wars for centuries. This alleged lack of understanding by members of Congress made Hurd want to pursue politics. He returned to Texas after his CIA service and worked for Crumpton Group, strategic advisory firm, as a partner and a senior adviser with the cybersecurity firm FusionX.

Elections

Will Hurd httpsuploadwikimediaorgwikipediacommonsthu
2010
Will Hurd World News Today Black Republican Will Hurd Joins The

Hurd announced his candidacy on November 19, 2009, for the Republican nomination in Texas's 23rd congressional district, a district which is two-thirds Hispanic. His electronically filed campaign finance records indicated that he had $70,000 on hand to fund his attempt.

On February 15, 2010, Hurd received the endorsement of the San Antonio Express-News. In the primary election on March 2, 2010, he received the greatest number of votes but failed to receive a majority of the votes cast, resulting in a run-off election on April 13, 2010. He faced second-place finisher Francisco "Quico" Canseco, a San Antonio banker, formerly from Laredo, who made his third attempt at a congressional seat. Hurd lost to Canseco in the runoff 53 to 47 percent. Canseco ultimately won the general election but lost after one term in 2012.

2014

Hurd once again ran for the 23rd district in the United States House of Representatives elections, 2014. After turning back the challenge of former U.S. Representative Quico Canseco, who had lost re-election in 2012 to Democrat Pete Gallego of Alpine by 2,500 votes, Hurd unseated the one-term incumbent Gallego. He was endorsed by the San Antonio Express-News. Hurd conducted a post-election swing through some parts of his district that had heavily favored Gallego in the voting.

In July 2015, Hurd was named to replace Aaron Schock of Illinois as a co-chair of the Congressional Future Caucus, along with Representative Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii. In his first term in Congress, Hurd was made the chairman of the Information Technology Subcommittee of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform (which focuses in part on cybersecurity), which is unusual for a first-term member of Congress.

2016

Hurd was handily re-nominated for a second term in the Republican primary election held on March 1, 2016. He defeated William "Hart" Peterson, 39,762 votes (82.2 percent) to 8,590 (17.8 percent), who did little if any campaigning. After winning re-nomination, Hurd began to distance himself from Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. He opposed Trump's "nasty rhetoric" in reference to Muslims and Latinos and the candidate's proposal to build an $8 billion, 1,000-mile long wall across the American border with Mexico. "Building a wall is the most expensive, least-effective way to do border security," Hurd said in an interview. Hurd said he did not need coattails from his party's presidential nominee: "Anybody who is hoping on coattails or macro trends, is not doing his job."

In the rematch with Gallego, the Democrat again tried to tie Hurd to the Trump campaign, which was considered unpopular with Texas Hispanics. Again Hurd distanced himself from Trump: "I never endorsed Donald Trump, and I cannot in good conscience support or vote for a man who degrades women, insults minorities, and has no clear path to keep our country safe. He should step aside for a true conservative to defeat Hillary Clinton." Hurd claimed that Gallego as a representative had been insufficiently aggressive in support for veterans issues and was largely a tool of Nancy Pelosi, the former House Speaker from California known for her liberal politics. A Gallego backer, Sheriff Joe Frank Martinez of Val Verde County, said that turnout would be the key to determine which of the two would represent the district in Congress. However, Hurd ran better in Val Verde County than many of those who opposed him had anticipated. Hurd drew 5,929 votes (45.3 percent) there to Gallego's 7,148 (54.7 percent). Hurd ran thirty-nine votes ahead of Trump in Val Verde County.

In the general election, Hurd narrowly defeated Gallego, 110,577 (48.3 percent) to 107,526 (47 percent), with Libertarian Ruben Schmidt Corvalan (born 1952) of San Antonio earning the remaining 10,862 votes (4.7 percent) Hurd ran sufficiently strong in the Bexar County portion of the district and in nearby Medina and Uvalde counties to offset Gallego's large margins in El Paso and Maverick counties, the latter of which encompasses the border city of Eagle Pass.

He is vice-chair of the Border and Maritime Subcommittee of the Homeland Security Committee. Hurd was appointed to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence for his second term, replacing Rep. Mike Pompeo, who departed to head Hurd’s former Agency, the CIA.

Political positions

As of 3 April 2017, Hurd voted with his party in 96.1% of votes so far in the current session of Congress and voted in line with President Trump's position in 95.2% of votes.

In 2015, Hurd voted 96 percent with his party's position on roll-call votes.

Abortion

Hurd opposes abortion. He supports a ban on stem cell research.

Donald Trump

In February 2017, he voted against resolution that would have directed the House to request 10 years of Trump's tax returns, which would then have been reviewed by the House Ways and Means Committee in a closed session.

Environment

He opposes federal regulation of greenhouse gas emissions. In February 2017, he voted to repeal the Stream Protection Rule, a regulation that required coal companies to restore streams and mined areas to their pre-development conditions. In February 2017, he voted in favor of repealing a rule that required energy companies to disclose payments to foreign governments.

Health care

He favors repealing the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). In 2017, when House Republican leadership introduced the American Health Care Act (a bill to repeal the ACA), Hurd was faced with a political quandary. Hurd did not say whether he supported or opposed the legislation. Ultimately, after the measure was declared dead and withdrawn from a planned vote due to insufficient support, Hurd "released a statement in which he appeared to oppose the overhaul." When the bill came up for a vote again, Hurd voted against it.

Foreign policy and national security

Hurd's background as a former undercover clandestine officer led The Daily Dot to call him "The Most Interesting Man in Congress."

Hurd called for a ramp-up of U.S. military action against ISIL in Libya and in Syria, using the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan as a model. He blamed ISIL's rise on the Obama administration, accusing it of underestimating the threat. Hurd has written that Islamic extremists "are in it for the long haul, which means that we have to be also. On the broader Syrian civil war, Hurd has written that "the brutal dictator Bashar al-Asad must go."

Hurd has called for greater U.S. defenses against foreign cyber-attacks. Following the Office of Personnel Management data breach, Hurd wrote that federal cybersecurity was woefully inadequate. He opposes applying the Wassenaar Arrangement to cyber technologies, arguing that "attempting to regulate cybersecurity technologies through export controls is a fundamentally flawed approach" that places the U.S. at risk and "will not achieve the goal of curbing human rights violations."

Hurd opposed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (an international agreement with Iran over its nuclear program), calling it "short-sighted and ultimately dangerous," and called for the U.S. to reimpose various sanctions against Iran, arguing that Iran violated its obligations under the agreement. Hurd has spoken out against Russian aggression, calling the Russian government "our adversary."

Hurd favored the lifting of a longstanding U.S. ban on the export of crude oil.

Hurd opposes the normalization of Cuba-U.S. relations.

Along with Martha McSally and Michael McCaul, Hurd helped draft the Final Report of the Task Force on Combating Terrorist and Foreign Fighter Travel of the U.S. House Homeland Security Committee.

Hurd questioned FBI Director James Comey's recommendation not to seek prosecution of then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton over the Clinton e-mail controversy. Referencing his experience in the CIA, Hurd said he knew the importance of classified information because had seen his friends killed and assets put in harm’s way to obtain such sensitive information. Hurd said it was “outrageous” that Clinton would not be charged and said that he was "offended" by the accusation that the hearing was “political theater”.

Immigration

Hurd spoke out against President Donald Trump's 2017 executive order to build a wall along the southern border with Mexico, saying it was a “third-century solution to a 21st-century problem" and the "most expensive and least effective way to secure the border." Hurd instead advocated for a “flexible, sector-by-sector approach that empowers Border Patrol agents on the ground with the resources they need." Hurd proposed using "a mix of technology. It's going to be significantly cheaper than building a wall. Let's focus on drug traffickers ... and human smugglers."

Hurd criticized President Donald Trump's 2017 executive order to bar entry to the U.S. to nationals of seven Muslim-majority countries, describing it as the "ultimate display of mistrust."

Privacy

In March 2017, Hurd voted to reverse a Federal Communications Commission privacy rule that prevented internet service providers from selling their customers' browsing data.

Invalidation of 2011 congressional district map

In March 2017, a three-member panel of federal judges invalidated the Texas State Legislature's 2011 drawing of three congressional districts (Hurd's 23rd district, the 27th district, and the 35th district) finding that the state had intentionally discriminated against black and Latino Texans in violation of either the U.S. Constitution or the Voting Rights Act. It is unclear what effect this will have on the three districts, especially Hurd's, as his election victory occurred using a court-approved 2013 interim map that differed from the 2011 map.

Hurd said that a revised district plan would not affect his work in Congress or his hopes of winning a third term in 2018."

The San Antonio Express-News editorial board wrote that "partisan motivations" influenced the drawing of the lines for the U.S. House seats by the Republican majority in the state legislature. The newspaper hence called for an independent commission to draw the lines every ten years. "The process itself is fatally flawed. It discriminates against the state's minority voters," the newspaper continued, by creating more Republican districts than justified by the large minority bloc of voters in Texas.

Hurd has staunchly defended his district apportionment plan before the federal judges who will determine its constitutionality. Noting the dearth of competitive U.S. House districts in Texas, Hurd urged that his swing district be protected from partisan manipulation: "If more districts were like mine, we'd have better-caliber people in Washington."

Meanwhile, Pete Gallego is testing the waters as a potential 2018 candidate once more against Hurd. Reapportionment of the district could play a major role as to whether Gallego decides to enter the race again. At least two other Democrats may also run for their party nomination: Judith Canales, a former officer of the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development from Eagle Pass, and Jay Hulings, a graduate of Harvard Law School and an assistant U.S. attorney in San Antonio.

References

Will Hurd Wikipedia