American politician (born 1948)
Mike Conaway
|
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Official portrait, 2020
|
|
|
In office
January 3, 2019 ? January 3, 2021
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Preceded by
| Collin Peterson
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Succeeded by
| Glenn Thompson
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|
In office
January 3, 2015 ? January 3, 2019
|
Preceded by
| Frank Lucas
|
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Succeeded by
| Collin Peterson
|
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|
In office
January 3, 2013 ? January 3, 2015
|
Preceded by
| Jo Bonner
|
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Succeeded by
| Charlie Dent
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In office
January 3, 2005 ? January 3, 2021
|
Preceded by
| Constituency established
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Succeeded by
| August Pfluger
|
---|
|
|
Born
| Kenneth Michael Conaway
(
1948-06-11
)
June 11, 1948
(age 76)
Borger
,
Texas
, U.S.
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Political party
| Republican
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Spouse
| Suzanne Kidwell (1991?present)
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Education
| Texas A&M University?Commerce
(
BBA
)
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|
Allegiance
|
United States
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Branch/service
|
United States Army
|
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Years of service
| 1970?1972
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Rank
| Specialist 5
|
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Awards
| Army Commendation Medal
|
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|
|
Kenneth Michael Conaway
(born June 11, 1948) is an American politician who was the
U.S. representative
for
Texas's 11th congressional district
from 2005 to 2021. He is a member of the
Republican Party
. The district Conaway represented is located in
West Texas
and includes
Midland
,
Odessa
,
San Angelo
,
Brownwood
, and
Granbury
. Conaway led the investigation into
Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections
(with assistance from
Trey Gowdy
and
Tom Rooney
) after the
Intelligence Committee
chair,
Devin Nunes
, recused himself.
[1]
Aside from serving as the chair of the House Ethics Committee, he served as the chair of the House Agriculture Committee, and later its ranking member. Conaway indicated in July 2019 that he would not be seeking reelection.
[2]
Conaway was succeeded by fellow Republican August Pfluger.
Background
[
edit
]
Conaway was born in
Borger
in the
Texas Panhandle
northeast of
Amarillo
, the son of Helen Jean (McCormick) and Louis Denton Conaway.
[3]
He graduated in 1966 from
Permian High School
in
Odessa
in
Ector County
, where he was a standout player for the Permian Panthers and a member of the first Permian State Championship team in 1965. After High School, he attended
Ranger College
on a football scholarship
[4]
before attending
Texas A&M University-Commerce
(then named East Texas State University), lettering in Football for the Lions from 1966 to 1969 and was a member of two
Lone Star Conference
championship teams. He majored in
Accounting
, graduating in 1970.
Career
[
edit
]
Military
[
edit
]
Conaway served in the United States Army from 1970 to 1972.
[5]
Private sector
[
edit
]
Conaway was an
accountant
and became a
Certified Public Accountant
in 1974, chief financial officer at a bank, and from 1981 to 1986 was the chief financial officer of
Arbusto Energy
Inc, an oil and gas exploration firm operated by
George W. Bush
.
Texas government
[
edit
]
Soon after Bush was elected
governor of Texas
, he appointed Conaway to the Texas State Board of Public Accountancy, which regulates accountancy in Texas. He served on the board as a volunteer for seven years, the last five as chairman.
[
citation needed
]
U.S. House of Representatives
[
edit
]
Committee assignments (116th Congress)
Caucus memberships
Tenure
[
edit
]
Conaway endorsed former
Massachusetts
Governor
Mitt Romney
for president in 2008.
[
citation needed
]
On May 13, 2016, Conaway endorsed the Republican presumptive nominee
Donald Trump
for president in the
2016 U.S. presidential election
.
[9]
In 2006, Conaway voted against extending the
Voting Rights Act of 1965
.
[10]
[11]
Conaway served on committees of the
National Republican Congressional Committee
(NRCC), the campaign arm of the House Republican caucus.
In January 2007, Conaway began chairing the three-member audit committee for the NRCC. By January 28, 2008, Conaway had uncovered a fraud, where hundreds of thousands of dollars were missing from NRCC bank accounts, and supposed annual audits on the NRCC books had actually not been performed since 2001.
[12]
Conaway introduced legislation to extend and reform the federal tax credit to support wide scale commercial deployment of
carbon capture and storage
.
[13]
Speaker
Paul Ryan
announced Conaway's new role as leader of the
House Intelligence Committee
in April 2017 after chairman
Devin Nunes
temporarily
[14]
recused himself from investigations into Russian interference in the U.S. 2016 election.
[15]
In February 2018, Conaway prevented efforts by the Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee to investigate financial links between Trump, his businesses, his family and Russian actors.
[16]
Conaway prevented subpoenas for related bank records, Trump's tax returns and witnesses.
[16]
Democrats on the committee had, for example, asked for subpoenas to
Deutsche Bank
, which the Trump Organization and
Jared Kushner
(Trump's son-in-law and senior White House advisor) have borrowed extensively from.
[16]
In March 2018, Conaway laid out the findings of a report by the Republican members of the House Intelligence Committee.
[17]
One of the findings was that the committee had found no evidence of collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign in the 2016 election; Democrats on the committee said that they had come to no such conclusion.
[17]
A few days later, Conaway walked back that finding, saying "Our committee was not charged with answering the collusion idea".
[17]
Asked why the committee drew a conclusion if it had not investigated the matter, Conaway denied that the committee had drawn a conclusion, "What we said is we found no evidence of it. That’s a different statement. We found no evidence of collusion."
[17]
In December 2020, Conaway was one of 126 Republican members of the
House of Representatives
who signed an
amicus brief
in support of
Texas v. Pennsylvania
, a lawsuit filed at the
United States Supreme Court
contesting the results of the
2020 presidential election
, in which
Joe Biden
prevailed
[18]
over incumbent
Donald Trump
. The Supreme Court declined to hear the case on the basis that Texas lacked
standing
under
Article III of the Constitution
to challenge the results of the election held by another state.
[19]
[20]
[21]
Political campaigns
[
edit
]
Conaway first ran for elective office in 2003, when he ran in a special election for the 19th Congressional District, which came open after 18-year Republican incumbent
Larry Combest
stepped down shortly after winning a 10th term. Conaway lost by 587 votes to fellow Republican
Randy Neugebauer
. A few months later, the
Texas Legislature
redrew the state's districts
in an effort engineered by then-
House Majority Leader
Tom DeLay
. Three brand-new districts were created, one of them being the 11th, which was based in Midland. Previously, Midland had been part of the
Lubbock
-based 19th District. DeLay was particularly keen to draw a district based in Midland, Odessa and the oil-rich
Permian Basin
in part because
Texas House
Speaker
Tom Craddick
was from that area. This district is heavily Republican ? by some accounts, it was the most Republican district in Texas at the time. Republicans had dominated every level of government since the 1980s, and usually garner 70 percent or more of the vote in this area (
Glasscock County
had voted 93 percent for Bush in 2000, the highest percentage of any county in the nation). The race was essentially over when Conaway announced his candidacy, though any Democrat would have faced nearly impossible odds in any event. He won in November with 77 percent of the vote, one of the largest percentages by anyone facing major-party opposition.
Conaway was reelected six times with no substantive opposition. The district is so heavily Republican that the
Democrats
only fielded a challenger against him three times in 2010, 2012 and 2018. Each time, he won at least 75 percent of the vote; neither Democrat cleared 20 percent. He was reelected unopposed in 2006 and faced only minor party opposition in 2008, 2014, and 2016, all three of which times he won with roughly 90% of the vote. As a measure of how Republican this district is, Conaway took over 75 percent of the vote in 2006, 2008 and 2018, years in which Republicans suffered heavy losses nationally.
Conaway won re-nomination to a sixth term in the U.S. House in the Republican primary held on March 4, 2014. He polled 53,107 votes (74 percent); his challenger, Wade Brown, received 18,979 votes (26 percent).
[22]
Conaway won re-election in the general election held on November 4, 2014. He polled 107,752 votes (90 percent); his challenger, Libertarian Ryan T. Lange, received 11,607 (10 percent).
[23]
Conaway announced in July 2019 that he would not be running for reelection.
[2]
Committee assignments
[
edit
]
- 116th Congress
Personal life
[
edit
]
Conaway served on the Midland Independent School District Board from 1985 to 1988.
Conaway is married to Suzanne Kidwell Conaway and their family includes two sons, two daughters, and seven grandchildren.
Electoral history
[
edit
]
See also
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
Nunes steps down from US election Russian hacking probe
,
BBC News
, April 6, 2017
, retrieved
April 6,
2017
- ^
a
b
GOP Rep. Mike Conaway won't seek reelection in 2020
,
Politico
, Melanie Zanona and Jake Sherman, July 30, 2019. Retrieved September 26, 2019.
- ^
"mike conaway"
.
freepages.rootsweb.com
. Retrieved
2018-12-12
.
- ^
https://storage.googleapis.com/yearbooks/Yearbooks/1967.pdf
[
bare URL PDF
]
- ^
"Veterans in the US House of Representatives 109th Congress"
(PDF)
. Navy League. Archived from
the original
(PDF)
on 2007-06-26
. Retrieved
2006-12-09
.
- ^
"Members"
. Congressional Constitution Caucus. Archived from
the original
on 14 June 2018
. Retrieved
8 May
2018
.
- ^
"Members"
. Congressional Western Caucus
. Retrieved
25 June
2018
.
- ^
"Our Members"
. U.S. House of Representatives International Conservation Caucus. Archived from
the original
on 1 August 2018
. Retrieved
1 August
2018
.
- ^
"Meet Mike Conaway, the new sheriff on the Trump-Russia case"
.
Politico
. Retrieved
2018-02-26
.
- ^
"The Voter's Self Defense System"
.
Vote Smart
.
- ^
"Aides to Texans on Capitol Hill alter bosses' Wikipedia entries - Local Politics - Dallas News"
. 24 December 2013.
- ^
Suzanne Gamboa, "Texas lawmaker uncovers GOP committee fraud"
, Associated Press, published by the
Houston Chronicle
(March 13, 2008).
- ^
Bledsoe, Paul (12 July 2016).
"Trump, GOP climate change denial hastens coal's decline"
.
The Hill
. Retrieved
27 February
2018
.
- ^
Cloud, David S. (April 6, 2017).
"Devin Nunes says he's temporarily stepping aside from Russia probe"
.
Los Angeles Times
. Retrieved
April 6,
2017
.
- ^
"Speaker Ryan Statement on Chairman Nunes"
(Press release). Office of the Speaker of the House. April 6, 2017. Archived from
the original
on April 6, 2017
. Retrieved
April 6,
2017
.
- ^
a
b
c
Raju, Manu; Herb, Jeremy.
"In probes, GOP draws line at Trump's finances"
.
CNN
. Retrieved
2018-02-26
.
- ^
a
b
c
d
Shelbourne, Mallory (2018-03-18).
"Conaway walks back comment after saying House Intel didn't probe collusion"
.
The Hill
. Retrieved
2018-03-18
.
- ^
Blood, Michael R.; Riccardi, Nicholas (December 5, 2020).
"Biden officially secures enough electors to become president"
.
AP News
.
Archived
from the original on December 8, 2020
. Retrieved
December 12,
2020
.
- ^
Liptak, Adam
(2020-12-11).
"Supreme Court Rejects Texas Suit Seeking to Subvert Election"
.
The New York Times
.
ISSN
0362-4331
.
Archived
from the original on December 11, 2020
. Retrieved
2020-12-12
.
- ^
"Order in Pending Case"
(PDF)
.
Supreme Court of the United States
. 2020-12-11.
Archived
(PDF)
from the original on December 11, 2020
. Retrieved
December 11,
2020
.
- ^
Diaz, Daniella.
"Brief from 126 Republicans supporting Texas lawsuit in Supreme Court"
.
CNN
.
Archived
from the original on December 12, 2020
. Retrieved
December 11,
2020
.
- ^
"Republican primary election returns, March 4, 2014"
. enr.sos.state.tx.us. Archived from
the original
on March 5, 2014
. Retrieved
March 6,
2014
.
- ^
"2014 General Election Returns"
. enr.sos.state.tx.us. Archived from
the original
on November 7, 2014
. Retrieved
November 6,
2014
.
External links
[
edit
]
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International
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National
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People
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