Zach Wamp

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Zach Wamp
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Tennessee's 3rd district
Incumbent
Assumed office  January 3, 1995
Preceded by	Marilyn Lloyd
Born	October 28, 1957 (1957-10-28) (age 50) Fort Benning, Georgia
Political party	Republican
Spouse	Kimberly Wamp
Religion	Baptist

Zachary Paul "Zach" Wamp (born October 28, 1957) is a Republican politician representing the 3rd Congressional district of Tennessee (map) since 1995. The district is based in Chattanooga and includes large parts of East Tennessee, including Oak Ridge.

[edit] Early life, education, and early career

Wamp was born in Fort Benning, Georgia. He attended the McCallie School, a boy's boarding school in Chattanooga, from the age of 11 until he graduated in 1976.^[1] He studied industrial relations at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1977–78 and 1979–80 and attended the University of Tennessee at Knoxville in between (1978–79), but did not earn a degree from either.

After attending college, Wamp was a sales representative for Olan Mills, a photography company based in Chattanooga that primarily produces church directories,^[1] and later a commercial and industrial real estate broker. In 1989, he became vice president of Charter Real Estate Corp., where he sold more than $7 million in real estate during his first full year.^{[citation needed]}

Wamp began in politics as precinct vice chairman for the 1983 Chattanooga mayoral campaign of Gene Roberts. He was later elected chairman of the Hamilton County, Tennessee Republican Party, then regional director for the state GOP. Wamp organized, directed, recruited, managed or chaired dozens of political campaigns.

[edit] Congressional career

Wamp ran for the House of Representatives as a Republican in 1992 against nine-term Democrat Marilyn Lloyd. He narrowly lost by only two percentage points of the vote.

Lloyd did not run for reelection in 1994, and Wamp ran again. During the race, Wamp signed the Contract with America. He proposed a plan to pay Congressmen the same as Lieutenant Colonels, and linked his Democratic opponent to Bill Clinton. Wamp won with 52% of the vote, defeating Democrat Randy Button. He was re-elected in 1996 with 56% of the vote. In his next four re-election campaigns, he got 64% or more of the vote.

Wamp explored seeking a seat in the United States Senate to succeed Bill Frist, who had promised to serve no more than two terms. However, he decided against running for that seat in October 2004. A major factor was that Chattanooga mayor Bob Corker was also running for the seat (he was Frist's principal 1994 primary opponent and the eventual 2006 winner); the Chattanooga area is generally considered to have too small a population and contributor base to provide adequate support to more than one major contender for a statewide office; and Corker had already raised considerable funds for his Senate campaign.

He serves on the Liberty Caucus (sometimes called the Liberty Committee), a group of liberty-minded congressional representatives from both sides of the aisle.^[2] Congressman Ron Paul hosts a luncheon for the Liberty Caucus every Thursday. Other members include Jimmy Duncan of Tennessee, Virgil Goode of Virginia, Roscoe Bartlett of Maryland, Scott Garrett of New Jersey, Walter B. Jones of North Carolina and Jeff Flake of Arizona.^[3]

[edit] Political positions

Wamp is a member of the powerful House Appropriations Committee, a post he has used to direct funding for his district's decaying lock at the Chickamauga Dam. He also secured in the 2006 budget a $4 million appropriation for a methamphetamine task force that has expanded to all regions of Tennessee.

Wamp has vigorously supported the Tennessee Valley Authority, one of the largest government-owned firms in the United States.

Wamp has proposed legislation to allow the posting of the Ten Commandments in public buildings.

[edit] 2005–2006 campaign for Majority Whip

In the wake of Tom DeLay's indictment in September 2005, Wamp campaigned among his fellow Republican House members to become the majority whip, the number three position in the Republican House leadership.^[4] Representatives Ray LaHood and Gil Gutknecht agreed to co-chair his campaign for the position.^[5] But the incumbent, Roy Blunt, remained the majority whip (the position was won by John Boehner in February 2006).^[6]

[edit] Personal

During his 1994 election campaign, Wamp admitted that he had had a problem with cocaine but said that he had stopped using it years ago. After abusing alcohol and cocaine for several years in college and while holding a photography job based in Chattanooga, he checked himself into a drug rehabilitation clinic in 1984. In the clinic, he pledged to his family to turn his life around. As part of his experience at the clinic, he is now devoutly religious Southern Baptist.^[1] In the Congress, he has fought to make it easier for drug addicts enter drug rehabilitation as well as other measures to help addicts seek help.^[7]

In April 2003, the Associated Press reported that Wamp was one of six Congressman living in a Capitol Hill townhouse subsidized by The Family, a secretive religious organization.^[8]

[edit] 2006 Campaign

When he was elected to the House in 1994, Wamp pledged to serve just twelve years (six terms) in the House, meaning that he would leave the House in 2007. However, shortly after winning reelection to a sixth term in 2004, Wamp announced he would run again in 2006 after all, citing his status as Tennessee's only member of the powerful Appropriations Committee. The pledge was "a mistake," he told the Associated Press in 2004.^[9]

Wamp faced Brent Benedict, a computer programmer and consultant. During the campaign, Benedict made an issue of Wamp's breaking his term limit pledge saying that he would hold himself to six terms if elected.^[10] Despite this, Wamp was easily reelected.

Following the loss of the U.S. House and U.S. Senate in the 2006 midterm elections, Wamp reflected on the defeat saying, "For the first six years of the 12 years, we were focused on policy and principles, and politics was secondary. The second six years, politics became primary: raising money, going negative, consolidating power."^[11]

[edit] Electoral history

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Congressman Zach Wamp official U.S. House website
• Zach Wamp for Congress official campaign website

• Biography at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
• Voting record maintained by The Washington Post
• Campaign finance reports and data at the Federal Election Commission
• Campaign contributions at OpenSecrets.org
• Biography, voting record, and interest group ratings at Project Vote Smart
• Issue positions and quotes at On The Issues
• Current Bills Sponsored at StateSurge.com
• Profile at SourceWatch Congresspedia