Mike Gallagher (American politician)

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

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 at Princeton University in 2006. He earned his MSSI (Master of Science in Strategic Intelligence), at National Intelligence University in 2010. He studied at Georgetown University, earning a M.A. in Security Studies in 2012; a M.A. in Government in 2013; and a Ph.D. in Government - International Relations in 2015.

Political career
Gallagher served as a Republican staffer on the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. Scott Walker, then-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
 * United States House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure

Caucus memberships
 * Republican Study Committee
 * Republican Main Street Partnership
 * Climate Solutions Caucus
 * U.S.-Japan Caucus

Political 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.

Health care
Gallagher supported the May 2017 GOP health care proposals, and described the Affordable Care Act's funding as "unsustainable."

Foreign affairs
In a 2016 profile in the Green Bay Press Gazette, Gallagher blamed President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for the success of ISIS in Iraq, and advocated for U.S. military global dominance. In 2019, he wrote it would be "a smart geopolitical move" for the U.S. to buy Greenland.

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".