Kevin Patrick Brady (born April 11, 1955) is an American politician and the
U.S. representative for , serving since 1997. He is a member of the
Republican Party
Republican Party is a name used by many political parties around the world, though the term most commonly refers to the United States' Republican Party.
Republican Party may also refer to:
Africa
* Republican Party (Liberia)
*Republican Party ...
. The district includes northern
Houston
Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 ...
, including
The Woodlands. On April 14, 2021, Brady announced that he would not run for a 14th term and would retire after the
2022 election cycle.
Early life, education, and early political career
Brady was born in
Vermillion, South Dakota, one of five children of William F. and Nancy A. Brady. His father, a lawyer, was killed in 1967 in a courtroom shooting in
Rapid City
Rapid City ( lkt, link=no, Mni Lúzahaŋ Otȟúŋwahe; "Swift Water City") is the second most populous city in South Dakota and the county seat of Pennington County. Named after Rapid Creek, where the settlement developed, it is in western So ...
when Brady was 12 years old and his mother was in her early 30s.
[Holt, Vanessa]
U.S. Rep. Kevin Brady stays close to his roots in The Woodlands area
''Community Impact'', December 14, 2020. Retrieved December 16, 2020. He graduated from
Central High School in 1973. Brady has a degree in mass communications from the
University of South Dakota in Vermillion.
Brady worked for the Rapid City area Chamber of Commerce. He was elected to the Rapid City common council at age 26. In 1982, he moved to Texas to work for the
Beaumont, Texas Chamber of Commerce. In 1985, he went to work for the South Montgomery County Woodlands Chamber of Commerce.
Texas House of Representatives
In 1990, Brady was elected to the
Texas House of Representatives, district 15, representing The Woodlands, parts of Montgomery County, and five other counties west and north of Houston.
U.S. House of Representatives
Elections
1996
Incumbent U.S. Representative
Jack Fields
Jack Milton Fields Jr. (born February 3, 1952) is a Texas businessman and a former Republican member of the United States House of Representatives from a Houston-based district.
Early life
Fields was born in Humble, a northern suburb of Hou ...
of
Texas's 8th congressional district decided to retire. Brady ran for the seat and ranked second in the Republican primary with 22% of the vote in a six-candidate field. The candidate who ranked first, Gene Fontenot, received 36% of the vote, short of the 50% threshold. In the runoff election, Brady defeated him, 53%–47%. But the
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. Federal tribunals in the United States, federal court cases, and over Stat ...
ruled in ''
Bush v. Vera'' that three of Texas's congressional districts were unconstitutional. After hearings, the court concluded that there was no longer time to hold primaries and instead forced all candidates (Democrats and Republicans) be listed together on the November general election ballot in a
jungle primary
A nonpartisan blanket primary is a primary election in which all candidates for the same elected office run against each other at once, regardless of the political party. Partisan elections are, on the other hand, segregated by political party ...
. If no candidate reached 50%, a special runoff would be held on December 10 between the two highest-ranking candidates. In the November election, Brady ranked first with 41% of the vote. In the December runoff, he defeated Fontenot again, 59%–41%.
1998–2008
During this period, Brady never received less than 67% of the vote.
2010
For the first time since 1998, Brady was challenged in the Republican primary. Three candidates filed against him. He defeated all of them in the March primary with 79% of the vote. He was reelected with 80% of the vote.
2012
In the May Republican primary, in a newly redrawn district, he defeated his challenger with 76% of the vote. In the November 6 general election, he defeated the Democratic nominee with over 77% of the vote.
2014
Brady won the March 4 Republican primary with 41,549 votes (68%) to Craig McMichael's 19,508 (32%).
In the November 4 general election, Brady was reelected with 124,897 votes (89.32%) to Democratic nominee Ken Petty's 14,930 (10.67%).
2016
In November 2015,
Steve Toth
Steve Hixson Toth (born November 29, 1960) is an American businessman and politician serving as a member of the Texas House of Representatives from District 15.
Early life and education
Born and raised in New York, Toth attended Pittsford Mendo ...
, a former state representative from
The Woodlands, Texas, announced that he would run against Brady.
Brady eked out a victory in the March 1 primary with 53% of the vote, his lowest total in his 18-year career.
He spent over $1.5 million to Toth's $89,325.
Toth criticized Brady for compromising too often with President Obama,
for supporting the omnibus federal budget bill, and for voting to revive the
U.S. Export-Import Bank.
2018
Brady won the Republican primary unopposed, as did the Democratic nominee, Steven David. Brady won the general election with 198,241 votes (73.5%) to David's 67,027 (24.8%). Libertarian Chris Duncan received 4,597 votes. As of September 30, 2018, Brady had outraised David in contributions, $4,899,672 to $31,664.
2020
Brady defeated Kirk Osborn in the Republican primary, 80.73% to 16.19%. In the general election, he defeated Democratic nominee Elizabeth Hernandez and Libertarian challenger Chris Duncan
with 72.5% of the vote to the challengers' 27.5%. The 2020 election was Brady's last election for Congress.
Tenure
In 2002, Brady voted for the
Authorization for the Use of Military Force Against Iraq, authorizing the
U.S. invasion of Iraq
The 2003 invasion of Iraq was a United States-led invasion of the Republic of Iraq and the first stage of the Iraq War. The invasion phase began on 19 March 2003 (air) and 20 March 2003 (ground) and lasted just over one month, including 26 ...
the next year. Yet in 2008 he was one of the 24 Republicans (and 227 Democrats) to vote to impeach
President George W. Bush
George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush family, and son of the 41st president George H. W. Bush, he ...
for misleading the United States into going to war in Iraq.
In 2005, Brady was a chief supporter of the
Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement
Dominican may refer to:
* Someone or something from or related to the Dominican Republic ( , stress on the "mi"), on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles, in the Caribbean
** People of the Dominican Republic
** Demographics of the Domi ...
(DR-CAFTA), working with the
Bush administration to secure passage of that
free-trade agreement
A free-trade agreement (FTA) or treaty is an agreement according to international law to form a free-trade area between the cooperating states. There are two types of trade agreements: bilateral and multilateral. Bilateral trade agreements occu ...
. In 2011, Brady also voted for
free-trade agreements with South Korea Colombia, and
Panama. But in 2017, Brady supported President
Donald Trump's proposed
border adjustment tax, arguing that the tax on imports would place the U.S. on a level playing field with other countries that have the tax and raise an estimated $1 trillion.
Brady is known as the author of a federal "
sunset law
In public policy, a sunset provision or sunset clause is a measure within a statute, regulation or other law that provides that the law shall cease to have effect after a specific date, unless further legislative action is taken to extend the law ...
" that would require every federal program not specifically written into the
Constitution to justify its existence to taxpayers within 12 years or face elimination.
In March 2012, Brady proposed the Sound Dollar Act, legislation to require the
Federal Reserve to
monitor gold and the
foreign-exchange value of the U.S. dollar. The bill would also repeal the Federal Reserve's dual mandate (controlling unemployment and inflation) and replace it with a single mandate for U.S. dollar
price stability.
In November 2015, Brady was elected the 65th chair of the
Committee on Ways and Means
The Committee on Ways and Means is the chief tax-writing committee of the United States House of Representatives. The committee has jurisdiction over all taxation, tariffs, and other revenue-raising measures, as well as a number of other program ...
, serving until 2019.
In March 2017, Brady introduced an amendment to the
American Health Care Act (the House Republican proposal to repeal the
Affordable Care Act) that would allow health insurance providers to fully deduct all forms of compensation to their most highly compensated executives without limit, repealing the current law, which capped the deduction at $500,000 per executive. ''Los Angeles Times'' columnist
Michael Hiltzik
Michael A. Hiltzik (born November 9, 1952) is an American columnist, reporter and author who has written extensively for the ''Los Angeles Times''. In 1999, he won a beat reporting Pulitzer Prize for co-writing a series of articles about corrupti ...
criticized Brady's amendment as a "secret payoff" to the health insurance industry because of its cryptic language.
As chair of the House Committee on Ways and Means, Brady opposed a resolution to request ten years' worth of returns from Trump and his business entities. In 2017, he said that the resolution was an abuse done for "obvious political purposes". In September 2020, after ''The New York Times'' published an extensive report on Trump's tax records and business dealings spanning two decades, Brady called for an investigation into the ''Times'' and the report's sources.
In November 2017, Brady said that the
Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 would provide "tax relief at every level"; in fact, 7% of households in 2018 would pay more in taxes and by 2022, one quarter of households would pay more.
Brady's claim that 70% of the tax cuts in the bill would go to households making below $200,000 was found to be "misleading" by
FactCheck.Org and "cherry-picked" by
PolitiFact.
FactCheck.org noted that "57.7 percent of the tax relief goes to those families making less than $200,000 in 2019—not the 70 percent that Brady cited for 2019. By 2027, 50 percent of tax relief as a result of business and individual income tax changes would go to those making more than $200,000 a year."
The
American Conservative Union
The American Conservative Union (ACU) is an American political organization that advocates for conservative policies, ranks politicians based on their level of conservatism, and organizes the Conservative Political Action Conference. Founded o ...
gave him a 94% evaluation in 2017.
Brady and Representative
Richard Neal introduced the bipartisan
SECURE Act of 2019
The Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement (SECURE) Act of 2019, , was signed into law by President Donald Trump on December 20, 2019 as part of the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2020 ( 2020 United States federal budget). ...
, which contained a number of provisions to expand access to retirement planning options and to encourage employers to set up retirement plans for workers. The bill, originally introduced in March 2019, was passed into law in December 2019 as part of the fiscal year 2020 federal appropriations bill.
In December 2020, Brady was one of 126 Republican members of the
House of Representatives to sign 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
This national electoral calendar for 2020 lists the national/ federal elections held in 2020 in all sovereign states and their dependent territories. By-elections are excluded, though national referendums are included.
January
*5 January:
** ...
, in which
Joe Biden defeated 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 an election held by another state.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi issued a statement that called signing the amicus brief an act of "election subversion."
In December 2020, Brady indicated that he supported a second round of
Paycheck Protection Program funds to assist small businesses suffering from the economic effects of the
COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...
.
He was a negotiator during the discussions to pass the
Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act.
In January 2021, after a mob of Trump supporters
stormed the United States Capitol, Brady argued that those calling for Trump's impeachment or for the invocation of the
25th Amendment
The Twenty-fifth Amendment (Amendment XXV) to the United States Constitution deals with presidential succession and disability.
It clarifies that the vice president becomes president if the president dies, resigns, or is removed from office, a ...
were themselves engaging in inflammatory language and that such calls could incite further violence.
On April 14, 2021, Brady announced that he would not run for a 14th House term and would retire in 2022.
Committee assignments
*
Committee on Ways and Means
The Committee on Ways and Means is the chief tax-writing committee of the United States House of Representatives. The committee has jurisdiction over all taxation, tariffs, and other revenue-raising measures, as well as a number of other program ...
During his time in Congress, Brady has chaired the
Joint Economic Committee, the
Ways and Means Committee, and the
Joint Committee on Taxation
The Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) is a Committee of the U.S. Congress established under the Internal Revenue Code at .
Structure
The Joint Committee is composed of ten Members: five from the Senate Finance Committee and five from the House W ...
.
Caucus memberships
* Army Caucus
* Congressional Missing and Exploited Children Caucus
* Congressional Rural Caucus
*
United States Congressional International Conservation Caucus
* Sportsmen's Caucus
*
Congressional Constitution Caucus
*
Congressional Western Caucus
The Congressional Western Caucus is a caucus within the United States House of Representatives composed of 62 members. Although it has historically been bipartisan, it is currently composed almost exclusively of Republicans (with the sole excepti ...
*
Republican Study Committee
Political positions
Taxation
Brady believes policies enacted by the
Trump administration, including the 2017
Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, helped put the U.S. economy in a robust position going into the
COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...
.
Medicare
Brady strongly opposes
Medicare for All
Single-payer healthcare is a type of universal healthcare in which the costs of essential healthcare for all residents are covered by a single public system (hence "single-payer").
Single-payer systems may contract for healthcare services from ...
.
Energy
In 2012, Brady voted for the Coal Miner Employment and Domestic Energy Infrastructure Protection Act, which rescinded
Obama administration policies on coal mining and energy infrastructure. In January 2021, he expressed concern that the
Biden administration's drilling ban
Executive Order 13990
Executive Order 13990, officially titled Protecting Public Health and the Environment and Restoring Science to Tackle the Climate Crisis is an executive order signed by President Joe Biden on January 20, 2021 which implements various environment ...
on federal leases would "kill" 120,000 Texas jobs.
LGBT rights
In 2011, Brady cosponsored legislation directing the Justice Department to continue defending the
Defense of Marriage Act. He opposed ''
Obergefell v. Hodges'', the 2015 Supreme Court ruling that same-sex marriage bans are unconstitutional, citing his beliefs that marriage is "a union between one man and one woman" and that same-sex marriage law should be delegated to the states under the
Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. In 2019, Brady voted against expressing opposition to banning service in the armed forces by openly transgender individuals, and in 2021, he voted against the
Equality Act. The
Human Rights Campaign gave Brady a score of 0 out of 100 for his voting record on legislation in the 116th Congress.
Personal life
Brady lives in
The Woodlands, a
suburb of Houston, with his wife, Cathy, and two sons.
In October 2005, Brady was arrested and charged with
driving under the influence of alcohol in South Dakota. He pleaded no contest, was convicted of a misdemeanor, and fined $350. Brady issued an apology.
[Samantha Levine]
U.S. Rep. Brady pleads no contest to DUI charge
''Houston Chronicle'' (November 9, 2005).
References
External links
Congressman Kevin Bradyofficial U.S. House website
Kevin Brady for Congress*
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Brady, Kevin
1955 births
20th-century American politicians
21st-century American politicians
Living people
Members of the Texas House of Representatives
People from Vermillion, South Dakota
People from The Woodlands, Texas
Republican Party members of the United States House of Representatives from Texas
University of South Dakota alumni
South Dakota Republicans
Texas Republicans