Kenny Marchant

Kenny Marchant
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives
from Texas's 24th district
Assumed office
January 3, 2005
Preceded by Martin Frost
Member of the Texas House of Representatives
In office
January 13, 1987 – January 3, 2005
Preceded by William W. Blanton
Succeeded by Jim Jackson
Constituency 99th district (1987–2001)
115th district (2003–2005)
Personal details
Born Kenny Ewell Marchant
(1951-02-23) February 23, 1951
Bonham, Texas, U.S.
Political party Republican
Spouse(s) Donna Marchant
Children 4
Education Southern Nazarene University (BA)
Nazarene Theological Seminary

Kenny Ewell Marchant (born February 23, 1951) is the U.S. Representative for Texas's 24th congressional district, serving since 2005. He is a member of the Republican Party. The district includes several areas around Dallas and Fort Worth.

Early life, education and career

Marchant was born in Bonham, Texas, but grew up in Carrollton, a Dallas suburb. He graduated from R.L. Turner High School in Carrollton and attended college at Southern Nazarene University (SNU) in Bethany, Oklahoma, at which he graduated with a Business Administration degree. He worked as a real estate developer and he owned a home-building company prior to entering politics.

Marchant served on the Carrollton City Council from 1980 to 1984, and was mayor of Carrollton from 1984 to 1986, both nonpartisan positions.

Texas House of Representatives

He was a member of the Texas House of Representatives from 1987 to 2004. During three of his nine terms in the Texas House, Marchant served as chairman of the Committee on Financial Institutions. He pushed for legislation that reorganized the Texas Banking Code. In 2002, he was chosen as Chairman of the Texas House Republican Caucus. In 2004, he was named a Top Ten Legislator by Texas Monthly and Legislator of the Year by the Texas Municipal League.[1]

U.S. House of Representatives

Committee assignments

In the 110th Congress, Marchant served on the United States House Committee on Financial Services, Committee on Education and Labor, and Oversight and Government Reform Committee.[3]

Political positions

Marchant worked closely with Bush when he was governor of Texas, and bills himself as a staunch conservative. However, he has occasionally broken ranks with the GOP, as he did to increase the minimum wage.[4] He has said that his top priority on Capitol Hill will be cutting the federal deficit with fiscal conservative policies. The Sunlight Foundation wrote that among the 435 members of the U.S. House of Representatives in 2008, Marchant has the fifth-highest amount of investment in oil stocks.[5]

Political campaigns

Marchant had planned to run for Congress two years earlier in a bid to represent the newly created 32nd district in suburban Dallas, but fellow Republican Pete Sessions, an incumbent, chose to run there instead. During the 2003 Texas redistricting, Marchant, in his position on the Texas House's Redistricting Committee, was ideally positioned to help draw Texas districts. As part of this effort, the 24th District, represented by 13-term Democrat Martin Frost, was reconfigured from a heavily Democratic district with a sizable Latino population into a heavily Republican district that was over 73 percent white. While Al Gore easily carried the old 24th in the 2000 presidential election, George W. Bush would have won the new 24th with a staggering 68 percent of the vote. Marchant was elected to Congress in 2004, and was reelected in 2006 (with 60% of the ballots cast) and 2008 (with 56% of the ballots cast).

Marchant won his seventh term in the House in the general election held on November 8, 2016. With 154,845 votes (56.2 percent), he defeated the Democrat Jan McDowell, who received 108,389 (39.3 percent). Two other candidates held the remaining 4.5 percent of the ballots cast.[6]

Personal life

Marchant is married to Donna Marchant and has four children as well as four grandchildren.[7] They live in Coppell, a Dallas suburb. Marchant's son Matthew Marchant is a former mayor of Carrollton, Texas.

References

  1. ↑ The Washington Post, date missing
  2. ↑ "Member List". Republican Study Committee. Retrieved 21 December 2017.
  3. ↑ Congressman Kenny Marchant – 24th District of Texas – Legislation
  4. ↑ Works well with others? What a flaw! | Dallas Morning News | News for Dallas, Texas | Opinion: Points
  5. ↑ "The Sunlight Foundation Blog – Oil Industry Influence: Personal Finances'". Sunlight Foundation. August 8, 2008. Retrieved on July 25, 2016
  6. ↑ "Election Results". Texas Secretary of State. November 8, 2016. Retrieved December 17, 2016.
  7. ↑ "About Kenny".
U.S. House of Representatives
Preceded by
Martin Frost		 Member of the U.S. House of Representatives
from Texas's 24th congressional district
2005–present		 Incumbent
Current U.S. order of precedence (ceremonial)
Preceded by
Dan Lipinski
D-Illinois		 United States Representatives by seniority
122nd		 Succeeded by
Michael McCaul
R-Texas
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