Washington Post
Why He Matters
In nearly two decades in the House, Camp has quietly but steadily risen in the GOP ranks. In December 2008, he beat back a spirited campaign by Rep. Wally Herger (R-Calif.) to become the ranking Republican on the powerful House Ways and Means Committee. In the GOP-led 112th Congress, Camp was appointed as chairman.As the panel's senior GOP lawmaker, Camp played a prominent role in the 2010 health-care debate, sponsoring the lead Republican alternative. Though he built a conservative record in Congress, he occupied what Congressional Quarterly termed a "one-man Republican faction" as the only member of both the conservative Republican Steering Committee and the moderate Main Street Partnership.
Camp was first elected to his seat in central Michigan in 1990. He is known for keeping a close connection to his constituents and boasts of personally signing more than 30,000 pieces of constituent mail each year.
Camp ranked as a rising star in the Republican Party early in his tenure and was influential in drafting the welfare reform bill that President Bill Clinton eventually signed in 1996.
In Their Own Words
- Career History: Michigan representative(1988-1990); Aide to Rep. Bill Schuette (R-Mich.) (1984-1987); Michigan Assistant state attorney general (1980-1984)
- Birthday: July 9, 1953
- Hometown: Midland, Mich.
- Alma Mater: Albion College, B.A. 1975; University of San Diego, J.D. 1978
- Spouse: Nancy Camp
- Religion: Catholic
Born in 1953, Camp grew up in Midland, a central Michigan industrial town where he and his wife and three children still reside. He attended local schools before graduating from Michigan's Albion College in 1975.
After earning his law degree from the University of San Diego in 1978, Camp returned to Michigan to practice law and later served as a special assistant to the Michigan attorney general during the early 1980s. He became active in local Republican politics and managed the winning congressional campaign of his boyhood friend Bill Schuette in 1984. Camp then worked as an aide to Schuette for four years before beginning his own electoral career with a successful run for a seat in the Michigan House in 1988.
Though he has kept one foot in the moderate bloc through his
participation in the Main Street Partnership, Camp has generally voted
as a conservative and along party lines in the House. He sided with
Republicans 93.7 percent of the time during the 111th Congress.
The American Conservative Union gives him a lifetime rating of 89 percent,though his score with the Club for Growth is considerably lower.
The American Conservative Union gives him a lifetime rating of 89 percent,though his score with the Club for Growth is considerably lower.
"I'm a conservative on fiscal policy, but I'm a moderate on some
other issues," he told Congressional Quarterly in 2006, though he told
National Review the following year that he feels "more at home" with the
conservative Republican Steering Committee.
Camp opposes abortion rights and same-sex marriage. He voted twice for President George W. Bush's tax cuts, and he supports their full extension. He has pushed for private accounts for Social Security and supports drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
On foreign policy, Camp supported the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and he backed - with some reservations - President Bush's decision to send more troops to Iraq in earlier 2007.
Camp
supported the $700 billion Wall Street bailout in the fall of 2008, a
position that drew criticism from Andy Concannon, his Democratic
opponent for reelection. "This is not something that anyone really
wanted to do, but it was something that had to be done because the risk
of (doing) nothing was far too great," Camp said in defending his vote.
"This is a stop-gap measure. It is not going to fix all our economic
problems."
Camp's post as ranking member of the Ways and Means Committee earned him a spot on the House-Senate conference committee that reconciled the $787 billion economic stimulus bill in February 2009. But the invitation to the negotiating table didn't change his opposition to the package. Camp said the legislation contained "far too much spending, and the tax relief is the not right kind of tax relief to create jobs."
He also complained that Republicans were "frozen out" of the process by the Congressional Democratic leadership. He helped draft a GOP alternative stimulus package that focused heavily on tax cuts and aid to small businesses, homeowners, and the unemployed.
While Camp has praised President Obama for reaching out to Republicans, he broadly criticized his 2010 budget for excessive spending and taxation. Its spending and borrowing, he said, would make the current generation of Americans the first to fail to improve the nation's prosperity.
Camp
played a leading Republican role in the debate over a health-care
overhaul at the center of President Obama's domestic agenda.
In November 2009, Camp introduced the chief Republican alternative to the Democrats' bill called the "Common Sense Health Care Reform and Accountability Act," which Republicans said would lower costs by allowing people to buy insurance across state lines, permit small businesses access to combine and form pools; and prevent insurance companies from denying insurance to those with preexisting conditions.
The chief obstacle to a consensus, Camp suggested, was the push by many Democrats for the creation of a public-health plan to compete with private insurers.
"A government plan would eliminate the current coverage for 120 million Americans who get it from their employers," the congressman said in a statement prior to a Ways and Means Committee hearing on health care in April. "I am sure most Americans get their health care this way, and taking that away from you is unacceptable."
The public plan option, he has said, is a "bright line" dividing Democrats and Republicans who are open to reform.
Camp strongly opposed the ultimate legislation, enacted in March 2010, arguing that it implemented a variety of new tax increases and didn't comply with "pay-as-you-go" budget rules.
Over the years Camp has spoken out on other areas of the health-care debate. In 2003, he championed a provision in the Medicare prescription-drug bill that would protect nurse training programs, warning that to scrap the initiative would exacerbate a nationwide nursing shortage. He also pushed legislation expanding coverage of cholesterol screenings and aid for patients with kidney disease.
At the same time, Camp steadfastly opposed legislation to expand the State Children's Health Insurance Program, or SCHIP. He called the bill, which was enacted under President Obama after vetoes by President Bush, "woefully flawed" and said it inappropriately covers children of families with high incomes.
A
longtime supporter of free trade, Camp voted for both the North
American Free Trade Agreement and the Central American Free Trade
Agreement.
In February 2009, he hailed a bipartisan agreement to expand the Trade Adjustment Assistance program, praising the new inclusion of service workers in the initiative and calling it "a coherent, rational, accountable, and cost-effective system for training trade-affected workers and putting them back to work quickly and at better jobs."
Camp's
first real brush with the Washington spotlight came in 1996 during the
intense negotiations on a bill to overhaul the nation's welfare system.
Camp partnered with then-Rep. John Ensign (R-Nev.) to lobby a reluctant
GOP leadership to strip out provisions making significant changes to
Medicaid, the inclusion of which was sure to draw a veto from President
Clinton.
The move quickly garnered support from the Republican rank-and-file in the House, and it was later cited as the "decisive breakthrough" in the bill that Clinton eventually signed.
Camp opposes abortion rights and same-sex marriage. He voted twice for President George W. Bush's tax cuts, and he supports their full extension. He has pushed for private accounts for Social Security and supports drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
On foreign policy, Camp supported the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and he backed - with some reservations - President Bush's decision to send more troops to Iraq in earlier 2007.
The Economy
Camp's post as ranking member of the Ways and Means Committee earned him a spot on the House-Senate conference committee that reconciled the $787 billion economic stimulus bill in February 2009. But the invitation to the negotiating table didn't change his opposition to the package. Camp said the legislation contained "far too much spending, and the tax relief is the not right kind of tax relief to create jobs."
He also complained that Republicans were "frozen out" of the process by the Congressional Democratic leadership. He helped draft a GOP alternative stimulus package that focused heavily on tax cuts and aid to small businesses, homeowners, and the unemployed.
While Camp has praised President Obama for reaching out to Republicans, he broadly criticized his 2010 budget for excessive spending and taxation. Its spending and borrowing, he said, would make the current generation of Americans the first to fail to improve the nation's prosperity.
Health Care
In November 2009, Camp introduced the chief Republican alternative to the Democrats' bill called the "Common Sense Health Care Reform and Accountability Act," which Republicans said would lower costs by allowing people to buy insurance across state lines, permit small businesses access to combine and form pools; and prevent insurance companies from denying insurance to those with preexisting conditions.
The chief obstacle to a consensus, Camp suggested, was the push by many Democrats for the creation of a public-health plan to compete with private insurers.
"A government plan would eliminate the current coverage for 120 million Americans who get it from their employers," the congressman said in a statement prior to a Ways and Means Committee hearing on health care in April. "I am sure most Americans get their health care this way, and taking that away from you is unacceptable."
The public plan option, he has said, is a "bright line" dividing Democrats and Republicans who are open to reform.
Camp strongly opposed the ultimate legislation, enacted in March 2010, arguing that it implemented a variety of new tax increases and didn't comply with "pay-as-you-go" budget rules.
Over the years Camp has spoken out on other areas of the health-care debate. In 2003, he championed a provision in the Medicare prescription-drug bill that would protect nurse training programs, warning that to scrap the initiative would exacerbate a nationwide nursing shortage. He also pushed legislation expanding coverage of cholesterol screenings and aid for patients with kidney disease.
At the same time, Camp steadfastly opposed legislation to expand the State Children's Health Insurance Program, or SCHIP. He called the bill, which was enacted under President Obama after vetoes by President Bush, "woefully flawed" and said it inappropriately covers children of families with high incomes.
Trade
In February 2009, he hailed a bipartisan agreement to expand the Trade Adjustment Assistance program, praising the new inclusion of service workers in the initiative and calling it "a coherent, rational, accountable, and cost-effective system for training trade-affected workers and putting them back to work quickly and at better jobs."
Welfare Reform
The move quickly garnered support from the Republican rank-and-file in the House, and it was later cited as the "decisive breakthrough" in the bill that Clinton eventually signed.
Camp was an early supporter of Mitt Romney 's campaign for
president in 2008, serving as a congressional liaison for the former
Massachusetts governor. He would be a natural ally for Romney as he
stays in the national limelight in advance of a potential second run for
the White House in 2012.
Camp was also a top supporter of former House speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), managing the Republican's campaign for that post in 1998.
Camp was also a top supporter of former House speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), managing the Republican's campaign for that post in 1998.
- Camp House web site
- Wayne, Alex, "Health Care Factions Loom on Hill," Congressional Quarterly Today, March 13, 2009.
- American Conservative Union
- Barber, Barrie, "Camp: No to Stimulus Push," The Saginaw News, Jan. 28, 2009.
- Camp House web site
- Camp House web site
- Church, George J., "Ripping Up Welfare," Time Magazine, Aug. 12, 1996.
- Miller, John J., "Republican from Michigan - Dave Camp is a Quiet But Effective Congressman," National Review, Dec. 3, 2007.
- Camp House web site
- Barber, Barrie, "Candidates: Economy No. 1," The Saginaw News, Oct. 12, 2008.
- Eversley, Melanie, "Camp Working to Make Hastert Speaker," Detroit Free Press, Dec. 21, 1998.
- Ota, Alan K., "House Republican is Moderate Today, Conservative Tomorrow," Congressional Quarterly Today, March 10, 2006.
- Camp press release, November 2009
- Struglinski, Suzanne, "Romney Recruits 3 House Members as Eyes, Ears," Deseret Morning News, Jan. 21, 2007.
- Washington Post Votes Database
- Camp House web site
- Almanac of American Politics, 2008 edition.
- Camp House web site
- Camp press release, March 24, 2010
- David Camp's official biography
- Club for Growth scorecard
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