Todd Young


Todd Christopher Young is an American politician and attorney serving as the senior United States senator from Indiana, a seat he has held since 2017. A member of the Republican Party, Young previously served as the U.S. representative for. He was elected to the United States Senate in the November 8, 2016, general election, succeeding retiring Republican Dan Coats, and became Indiana's senior senator in January 2019 when Joe Donnelly left the seat following his defeat. From 2019 to 2021, he served as the chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. Young was reelected in 2022.

Early life, education, and military career

Young was born on August 24, 1972, in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, the second of three children of Nancy R. and Bruce H. Young. He lived in Marion County, Indiana, for several years before settling in Hamilton County, Indiana, where he attended public schools and won a state soccer championship. In 1990, Young graduated from Carmel High School in Carmel, Indiana.
After graduating from high school, Young enlisted in the United States Navy and reported for duty in Newport, Rhode Island. In May 1991, he received an appointment from the Secretary of the Navy to attend the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, where his classmates elected him a class officer and he earned a varsity letter as a member of Navy's NCAA Division I soccer team. He graduated cum laude in 1995, earning a Bachelor of Science degree in political science, and accepted a commission in the United States Marine Corps.
Upon graduating from Annapolis, Young trained for six months at the Basic School in Quantico, Virginia. In 1996, he completed the Naval Intelligence Officer Basic Course in Dam Neck, Virginia. Young then led the intelligence department of VMU-2, an unmanned aerial vehicle squadron based in Cherry Point, North Carolina. In 2000, while stationed in the Chicago area, Young earned a Master of Business Administration from the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business.

Post-military career

Young was honorably discharged from active duty in 2000 as a U.S. Marine Captain. After leaving active duty, he spent a year in London, attending the University of London's Institute of United States Studies. After writing a thesis on the economic history of Midwestern agriculture, in 2001 Young received his MA in American politics.
In the summer of 2001, Young traveled to former communist countries in Eastern Europe, where he studied the transition from centrally planned economies to free markets through an executive education program with the Leipzig Graduate School of Management, the first private business school in eastern Germany. He worked as an adjunct professor of public affairs at Indiana University's School of Public and Environmental Affairs and attended law school at night. In 2004, he joined Indiana-based Crowe Chizek and Company as a management consultant, helping state and local government clients improve service delivery to Indiana citizens.
In 2006, Young earned his J.D. from the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law, where he was president of the school's Federalist Society chapter. Upon graduation he joined the Paoli, Indiana-based firm Tucker and Tucker, P.C. Young is a member of the 2007 class of the Indiana Leadership Forum.
In 2001, Young moved to Washington, D.C., where he briefly worked at The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. Then he became a staffer for U.S. senator Richard Lugar. In 2003, Young volunteered for Mitch Daniels's campaign for governor of Indiana. He was a delegate to the Indiana Republican state convention. From 2007 to 2010, Young served as Assistant Deputy Prosecutor for Orange County, Indiana. In 2007, Young founded a fiscal responsibility advocacy group, the National Organization for People vs. Irresponsible Government Spending.

U.S. House of Representatives

Elections

2010

On January 26, 2009, Young announced that he would run for the United States congressional seat in Indiana's 9th district as a Republican.
Young competed with fellow Republicans Mike Sodrel and Travis Hankins for the party's nomination for Congress and won, challenging incumbent Democrat Baron Hill in the general election. Young was endorsed by former Vice President Dan Quayle, Lieutenant Governor Becky Skillman, Attorney General Greg Zoeller, Secretary of State Todd Rokita, Auditor Tim Berry, and Treasurer Richard Mourdock.
Young won the primary and general elections, defeating Hill, and was seated in the 112th Congress in January 2011.

2012

Young defeated Shelli Yoder, winning 55% of the vote in the newly redrawn 9th district.

2014

Young defeated Bill Bailey, winning 62% of the vote.

Tenure

Young is a member of the Republican Main Street Partnership, along with three other Republican senators. The Main Street Partnership is considered an association of moderate Republicans. In 2013 the National Journal gave Young an overall composite rating of 69% conservative and 31% liberal, an economic rating of 69% conservative and 30% liberal, a social rating of 57% conservative and 42% liberal, and a foreign policy rating of 77% conservative and 15% liberal.
In the 112th Congress, Young voted with the Republican Party 95% of the time. During the 113th Congress, the Human Rights Campaign, which rates politicians' support for LGBT issues, rated Young 30%, indicating a mixed record. In July 2012, Young took over as the lead sponsor of the REINS Act, a bill that passed the House in 2011 and would require congressional approval for rules with greater than $100 million in economic impact.
In the 112th Congress, Young was a member of the House Budget Committee and the House Armed Services Committee. On the latter, he focused on seapower, electronic warfare, and military grand strategy of the United States. During the first session of the 112th Congress, he employed one of the German Marshall Fund's Congressional Fellows as military legislative aide.
In 2010, Young said he was uncertain what was causing the observed heating of the planet, that it could be sunspots or normal cycles of nature, and that "the science is not settled". That same year he signed a pledge sponsored by Americans for Prosperity promising to vote against any global warming legislation that would raise taxes.
In 2011, he voted for the Energy Tax Prevention Act of 2011. In 2014, he said that it is "not necessarily the case" that there is a scientific consensus on climate change.

Sponsored legislation

When he introduced the Fairness for American Families Act, Young argued that "rather than driving healthcare costs down, the individual mandate is imposing a new tax and burdensome costs on middle class families" and therefore "hardworking Americans deserve the same exemptions that President Obama is unilaterally granting to businesses and labor unions."
  • Save American Workers Act of 2013 – a bill to amend the way in which the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act defines full-time worker by raising the 30-hour threshold to 40 hours a week, in an effort to remove the incentive some companies may have to reduce their employees' hours to avoid the employer healthcare mandate. Young introduced it into the House on June 28, 2013.
  • In 2023, Young and Tim Kaine co-sponsored legislation to end 1991 and 2002 congressional resolutions that authorized the use of military force. The bill repealed the Authorization for Use of Military Force in Iraq and passed with a bipartisan majority.

    119th Congress

  • National Biotechnology Initiative Act - a bill to improve coordination across the federal government on biotechnology policy.

    Committee assignments

  • Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation
  • *Subcommittee on Science, Manufacturing, and Competitiveness
  • *Subcommittee on Communications, Media, and Broadband
  • *Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and Data Security
  • *Subcommittee on Surface Transportation, Maritime, Freight, and Ports
  • Select Committee on Intelligence
  • Committee on Finance
  • *Subcommittee on International Trade, Customs, and Global Competitiveness
  • *Subcommittee on Health Care
  • *Subcommittee on Social Security, Pensions, and Family Policy
  • Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship
;Caucus memberships

Elections

2016

Rather than run for reelection to the House, Young announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination in the 2016 election to fill the Senate seat of the retiring Dan Coats. Also filing for the Republican primary was U.S. Representative Marlin Stutzman. Although Young was certified as having submitted enough signatures to qualify for the primary ballot, that official certification was challenged, and a tally by the Associated Press concluded that Young had fallen short. The state Election Commission scheduled a hearing on the challenge for February 19, 2016. The commission voted down the challenge with a 2–2 vote and Young remained on the ballot.
Young defeated Stutzman in the May 3 primary with 67% of approximately one million votes cast. He was initially slated to face former U.S. Representative Baron Hill, whom Young had defeated in 2010 to win his congressional seat, but on July 11, Hill announced he was dropping out of the Senate race. Hill was replaced by Evan Bayh, who had held the seat from 1999 to 2011. Young defeated Bayh in the November 8 general election, winning 52% of the vote to Bayh's 42%.