Vicky Hartzler


Vicky Jo Hartzler is an American politician and businesswoman who served as the U.S. representative for from 2011 to 2023. A member of the Republican Party, she served as the Missouri state representative for the 124th district from 1995 to 2001.
Hartzler's congressional district comprised a large swath of western-central Missouri, anchored in Columbia and stretching to the eastern and southern Kansas City suburbs, including a sliver of Kansas City. The district also included Sedalia, Warrensburg, Moberly, and Lebanon.
Hartzler was a candidate in the 2022 United States Senate election in Missouri, but lost the Republican primary to Eric Schmitt.

Early life and education

Hartzler was raised on a farm near Archie, a rural community south of Kansas City. She graduated from Archie High School and later attended the University of Missouri, where she graduated summa cum laude with a B.S. in education, and the University of Central Missouri, where she graduated with an M.S. in education.

Missouri legislature

Before running for state representative in 1994, Hartzler taught high school home economics for 11 years.
She left the Missouri House of Representatives in 2000 after adopting a baby daughter. In 2004, Hartzler served as state spokeswoman for the Coalition to Protect Marriage, which supported banning same-sex marriage in Missouri. In 2000, Hartzler opposed the Missouri Assembly's ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment and led a group of legislators in a rally against the ERA, saying she didn't "want women used to pass a liberal agenda". In 2005, Governor Matt Blunt appointed Hartzler chair of the Missouri Women's Council, where she served for two years.

U.S. House of Representatives

Elections

2010

After almost a decade out of politics, Hartzler entered the Republican primary for, which at the time was held by 17-term Democratic incumbent Ike Skelton. She won a seven-way primary with 40% of the vote.
Hartzler won the November 2 general election with 50.43% of the vote. She is the first Republican to represent the district since 1955, and only the second since the Great Depression. She was also the second Republican woman elected to Congress from Missouri, after Jo Ann Emerson, with whom she served from 2011 to 2013. She is the first who was not elected as a stand-in for her husband; Emerson was originally elected to serve out the final term of her late husband, Bill Emerson. Republicans had been making gains in the district for some time; it gave John McCain 62% of the vote in 2008 while simultaneously reelecting Skelton, and Republicans hold most of the district's seats in the state legislature. While Skelton more than held his own in the areas of the district closer to Kansas City, Hartzler swamped him in the more rural areas, including areas that had supported him for over 30 years.
Hartzler ran on a conservative platform, voicing support for tax cuts and spending cuts. She opposes abortion and same-sex marriage.

2012

During her first term, Hartzler represented a district that stretched as far east as the state capital, Jefferson City, and as far west as exurban areas of Jackson County. Redistricting after the 2010 U.S. Census removed Cole, Lafayette, Ray and Saline counties—including Skelton's home. The district also lost its shares of Jackson and Webster counties. In its place, the district picked up all of Boone, Cooper, Howard, and Randolph counties, part of Audrain County, and the remainder of Cass County. The district now includes Cass County's portion of Kansas City.
At a town hall meeting in Missouri on April 5, 2012, Hartzler expressed doubts about President Barack Obama's birth certificate.
In her first contest in the newly drawn district, Hartzler easily won the Republican primary with 84% of the vote against Bernie Mowinski and went on to win the general election with 60.3% against the Democratic nominee, Cass County Prosecuting Attorney Teresa Hensley.

2014

Hartzler won nearly 75% of the vote in the Republican primary against John Webb, then won the general election by a more than two-to-one margin.

2016

Hartzler won 72% of the vote in the Republican primary against John Webb, then won the general election by a more than two-to-one margin.

2018

2020

Committee assignments

File:HartzlerPenceProLife.jpg|thumb|right|Hartzler with Vice President Mike Pence at a Value Action Team event in the United States House of Representatives.

Caucus memberships

Abortion

Hartzler opposes abortion. She has sponsored legislation in an effort to block taxpayer dollars from funding clinics that offer abortion services, such as Planned Parenthood, as well as legislation such as the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act.
In October 2015, Hartzler was on the Select Investigative Panel on Planned Parenthood.

Agriculture

In September 2013, Hartzler voted for a $39 billion reduction in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, which was separated from legislation to increase farm subsidies for the first time in over three decades.
As a senior member of the House Agriculture Committee, Hartzler served as a conferee to pass the final version of the Farm Bill in 2018. Hartzler did not vote on the measure to pass the Farm Bill due to her father dying in December 2018. President Donald Trump signed the final version of the Farm Bill in December 2018.
Hartzler has supported investment in rural broadband, which falls under the jurisdiction of the House Agriculture Committee. She successfully led provisions Trump signed into law to increase private investment in rural broadband, modifying Rural Utilities Service broadband programs to include loan guarantees in addition to existing direct loans. She also successfully led provisions to increase minimum download speeds from 4 to 25 megabits per second, with minimum upload speed tripling to 3 Mbit/s for companies receiving financing from the Department of Agriculture's Rural Utilities Service fund. In 2020, Hartzler introduced legislation to allow certain Rural Utilities Service borrowers to take advantage of low interest rates without heavy fines and penalties in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Environment

Hartzler rejects the scientific consensus on climate change. On November 18, 2014, during the worst early season cold snap in the U.S. since 1976, Hartzler made a joke about climate change on Twitter. "Global warming strikes America! Brrrr!" The quip was rebutted in detail by The Washington Post, which reported that her district in Missouri is among the areas most severely impacted by climate change in the United States.

China

Hartzler supported the Trump administration's call to require the government to purchase only medical equipment and pharmaceuticals made in the United States. In 2019, she and Representative John Garamendi introduced legislation to require the Department of Defense to "identify vulnerabilities faced by our country's dependence on Chinese pharmaceuticals, and to only purchase American-made raw materials, medicines, and vaccines for the military." In July 2020, Hartzler and Garamendi announced provisions of the legislation were ultimately rolled in the broader National Defense Authorization Act, which passed the House of Representatives on July 21, 2020.
As a member of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, Hartzler was sanctioned by the Chinese government along with other prominent members of the federal government, including Senator Marco Rubio, Senator Ted Cruz, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. The sanctions against Hartzler and her colleagues came after Pompeo and the United States Department of Treasury sanctioned four Chinese officials for their involvement in human rights abuses against the Uyghurs.
On July 17, 2020, days after the announcement of sanctions against U.S. lawmakers by China, Hartzler wrote a Fox News op-ed expressing support for the Trump administration's sanctions on China and calling for the international community to impose similar sanctions. She also called on lawmakers to "expose U.S. companies complicit" in profiting from alleged slave labor in Xinjiang internment camps.

Healthcare

Hartzler opposed the Affordable Care Act and supported the American Health Care Act.

Immigration

In January 2017, Hartzler made a statement supporting Trump's ban on immigrants from seven Muslim countries and halting the U.S. Refugee program for 120 days. In her statement, Hartzler said Trump's executive order and Obama's 2011 policy that slowed immigration from Iraq were "similar".

LGBT rights

Hartzler opposes same-sex marriage, civil unions, and domestic partnerships. She also opposes banning discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. In 2019, Hartzler expressed her strong opposition to the Equality Act. She has written an op-ed rejecting it. She also opposes allowing transgender individuals to serve in the military.
In 2019, Hartzler sponsored an event by proponents of conversion therapy in order to provide congressional office space, for which she was rebuked by Representative Ted Lieu, whose office was next to the event, and who sponsored legislation to ban conversion therapy.
In March 2022, Hartzler's Twitter account was briefly suspended after tweeting, "Women's sports are for women, not men pretending to be women", in reference to transgender swimmer Lia Thomas.
On December 8, 2022, Hartzler broke into tears as she called on her colleagues in the U.S. House of Representatives to oppose the Respect for Marriage Act, which would protect the legal status of same-sex and interracial marriage.