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Patrick Toomey (R-Pa.)

U.S. Senator (since January 2011)

(Toomey Facebook page)

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Background

At a Glance

Career History: President, Club for Growth (2005 to 2009); U.S Reresentative (1999 to 2005); CEO, Toomey Enterprises Inc., (since 1991); Investment Banker/Financial Consultant (1984 to 1990)
Birthday: Nov. 17, 1961
Hometown: Allentown, Pa.
Alma Mater: Harvard University, B.S., 1984.
Spouse: Kris
Committees: Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs ; Budget ; Commerce, Science and Transportation ; Joint Economic

Washington Office: B-40B Dirksen Senate Office BuildingWashington, D.C. 20510Phone: (202) 224-4254
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Path to Power

Toomey grew up in East Providence, R.I. His father laid cable for an electric company, while his mother helped raise the family's six children by working as a secretary at the local parish. "I was raised in a Democratic household," Toomey recalls. "My dad was a card-carrying union worker and a Democratic super voter."A gifted student, Toomey earned scholarships to a Catholic private high school, LaSalle Academy, and then Harvard University. He also supplemented his scholarships with part-time jobs.

As a teenager in the 1970s he was turned off by what he observed as "a downright anti-American streak" in liberalism. "What I found very offensive was the 'blame America first' crowd, the people who suggested that there was a moral equivalence between the United States and the Soviet Union at the time, which struck me as absurd."

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Toomey says he continued his rightward migration upon entering Harvard in 1980."I went to college the same year that Ronald Reagan got elected president and I had tremendous respect for Reagan, and found that he was ridiculed and held in contempt on campus," he says. "I also majored in political philosophy. I was studying competing ideas about political priorities and all of this was just gradually moving me in a more conservative direction."

After graduating Harvard in 1984, he moved to New York to work in finance, a career that required him to travel through Asia and spend a year in Hong Kong. Tired of living in New York City, Toomey made a big career shift by moving to Allentown, Pa. to start a sports bar and restaurant, Rookie's, with his brothers. It became a successful chain.

In 1997, he married Kris Duncan, a childhood friend of his sister's. His experiences in business helped seal his conservatism, he says: "I learned the power and discipline and frankly the wisdom of markets, and the incompetence of government."

Political Start

Toomey's first foray into politics came in 1994, when as a member of the Allentown Government Study Commission he helped author a plan requiring a super-majority for the city council to raise taxes.In November 1997, the Democratic congressman representing Pennsylvania's 15th district, Paul McHale, announced he would retire, and Toomey decided to run for the open House seat.

"By the late 90s, when I ran for Congress, I had become pretty well steeped in a lot of free market ideas that I'm still very hopeful about, and believe strongly in, like school choice, free trade, Social Security reform where workers could accumulate personal savings -- a number of specific ideas that I'm convinced will lead to more prosperity and greater well-being on the part of a vast majority of Americans," he says. "After the 1994 elections, when Republicans took control of Congress, I thought there was really an opportunity to advance these ideas."

Running for Congress

The 1998 Republican primary for Pennsylvania's 15th House district was made up of a six-candidate field, including two state legislators.In his campaign, Toomey advocated Social Security reform and a 17-percent flat tax, vowed never to raise taxes, and promised to serve no more than three terms if elected. He managed to narrowly win the Republican primary with 27 percent of the vote, compared with 25 percent for his next closest rival.

In the general election, he faced state Sen. Roy Afflerbach (D), who attacked Toomey for threatening Social Security and having only lived in Pennsylvania for seven years. Toomey fought back by dubbing Afflerbach "the tax man" and criticizing his support for tax increases in the state legislature.In the end, Toomey won comfortably by a 55 to 45 percent margin.

Challenging Specter

Toomey was twice reelected to his House seat, but in February 2003, as he was coming up on his pledge to only serve three terms, he announced he would challenge Specter in the 2004 Republican primary. The bitter race that followed pitted conservative activists against the Republican Party establishment, and became a classic battle of competing ideologies.

Specter, as the incumbent, enjoyed the institutional support of the Republican Party. Then-President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney campaigned for Specter, as did then-Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.).Toomey enjoyed the backing of several prominent conservatives such as publisher and former presidential candidate Steve Forbes (R) and former Reagan Attorney General Edwin Meese. Additionally, the Club for Growth raised $1 million for him, and took out another $1 million in ads on his behalf.

With Republicans in control of the White House and both chambers of Congress at the time, Specter said the race was about whether the party would be "a big tent," while Toomey urged conservatives to vote for their principles.

"Today we have complete control," Toomey said. "And the question that I am posing to Republican primary voters all across Pennsylvania is a simple one: are we going to seize this opportunity to govern with a common-sense conservative agenda, or are we going to let it slip away by re-electing a liberal who will fight our agenda?"

Toomey's message resonated with many GOP primary voters, but ultimately he came up 17,000 votes short out of about 1 million cast, despite being outspent four- to-one.

The Club for Growth

After his third and final House term expired in January 2005, Toomey joined the Club for Growth, the group that backed him in his primary fight against Specter. During his time there, the group continued to help recruit and finance Republican candidates who advocated lower taxes limited government.

But the Club continued to clash with national Republicans trying to preserve their congressional majorities because it funded economically-conservative challengers to more liberal Republican incumbents in GOP primaries. To critics, Specter among them, the group has been responsible for driving moderates out of the party and costing Republicans swing seats.

One of the more contentious decisions under Toomey's leadership was to finance Steve Laffey (R) in his 2006 primary challenge against Lincoln Chafee, then a liberal Republican senator from Rhode Island. Even though Chafee won the GOP primary, critics claim that the tough nomination fight weakened him for the general election and was responsible for handing control of the Senate to the Democrats.

Toomey strongly disputes this version of events."[W]hat is lost when Lincoln Chafee leaves the Senate?" Toomey asks. "First of all, within a matter of months, he abandoned the Republican Party formally. He's no longer even a Republican. During the presidential campaign, he publicly endorsed Barack Obama instead of John McCain. So what is it we had in the form of Lincoln Chafee? He wasn't a Republican in any meaningful sense of the word. But as for his political prospects, the man was destined to lose that race no matter what. He was in absolutely irrecoverable decline long before we got involved in the race. And take a look at his general election outcome. It wasn't close. And it wasn't because of our involvement."

In April 2009, Toomey announced he was leaving the Club for Growth to challenge Specter.

Instead, Rep. Sestak (D) beat Specter in the May 2010 primaries.

The Issues

During his six years in Washington, Toomey racked up a solidly conservative voting record, earning him a 97 percent lifetime rating from the American Conservative Union.

Toomey is an opponent of abortion with a socially-conservative voting record.But most of his House focus was on economic issues such as tax and spending cuts. "We've got three parties in Congress," he once cynically quipped, "Republicans, Democrats and Appropriators."

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Taxes

Toomey says he would support replacing the current tax code with either a flat tax or a consumption-based tax, also known as the "Fair Tax." However, he says in his view a flat tax is more likely to be politically realized.

Social Security Reform

As he has since the first time he ran for Congress, Toomey supports giving workers the option of diverting a portion of their payroll taxes into personal accounts which would allow them to invest in diversified funds. He is dismissive of the suggestion that current market conditions will make it too hard to convince people that such a reform is still a good idea.

"I'm 47 years old," he says. "When I entered the work force, the Dow Jones average was around 800. Now, today, we're all terribly disappointed in where it is, myself included, but it's at 8,000. So, I'm not close to retirement yet, and the Dow is up by a factor of ten since I started working - despite all the losses we've seen in the last couple of years."

Iraq: A Tough Vote

"The vote authorizing the president to use force in Iraq occurred while I was a member of the House and I voted in favor of that authorization," he recalls. "I will tell you it was probably the toughest vote I had to cast while I was there. But I thought then, and I still believe now, that it was probably the right risk to take, understanding that it was a very big risk. And the reason I felt that is I do believe Saddam Hussein was a very grave medium-term threat to the United States. There's plenty of legitimate, very legitimate, criticism of how the war was conducted, especially in the early and middle stages of it, there's plenty of blame about some of the planning and implementation of policies after the initial very successful military efforts. But in the end, the surge then did work, and it's unfortunate that it wasn't deployed far sooner. But it did work. And I am cautiously optimistic that things will turn out okay in Iraq as long as we don't pull out precipitously."

The Network

In April 2009, Toomey's former employer, the Club for Growth, endorsed him in the Pennsylvania Senate race,and will once again be a key source of funding. Former Indiana Rep. Chris Chocola (R) now runs the club.

Given that the battle in Pennsylvania will be portrayed as a litmus test of whether a candidate carrying a conservative message can win in a blue state, Toomey is likely to attract the support of a number of other conservative groups, and should be able to raise money from small donors among the conservative grassroots.

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Additional Resources

Jeffrey Lord, "True Grit: Specter Declares War on Toomey," The American Spectator Apr. 15, 2009.
Patrick Kerkstra, "Consistent conservative Toomey is accustomed to success;
Robert Hunter, "Patrick Toomey: From Wall Street to Capitol Hill," Derivatives Strategy, May 1999.
Michael Barone with Richard E. Cohen, The Almanac of American Politics 2002, The National Journal Group, p. 1419.
Michael Barone with Richard E. Cohen, The Almanac of American Politics 2002, The National Journal Group, pp. 1334.
David Jenkins, "Thanks, Pat Toomey," Apr. 21, 2009, New Majority.com
Michael Barone with Richard E. Cohen, The Almanac of American Politics 2002, The National Journal Group, p.1419.
Lauren W. Whittington, " Pennsylvania; New Gig May Signal A Break from Politics," Roll Call, Jan. 10, 2005.
"Former Congressman Chris Chocola Elected President of Club for Growth, Pat Toomey Leaves Club for Growth," press release, The Club for Growth, Apr. 13, 2009.
Michael Barone with Richard E. Cohen, The Almanac of American Politics 2002, The National Journal Group, p. 1334.
Thomas Fitzgerald, "Toomey Announces He'll Challenge Specter," The Philadelphia Inquirer, Apr. 16, 2009.
"Club for Growth Condemns Federal Bailout," Club for Growth press release, Sept. 22, 2008.
Toomey stays true to his conservatives roots," The Philadelphia Inquirer, Apr. 9, 2004.
"Club for Growth Commends House GOP and Seven Courageous Democrats for Voting Against Stimulus Bill," Club for Growth press release, Feb. 13, 2009.
Michael Barone with Richard E. Cohen, The Almanac of American Politics 2002, The National Journal Group, pp. 1334-5.
Patrick Kerkstra, "Consistent conservative Toomey is accustomed to success;Toomey stays true to his conservatives roots," The Philadelphia Inquirer, Apr. 9, 2004.
Michael Barone with Richard E. Cohen, The Almanac of American Politics 2002, The National Journal Group, pp. 1335.
American Conservative Union, 2004 House Rankings.
Bill Pascoe, " John Cornyn, the Happiest Man in Washington Today?" CQPolitics, April 28, 2009.
"Pat Toomey on Abortion," On the Issues,