Mike Kelly | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Member of theU.S. House of Representatives fromPennsylvania | |
| Assumed office January 3, 2011 | |
| Preceded by | Kathy Dahlkemper |
| Constituency | 3rd district (2011–2019) 16th district (2019–present) |
| Personal details | |
| Born | George Joseph Kelly Jr. (1948-05-10)May 10, 1948 (age 77) Pittsburgh,Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Political party | Republican |
| Spouse | Victoria Phillips |
| Children | 4 |
| Education | University of Notre Dame (BA) |
| Website | House website Campaign website |
George Joseph "Mike" Kelly Jr. (born May 10, 1948) is an American politician and businessman who has been aU.S. representative since 2011, currently representingPennsylvania's 16th congressional district.[1] The district, numbered as the3rd district from 2011 to 2019, is based inErie and stretches from the northwest corner of the state to the outer northern suburbs ofPittsburgh.
A member of theRepublican Party, Kelly is known for his support ofDonald Trump, his pro-life stance,[2] andfiling a lawsuit in state court to invalidate all mail-in ballots cast in Pennsylvania during the2020 United States presidential election.
On October 22, 2021, it was reported that a congressional ethics watchdog had recommended subpoenaing Kelly for an ethics violation after it was revealed that his wife had purchased stock in an Ohio-based steel company in April 2020 after Kelly had received confidential information about the company.[3] In June 2022, SenatorRon Johnson accused Kelly of providing a slate offake electors meant to overturn Pennsylvania's electoral votes in the 2020 election. Kelly's office has denied his role in this event.[4]
Kelly was born on May 10, 1948, in Pittsburgh,[5] but has spent most of his life in the outer northern suburb ofButler. He attended theUniversity of Notre Dame.[6]
After college, Kelly worked for his father'sChevrolet/Cadillac car dealership. In 1995, he took over the business, and addedHyundai andKIA to its lineup.[7]
In March 2019, a local TV station discovered that 17 vehicles were for sale on Kelly'sUniontown andButler lots that were the subject of recall notices but had not been repaired. The station contacted both the businesses and Kelly's office without receiving responses.[8] A month later, a reporter found three of those vehicles with active recalls still for sale.[8] In November 2015, Kelly had spoken on the floor of Congress in support of a bill that would have allowed dealers to loan or rent vehicles despiteNational Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) safety recall notices on them. Kelly had said, "There is not a single person in our business that would ever put one of our owners in a defective car or a car with a recall. But that could happen." The bill did not pass.[8]
Kelly's car dealerships receivedPaycheck Protection Program loans of between $450,000 and $1.05 million to keep staff on the payroll during the coronavirus pandemic.[9] The figure was later estimated to be a combined amount of $974,100.[10] The loan program was primarily intended to protect employee pay during theCOVID-19 pandemic. The loans were eventually forgiven, and Kelly was scrutinized for receiving the loan while serving as a member of Congress, though he denied any wrongdoing.[11]
Kelly has served on the U.S. House of Representatives'Ways & Means Committee since 2013.[1] He currently chairs the Subcommittee on Tax and is a member of the Subcommittee on Health. He previously served as the top Republican on the Committee's Subcommittee on Oversight.
Kelly belongs to more than 20caucuses in the U.S. House of Representatives. He chairs or co-chairs several prominent caucuses, including the following:
Kelly challenged incumbent RepresentativeKathy Dahlkemper in 2010.[13] He won the election 55.7%–44.3%,[14] largely by running up his margins outside of heavily Democratic Erie.
Kelly defeated Democrat Missa Eaton 54.8%–41.0%.[15] His district had been made slightly friendlier in redistricting. The district was pushed slightly south, absorbing some rural and Republican territory east of Pittsburgh. At the same time, easternErie County was drawn into the heavily Republican5th district. The 3rd and 5th were drawn so that the boundary between the two districts was almost coextensive with the eastern boundary of the city of Erie.[citation needed]
Kelly defeated Democrat Dan LaVallee of Cranberry Township 60.6%–39.4%.[16]
Kelly ran unopposed and received 100% of the vote.[citation needed]
After thePennsylvania Supreme Court threw out Pennsylvania's original congressional map in February 2018, Kelly's district was renumbered the 16th and made slightly more compact. It regained the eastern portion of Erie County that had been drawn into the 5th. To make up for the increase in population, its southern portion was pushed to the west, leaving Kelly's hometown of Butler just barely inside the district.[17]
PoliticsPA wrote that the new 16th was far less safe for Kelly than the old 3rd, citing a Public Policy Polling poll showing him leading Democratic nominee Ron DiNicola 48% to 43%, below the threshold to be considered safe for a fourth term.[18] Additionally, while Trump carried the old 3rd with 61% of the vote,[19] he would have carried the new 16th with 58% of the vote.[20] Nate Cohn ofThe New York Times suggested that Kelly would have been in more danger had the 16th absorbed more Democratic-leaning territory northwest of Pittsburgh. Ultimately, much of this territory had been drawn into the reconfigured17th district (the former 12th district).[17]
Kelly defeated DiNicola 51.5%–47.3%, his first close contest since his initial run for the seat.[citation needed]
Kelly defeated Democrat Kristy Gnibus of Erie 59.3%–40.7%, an improvement over his performance in 2018. He received 210,088 votes to Gnibus's 143,962.[21]
Kelly defeated Democrat Dan Pastore of Erie 59.4%–40.6%. Kelly received 190,564 votes, while Pastore received 130,443.[22]
Kelly defeated Democrat Preston Nouri 63.7%–36.3%. Kelly received 256,923 votes, while Nouri received 146,709.[23]
In February 2021, Kelly and a dozen other Republican House members skipped votes andenlisted others to vote for them, citing the ongoingCOVID-19 pandemic. But he and the other members were actually attending theConservative Political Action Conference, which was held at the same time as their absences.[27] In response, theCampaign for Accountability, an ethics watchdog group, filed a complaint with theHouse Committee on Ethics and requested an investigation into Kelly and the other lawmakers.[28]
During theCOVID-19 pandemic, Kelly's auto dealerships received loans from U.S. taxpayers of over $970,000 as part of thePaycheck Protection Program (PPP); the loans were later forgiven.[29][30][31][32] U.S. RepresentativeKatie Porter later introduced legislation that would require all loans under the PPP to be made public.[33][34] Kelly voted against the TRUTH Act (H.R. 6782), a bill that would have required public disclosure of companies that received funds through the bailout program.[35][36] As of August 2022, Kelly opposes PresidentJoe Biden's proposal to forgive $10,000 ofstudent debt for individuals making up to $125,000 per year.[37] Kelly's net worth was estimated to be $12.4 million in 2018.[38]
When speaking at a Mercer County Republican Party event in 2017, Kelly advanced theconspiracy theory that former president Barack Obama was running a "shadow government" to undermine President Trump.[39][40][41] When asked about these remarks, Kelly said they were meant to be private.[39][42] After the remarks made national news, Kelly's spokesperson said that Kelly did not believe that Obama "is personally operating a shadow government".[39][40][41]
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Kelly has argued against the release ofTrump's tax returns by the House Ways and Means Committee.[43]
In December 2019, Kelly likenedTrump's first impeachment to theattack on Pearl Harbor.[44] He said the date on which Trump was impeached is "another date that will live in infamy", referring to PresidentFranklin Roosevelt's statement about the Pearl Harbor attack.[44]
Amid ballot counting in the 2020 election, Kelly filed a lawsuit to stop Pennsylvania from allowing voters to "cure" (alter) their ballots.[45] After Biden won Pennsylvania, Kelly filed a suit arguing that all mail-in ballots cast in the state (more than 2.5 million)should be discarded, which would result in flipping the state to Trump,[46] or if that was not possible, that the electors for president should instead be chosen by the legislature.[47] If successful, this suit would have invalidated millions of votes in the Pennsylvania election.[47] On November 28, 2020, thePennsylvania Supreme Court unanimously rejected Kelly's suit, additionally ruling to "dismiss with prejudice."[48]
In December 2020, Kelly was one of 126 Republican members of theHouse of Representatives to sign anamicus brief in support ofTexas v. Pennsylvania, a lawsuit filed at theUnited States Supreme Court contesting the results of the2020 presidential election, in which Biden defeated[49] Trump. The Supreme Court declined to hear the case on the basis that Texas lackedstanding underArticle III of the Constitution to challenge the results of an election held by another state.[50][51][52]
In July 2024, following theattempted assassination of Donald Trump in Kelly's hometown, Kelly initially released a post that stated "We will not tolerate this attack from the left," The post was subsequently deleted.[53] Kelly introduced a resolution to formally call for a bipartisan House task force to investigate the incident.[54] Kelly was then selected to chair the task force investigating the assassination attempt.[55]
In September 2024, a few weeks before the2024 United States presidential election, Kelly joined other Pennsylvania Republican members of Congress in filing a lawsuit that would institute new identification checks on voting for soldiers, sailors, and other residents of the state casting overseas ballots. The lawsuit was dismissed by a federal judge who contended that the lawsuit was filed too close toElection Day and declared concerns that were merely "hypothetical."[56]
In March 2021, all House Republicans including Kelly voted against theAmerican Rescue Plan Act of 2021, a $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill.[57]
Kelly supports Universal Patient Identifier (UPI) which enables efficient EHR electronic health record and HIEs Health Information Exchange interoperability. UPI can significantly improve the efficiency U.S. healthcare system and reduce administrative cost, hence more affordable healthcare.[citation needed]
On August 1, 2012, Kelly called theHHS mandate of thePatient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) - which requires employers to provide employees with health insurance options - an attack on Americans' constitutionally protected religious rights (because of mandates to cover contraceptives as part of the act) and said that August 1, 2012, would go down in infamy as "the day that religious freedom died".[58]
In 2015, Kelly cosponsored a resolution toamend the U.S. Constitution to ban same-sex marriage.[59] In 2022, he was one of 157 Republicans to vote against a bill protecting same-sex and interracial marriage.[60]
In September 2021,Business Insider reported that Kelly had violated theStop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act of 2012, a federal transparency and conflict-of-interest law, by failing to properly disclose a purchase of stock in Beauty Health Company made by his wife worth between $1,001 and $15,000.[61]
Kelly has not held an in-person, open-floor town hall since 2011.[62]
In Kelly's time in Congress, he has independently sponsored three pieces of legislature that have become law: renaming a post office and renaming two facilities at the Department of Veterans Affairs (all located in Butler, PA).[63]
In three consecutive Congresses, Kelly landed in the top one-third of most bipartisan members, according to The Lugar Center andGeorgetown University'sMcCourt School of Public Policy.[2]
From 2018 to 2020, Kelly and his staff were named finalists for the Congressional Management Foundation's Constituent Service Award.[3]
Kelly lives inButler, Pennsylvania with his wife Victoria. They have four children and ten grandchildren.[64] He is the brother-in-law of retired CongressmanPhil Roe ofTennessee's 1st congressional district. He is a practicing Roman Catholic.[65]
In 2019, he said that, as a person of Irish andAnglo-Saxon descent, he considers himself aperson of color—a term often used to describe people of nonwhite backgrounds.[66]
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|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Member of theU.S. House of Representatives fromPennsylvania's 3rd congressional district 2011–2019 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Member of theU.S. House of Representatives fromPennsylvania's 16th congressional district 2019–present | Incumbent |
| New office | Chair of the House Trump Assassination Attempt Task Force 2024–2025 | Position abolished |
| U.S. order of precedence (ceremonial) | ||
| Preceded by | United States representatives by seniority 87th | Succeeded by |
