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Van Hilleary
Member of theU.S. House of Representatives fromTennessee's4th district
In office January 3, 1995 – January 3, 2003
Preceded by	Jim Cooper
Succeeded by	Lincoln Davis
Personal details
Born	William Vanderpool Hilleary (1959-06-20)June 20, 1959 (age 66) Dayton, Tennessee, U.S.
Party	Republican
Spouse	Meredith Hilleary
Children	4
Education	University of Tennessee, Knoxville (BA) Samford University (JD)
Military service
Branch/service	United States Air Force
Years of service	1982–1984 (active) 1984–1995 (reserve)
Unit	United States Air Force Reserve
Battles/wars	Gulf War

William Vanderpool "Van" Hilleary (born June 20, 1959) is an American politician who served as theU.S. representative forTennessee's 4th congressional district from 1995 to 2003. He is a member of theRepublican Party. He is running for congress in 2026 forTennessee's 6th congressional district to succeed U.S. Representative John Rose.

Hilleary ran forGovernor of Tennessee in2002, narrowly losing toDemocratic nomineePhil Bredesen.

Hilleary was born inDayton, Tennessee, the seat ofRhea County, and raised in nearbySpring City, where his family operated atextile manufacturing concern. He graduated from theUniversity of Tennessee in 1981 where he was a member of the Sigma Chi Fraternity. He participated in theAir ForceROTC program at the University of Tennessee and served on active duty from 1982 to 1984 and has been a member of theAir Force Reserve since that time. Hilleary graduated from theCumberland School of Law ofSamford University inBirmingham, Alabama in 1990. He served two volunteer tours of duty duringOperation Desert Shield andOperation Desert Storm. While in theGulf War, Hilleary flew 24 missions as a navigator onC-130 aircraft.^{[citation needed]}

Following his return from theMiddle East, he entered a race for theTennessee State Senate in 1992. His opponent wasAnna Belle Clement O'Brien, younger sister and political confidante of the late formergovernor of TennesseeFrank G. Clement. While Hilleary was defeated, he ran such a competitive race that he was recruited to enter the Republicanprimary in 1994 for the FourthCongressional District. This seat was open as incumbent six-termDemocratJim Cooper retired to run for theUnited States Senate. Hilleary easily won the Republican primary and faced Democratic nominee Jeff Whorley, a former aide to Cooper, in the general election. It was the first serious bid the Republicans had made for the district since its creation after the 1980 census. Hilleary won by a 14-point margin. Even considering the massive Republican tide that swept through the state that year, Hilleary's convincing win came as something of a surprise.

On paper, the 4th District was not regarded as safe for either party. It stretched from theVirginia border inEast Tennessee to theMississippi border inMiddle Tennessee. Prior to Cooper's election in 1982, much of the district's eastern portion had not been represented by a Democrat since before theCivil War. However, its configuration made it very difficult to unseat an incumbent in a normal election year. Then, as now, the district covers five television markets (the Tri-Cities,Knoxville, Chattanooga,Nashville andHuntsville, Alabama) and two time zones. Frequently, advertising budgets in the 4th rival those for statewide races. Continuing this pattern, Hilleary was reelected three times from this district without much difficulty, and actually increased his margin each time; his 56 percent in 1994 would be the lowest margin of his congressional career. He even won easily in 1996 even asBill Clinton carried the district in the presidential election mainly on the strength ofAl Gore's presence on the ticket; Gore had represented much of the western portion of the district in Congress from 1977 to 1983.

Hilleary had aconservative voting record. For instance, Hilleary was opposed to any form of a stateincome tax, which was a major issue in the state legislature at the time. In each of his three subsequent Congressional races, Hilleary won with an increasing margin. Due to the 4th's configuration, Hilleary also became known over a large portion of the state.^{[citation needed]}

Hilleary was considered a logical choice for the Republicangubernatorial nomination in 2002, withstanding a challenge from the party'smoderate wing made byJim Henry, formerminority leader in theTennessee House of Representatives and formermayor ofKingston. Henry's race was largely supported and financed by members of the inner circle of unpopular outgoing GOPgovernorDon Sundquist, a fact resented by manygrassroots activists, and Hilleary defeated him by a wide margin.

Hilleary's opponent in thegeneral election wasPhil Bredesen, a multimillionaire former mayor of Nashville. Bredesen had run for governor in 1994 and lost to Sundquist. At first, Bredesen agreed to be bound by a relatively new Tennessee statelaw limiting the amount of money one could contribute to one's own campaign for elective office. However, thestate attorney general subsequently issued an opinion that such a law wasunconstitutional and hence unenforceable, as theUnited States Supreme Court had previously ruled a similarfederal law with regard to federal campaigns. This freed Bredesen to use his considerable wealth to self-finance his campaign. Faced with huge and potentially overwhelming resources against him, Hilleary reversed his previous position on PACs and began to actively solicit donations from them.

One of the major issues of the race wasTennCare, the huge state-supported managed care program that had supplantedMedicaid in Tennessee. Hilleary displayed a high level of knowledge about this issue in a debate between the two, despite the fact that Bredesen had made most of his fortune as a managed health care executive. However, polling seemed to indicate that one of the major factors with public support of Bredesen was his knowledge of this issue. Bredesen was also amoderate Democrat; Republican charges against "ultra-liberal Democrats" could not be made to stick to him with any real degree of success. Another problem for Hilleary was that Bredesen showed himself able to raise support inEast Tennessee (Hilleary's home region) far more readily than could previous Democratic candidates, especially considering that Bredesen was from Nashville. In addition, questions were raised regarding Hilleary's performance as a member of theHouse Budget Committee.

Hilleary nonetheless received over 48% of the vote. Bredesen defeated him largely by doing far better than expected in heavily Republican East Tennessee, an area where Democrats are not normally competitive except in statewide landslides. For instance, Bredesen carriedKnox County, the largest county in East Tennessee, by a few hundred votes; in contrast,George W. Bush won Knox County two years later by over 40,000 votes.

Hilleary was a candidate for theUnited States Senate seat then held by Senate Majority LeaderBill Frist, who did not run for re-election, fulfilling his promise not to serve more than two terms when first elected in 1994.

Despite over 80% name recognition, Hilleary placed a distant third with a mere 17% of the vote in the primary, behind fellow former CongressmanEd Bryant, who received 34% and the winner, former Chattanooga mayorBob Corker, who won with a 48% plurality. Surprisingly, Hilleary lost 13 of the 22 counties in his old district. Hilleary endorsed Corker for the general election.^[1]

Shortly after the November 2004 election, Hilleary moved his family toMurfreesboro, just outside Nashville. He now lives there primarily on weekends and through the week was employed as a consultant inWashington, D.C. until December 2018.^{[citation needed]}

According to a disclosure of personal finances from 2004 and part of 2005, as required by his 2006 Senate candidacy, Hilleary made $300,000 in salary in 2004 from Washington lobbying firmSonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal, and more than $150,000 in salary from the firm through August 12, 2005.^{[citation needed]}

One of his clients was theLumbee Indian Tribe ofNorth Carolina, which was seeking federal status from Congress and $77 million in funding for education, health care and economic development that would come with recognition. The tribe was recognized in 1956, but was not awarded the same monetary benefits given to otherAmerican Indian groups. Another client wasPennsylvania House SpeakerJohn M. Perzel. Other clients listed by Hilleary included theAmerican Academy of Ophthalmology, the American Association of Diabetes Educators, theAmerican Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, Balfour Ventures,Federal-Mogul Corporation,L-3 Communications, SMS Holdings Corp. and VPI Technologies.^{[citation needed]}

On December 11, 2018, it was announced that Hilleary would be returning to Congress as the Chief of Staff forJohn Rose, Representative-elect forTennessee's 6th congressional district, which contains much of the territory that he had once represented.^[2]

Hilleary announced on July 11, 2025 that he would be running for the6th congressional district currently held by Rose, who himself is running forgovernor.^[3]

*Write-in and minor candidate notes: In 1994, write-ins received 4 votes. In 1996, Preston T. Spaulding received 561 votes and write-ins received 5 votes. In 1998, write-ins received 23 votes. In 2000, write-ins received 5 votes.

Wikimedia Commons has media related toVan Hilleary.

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• Members of the United States Congress who became lobbyists
• People from Dayton, Tennessee
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• Political chiefs of staff
• Republican Party United States representatives from Tennessee
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