Will Hurd facts for kids
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Will Hurd
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| Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Texas's r district |
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| In office January 3, 2015 – January 3, 2021 |
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| Preceded by | Pete Gallego |
| Succeeded by | Tony Gonzales |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
William Ballard Hurd
August 19, 1977 San Antonio, Texas, U.S. |
| Political party | Republican |
| Spouse |
Lynlie Wallace
(m. 2022) |
| Education | Texas A&M University (BS) |
William Ballard Hurd (born August 19, 1977) is an American politician and former CIA clandestine officer who served as the U.S. representative for TX's 23rd congressional district from 2015 to 2021.
Following a nine-year stint with the CIA, Hurd ran for Congress in 2010 and was defeated in a runoff primary. Hurd ran for Congress again in 2014 and was successful. The district stretched approximately 550 miles (890 km) from San Antonio to El Paso along the U.S.-Mexican border. He was re-elected in 2016 and again in 2018, but did not seek re-election in 2020.
During his congressional tenure, Hurd became known for his expertise in technology and cybersecurity, as well as for his bipartisanship.
On June 22, 2023, Hurd announced that he was seeking the Republican nomination for president of the United States in the 2024 election. He dropped out of the race on October 9, 2023, and endorsed Nikki Haley.
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Early life and education
Hurd was born on August 19, 1977, in San Antonio, Texas. He is the son of Mary Alice Hurd and Robert Hurd. He has a brother, Chuck, and a sister, Elizabeth. His father is black and his mother is white.
Hurd is a graduate of John Marshall High School in Leon Valley, Texas, and a graduate of Texas A&M University, where he was elected student body president. Hurd was student body president during the 1999 Aggie Bonfire collapse. He majored in computer science and minored in international relations.
Intelligence career
Hurd worked for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for nine years, from 2000 to 2009. He was stationed primarily in Washington, D.C., but his tour of duty included being an operations officer in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India. He speaks Urdu, the national language and lingua franca of Pakistan, where he worked undercover. One of his roles at the CIA was briefing members of Congress, which is what made Hurd want to pursue politics. He returned to Texas after his CIA service and worked as a partner with Crumpton Group LLC, a strategic advisory firm, and as a senior adviser with FusionX, a cybersecurity firm.
U.S. House of Representatives
Hurd assumed office as a U.S. representative on January 3, 2015. During his first term, he ranked third among freshman House members who had the most bills passed. Much of Hurd's work focused on bipartisan cybersecurity and technology bills. Hurd has been described as a leading congressional voice on technology issues.
In July 2015, Hurd was named to replace Aaron Schock of Illinois as a co-chair of the Congressional Future Caucus, along with Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii. In his first term in Congress, Hurd was made the chairman of the Information Technology Subcommittee of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform that focuses in part on cybersecurity), which is unusual for a first-term member of Congress.
Hurd was the vice-chair of the Border and Maritime Subcommittee of the Homeland Security Committee. He was appointed to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence for his second term, replacing Mike Pompeo, who departed to head the CIA. Hurd's background as a former undercover clandestine officer led The Daily Dot to call him "The Most Interesting Man in Congress".
Along with Brian Fitzpatrick, John Katko, and Elise Stefanik, Hurd was considered one of the most moderate Republicans in the House. He voted against his party's positions on LGBT rights, gun control, immigration, repeal of the Affordable Care Act, and congressional oversight, and he received praise for his bipartisanship. Hurd was a member of the Republican Main Street Partnership.
As of August 2019, Hurd was the only black Republican in the House of Representatives. He has said that the principal role of the government in the lives of African Americans should be to empower them to do things for themselves.
According to USA Today, Hurd's district "spans two time zones and more than 800 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border". As of January 2019, Hurd was the only Republican member of Congress representing a district along the U.S.–Mexican border.
In 2019, Hurd joined the Transatlantic Task Force of the German Marshall Fund and the Bundeskanzler-Helmut-Schmidt-Stiftung (BKHS), co-chaired by Karen Donfried and Wolfgang Ischinger.
Hurd did not seek reelection to Congress in 2020.
Caucus memberships
- Congressional Future Caucus (co-chair)
Committee assignments
- House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
- Information Technology Subcommittee (chair)
- Homeland Security Committee
- Border and Maritime Subcommittee (vice-chair)
- House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence
Political positions
Fiscal policy
In 2019, Hurd was one of seven Republicans to break with the Trump administration position and vote with Democrats to end a government shutdown.
Foreign policy and national security
Hurd called for a ramp-up of U.S. military action against ISIS in Libya and in Syria, using the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan as a model. He blamed ISIL's rise on the Obama administration, accusing it of underestimating the threat. Hurd has written that Islamic extremists "are in it for the long haul, which means that we have to be also". On the broader Syrian civil war, Hurd has written that "the brutal dictator Bashar al-Asad must go".
Hurd has called for greater U.S. defenses against foreign cyber-attacks. Following the Office of Personnel Management data breach, he wrote that federal cybersecurity was woefully inadequate. He opposes applying the Wassenaar Arrangement to cyber technologies, arguing that "attempting to regulate cybersecurity technologies through export controls is a fundamentally flawed approach" that places the U.S. at risk and "will not achieve the goal of curbing human rights violations".
Hurd opposed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (an international agreement with Iran over its nuclear program), calling it "short-sighted and ultimately dangerous", and called for the U.S. to reimpose various sanctions against Iran, arguing that Iran violated its obligations under the agreement. He has spoken out against Russian aggression, calling the Russian government "our adversary".
Hurd favored the lifting of a longstanding U.S. ban on the export of crude oil.
Hurd opposes the normalization of Cuba–U.S. relations.
Along with Martha McSally and Michael McCaul, Hurd helped draft the Final Report of the Task Force on Combating Terrorist and Foreign Fighter Travel of the U.S. House Homeland Security Committee.
Hurd has opposed the CIA's efforts to mandate weaker encryption on smartphones and other devices to make it easier for federal agents to unlock them, arguing that stronger encryption thwarts hackers and protects national security.
Health care
Hurd favors repealing the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. In 2017, when House Republican leadership introduced the American Health Care Act (a bill to repeal the ACA), he faced a political quandary. Hurd did not say whether he supported or opposed the legislation. Ultimately, after the measure was declared dead and withdrawn from a planned vote due to insufficient support, Hurd "released a statement in which he appeared to oppose the overhaul". When the bill came up for a vote again, he voted against it, opposing it because he feared it would hurt people with pre-existing medical conditions. Some Democrats castigated Hurd for the length of his consideration of the bill, but constituents and ACA supporters praised him for declining to support the bill, with former United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julian Castro calling Hurd's vote a "good decision".
Immigration
Hurd spoke out against Trump's 2017 executive order to build a wall along the southern border with Mexico, saying it was a "third-century solution to a 21st-century problem" and the "most expensive and least effective way to secure the border". Hurd instead advocated for a "flexible, sector-by-sector approach that empowers Border Patrol agents on the ground with the resources they need". He proposed using "a mix of technology. It's going to be significantly cheaper than building a wall."
Hurd criticized Trump's 2017 executive order to bar the entry of nationals of seven Muslim-majority countries to the U.S., describing it as the "ultimate display of mistrust".
Post-congressional career
Hurd became a Winter 2021 Resident Fellow at the Institute of Politics of the University of Chicago. There, Hurd leads a series of seminars. In May 2021, Hurd was appointed to the board of directors for OpenAI.
On March 29, 2022, Simon and Schuster published Hurd's first book, entitled American Reboot: An Idealist's Guide to Getting Big Things Done, a combination memoir and blueprint for the country's future. It received largely positive reviews.
2024 presidential campaign
On June 22, 2023, Hurd announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination in the 2024 United States presidential election. At the time of his announcement, Hurd said he hoped his electoral record and willingness to criticize former president Donald Trump would distinguish him from other candidates. He has said he will not support Trump if Trump is the eventual nominee, and said that he believes that the evidence in the federal prosecution of Donald Trump points to Trump acting like a person who knows he is guilty. Hurd also said he won't sign a pledge to support the eventual Republican nominee; signing the pledge is required by the Republican National Committee to participate in the primary debate. Despite fellow candidate Chris Christie also criticizing the pledge, but nonetheless willing to sign it in order to debate, Hurd said he won't "lie to get access to a microphone." Hurd also said he would not sign a similar pledge required by the Republican Party of Florida to appear on the primary ballot.
At a July 28, 2023, town-hall in New Hampshire, run in partnership by WMUR-TV and the University of New Hampshire, Hurd outlined his issues as:
- Supporting continued US foreign intervention to protect the American way of life.
- Counteract and destroy Chinese, Russian, Iran, and North Korean espionage efforts.
- Rebuilding the Internet's infrastructure to protect Americans online and to crack down on cybercrime.
- Comparing AI to nuclear fission, stating that the government should heavily monitor it, as it does with nuclear power.
- Reducing the federal deficit by creating a consistent 2 or 4 year budget to create incentives for proper spending.
- Supporting bi-partisanship and working with Democrats on key issues.
- An all-of-the-above energy policy including expanding renewable, nuclear, and fossil fuel energy for energy independence.
- Supporting further gun regulation, including universal background checks and increasing the age to own a high-caliber firearm to 21.
- Stated his intention to run was to prevent Donald Trump from becoming the nominee, who he believes cannot beat Joe Biden.
- Supporting domestic industry namely supporting domestic circuitry, technology, and computer manufacturing.
- Reducing barriers to medication, namely with new price transparency laws.
- Is skeptical of a major new centrist third party due to coalition politics, but supports an expansion of jungle primaries.
- Supporting social security as it is, but also finding a place for private companies.
- Growing minority voter bases in the Republican Party, namely Latinos, African-Americans, and Women.
- A strict enforcement of asylum system in the United States, using it to protect persecuted peoples, not those seeking better jobs.
- Supporting either a physical, or technological barrier on the border and working with nations to build better deportation centers.
- Increasing America's mental health networks to better support the mentally ill.
On September 20, 2023, Hurd unveiled a detailed plan for how he would regulate AI if elected President, comparing AI to nuclear fusion, and proposing creating a branch of the executive to deal solely and directly on the issue of AI, and proposing strict regulations on civilian AI usage.
On October 9, 2023, Hurd suspended his campaign for president and endorsed Haley for the nomination.
Personal life
In 2017, Politico reported that he was dating Lynlie Wallace, the chief of staff to Texas State Representative Lyle Larson. Hurd announced on social media that he and Wallace married on December 31, 2022.
Hurd lives in the city of Helotes, Texas, a suburb of San Antonio.
See also
