Vicky Hartzler

Vicky Hartzler
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Missouri's 4th district
Incumbent
Assumed office January 3, 2011
Preceded by	Ike Skelton
Member of the Missouri House of Representatives from the 124th district
In office 1995–2000
Preceded by	Gene Olson
Succeeded by	Rex Rector
Personal details
Born	(1960-10-13) October 13, 1960 Archie, Missouri
Political party	Republican
Spouse(s)	Lowell Hartzler
Residence	Harrisonville, Missouri
Alma mater	University of Missouri (B.S.) Central Missouri State University (M.S.)
Profession	Teacher, farm equipment dealer
Religion	Fellowship of Evangelical Churches

Vicky Jo Hartzler (born Vicky Jo Zellmer on October 13, 1960) is an American politician who has been the U.S. Representative for Missouri's 4th congressional district since 2011. She is a member of the Republican Party. The district includes most of the western-central part of the state, from Jefferson City, the state capital, to the eastern Kansas City suburbs. Besides Jefferson City, it includes other cities such as Sedalia, Warrensburg, Marshall, and Lebanon.

Hartzler represented District 124 in the Missouri House of Representatives from 1995 to 2000.

Early life

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

Missouri legislature

Before running for State Representative in 1994, Hartzler taught high school home economics for 11 years. Her accomplishments included leadership on legislation facilitating the adoption process. Hartzler left the Missouri State House in 2000 after adopting a baby daughter.

In 2004, after she had left the Missouri General Assembly, Hartzler served as state spokeswoman for the Coalition to Protect Marriage, which supported barring gay people from entering civil marriage contracts. Despite Hartzler's fierce partisan opposition to the Missouri Assembly's ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment ("I don't want women used to pass a liberal agenda"), Republican Governor Matt Blunt nonetheless appointed Hartzer Chair of the Missouri Women's Council in 2005, where she served for two years.

U.S. House of Representatives

2010 election

Main article: United States House of Representatives elections in Missouri, 2010#District 4

After almost a decade out of politics, Hartzler entered the Republican primary for Missouri's 4th congressional district, held by 17-term Democratic incumbent Ike Skelton. She won a crowded seven-way primary with 40 percent of the vote.

In the November 2 election, Hartzler won with 50.4% of the vote, largely due to support in the more rural areas of the district.^{[citation needed]} She is the first Republican to represent this district since 1955, and only the second since the Great Depression. However, Republicans had been making gains in the district for some time; it gave John McCain 62 percent of the vote, and Republicans have held most of the district's seats in the state legislature since 2000.^{[citation needed]}

She ran on a conservative platform, voicing support for tax cuts and spending cuts. She is pro-life.

Committee assignments

• Committee on Agriculture
  • Subcommittee on General Farm Commodities and Risk Management
  • Subcommittee on Rural Development, Research, Biotechnology, and Foreign Agriculture
• Committee on Armed Services
  • Subcommittee on Tactical Air and Land Forces
  • Subcommittee on Military Personnel
  • Subcommittee on Readiness

• Republican Study Committee
• Tea Party Caucus

Controversy

Same-sex marriage statements

Addressing a conference of college students at the Eagle Forum Collegians Summit in Washington D.C. on June 9, 2011, Hartzler said that if same-sex marriages were allowed, it would lead to pedophiles and polygamists also being allowed to marry.

Hartzler is an evangelical Christian. She was a spokesman for the Coalition to Protect Marriage in Missouri, which successfully campaigned to ban same-sex marriage in the state.

"Birther" and other statements

At a town hall meeting in Missouri on April 5, 2012, Hartzler expressed doubts regarding President Barack Obama's birth certificate. In an interview with the Sedalia Democrat later that day, she amplified her doubts, stating "I have doubts that it is really his real birth certificate, and I think a lot of Americans do, but they claim it is, so we are just going to go with that."

In the same town hall, Hartzler said, "I have a lot of concerns about China. They are actually building up their military on the money we are giving them." She has concerns the country is embedding microchips with detection or tracking capabilities in products sold in the United States. “We need to have a new 007 James Bond movie with China as the bad guys.” Hartzler said she would look into the issue and “make sure that they aren’t using Chinese microchips in our planes or our tanks or anything else.”.

Personal life

Hartzler lives near Harrisonville. Hartzler and her husband, Lowell, own a farm; they have one daughter.^{[citation needed]}

Works

• Vicky Hartzler, Running God's Way, Pleasant Word (a division of WinePress Publishing; December 13, 2007); ISBN 978-1-4141-1124-7

External links

• Congresswoman Vicky Hartzler official U.S. House site
• Vicky Hartzler for U.S. Congress official campaign site
• Biography at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
• Biography, voting record, and interest group ratings at Project Vote Smart
• Congressional profile at GovTrack
• Congressional profile at OpenCongress
• Financial information (federal office) at the Federal Election Commission
• Financial information (federal office) at OpenSecrets.org
• Staff salaries, trips and personal finance (federal office) at LegiStorm.com
• Financial information (state office) at the National Institute for Money in State Politics
• Issue positions and quotes at On the Issues
• Voting record at The Washington Post
• Appearances on C-SPAN programs
• Works by or about Vicky Hartzler in libraries (WorldCat catalog)

United States House of Representatives
Preceded by Ike Skelton	Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Missouri's 4th congressional district January 3, 2011 – present	Succeeded by Incumbent
United States order of precedence
Preceded by Andrew Harris R-Maryland	United States Representatives by seniority 306th	Succeeded by Joe Heck R-Nevada