David Lee Camp is a former American politician who served as a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1991 to 2015. Camp represented since 1993, and previously served one term representing. A member of the Republican Party, Camp was chairman of the House Committee on Ways and Means, serving from 2011–2015. In March 2014, he announced that he would not run for re-election.
Camp worked as a member of the Midland County, Michigan board of canvassers and a member of the Midland County Republican executive committee. For 4 years he was special assistant to the Michigan attorney general from 1980 to 1984. He served another 4 years on the staff of his boyhood friend U.S. Representative Bill Schuette from 1984 to 1987, before running and winning Michigan's 102nd District of the Michigan House of Representatives in 1988 and serving one term.
U.S. House of Representatives
Elections
When U.S. Congressman Schuette of Michigan's 10th congressional district decided in 1990 to run for the U.S. Senate against incumbent U.S. Senator Carl Levin, Camp ran to replace him and won the endorsement of his former boss. In the Republican primary he faced former U.S. Congressman James Dunn and former State Senator Alan Cropsey. Despite trailing Dunn in early polls, Camp won the Republican primary with a plurality of 33%. He defeated Cropsey, Allen, Dunn, and Simcox. He won the general election with 65% of the vote. After redistricting, he decided to run in Michigan's 4th congressional district. He won the general election with 62% of the vote. He never won re-election with less than 61% of the vote and never had a primary challenge.
Tenure
102nd Congress
Camp served on the House Committee on Agriculture. For his work on behalf of Michigan agriculture, Camp received the Golden Plow Award in 1998, the American Farm Bureau Federation's highest honor given to only one Member of the House in each Congress.
Camp was the Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Health, and Chairman of the Subcommittee on Select Revenue Measures, respectively. He served seven terms as a Member of the Subcommittee on Human Resources, and six terms as a Member of the Subcommittee on Trade. As a junior Member of the committee in 1996, Camp played a role in the passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act.
111th Congress
Camp served as Ranking Member of the full committee on Ways and Means. During his tenure as Ranking Member, Camp helped advance Republican alternatives to the 2009 stimulus law and 2010 health care law. The Camp alternative to the 2009 stimulus law would have cut taxes and provided incentives for small businesses to hire new employees. He also offered an alternative plan during the 2010 debate on health care reform. Camp was one of three House Republicans appointed by then-Minority Leader John Boehner to serve on the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, known as the Bowles-Simpson Commission, formed in February 2010. It was charged with identifying policies to improve the U.S. fiscal situation in the medium term, and to achieve fiscal sustainability over the long term. While on the Commission, Camp co-led the Tax Reform Working Group and was a member of the Mandatory Spending Working Group.
112th Congress
Camp was involved in the House Republicans' January 2011 repeal efforts of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Camp lead the repeal of the health care law's 1099 tax reporting requirement, which some small businesses said would hurt their operations and ability to employ workers.
"I'm a conservative on fiscal policy, but I'm a moderate on some other issues," he told Congressional Quarterly in 2006. He told National Review in 2007 that he feels "more at home" with the conservative Republican Steering Committee. Camp is part of the moderate bloc through his participation in the Main Street Partnership. He generally voted along party lines in the House, siding with Republicans 93.7 percent of the time during the 111th Congress. The American Conservative Union gave him a lifetime rating of 89 percent, his score with the Club for Growth is considerably lower. Camp voted for both the North American Free Trade Agreement and the Central American Free Trade Agreement. Camp opposes abortion and same-sex marriage. He voted twice for President George W. Bush's tax cuts, and supports their full extension. He pushed for private accounts for Social Security and he supports drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Camp supported the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and he backed President Bush's decision to send more troops to Iraq in 2007 with some reservations. In August 2013 Camp announced his support for reforming welfare again. He believes that many safety net programs do not have enough requirements attached to them for people to receive benefits. Camp introduced the Tax Reform Act of 2014 on February 26, 2014. The congressional nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation calculated the bill would allow 95 percent of filers to get the lowest tax rate possible by claiming the standard deduction, would create up to 1.8 million jobs and increase gross domestic product by up to 1.4% in 2023.
Post-political career
Approximately one year after announcing his decision not to run for re-election to Congress, it was announced that Camp would be joining prominent accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers as a senior policy advisor.
