Jackie Walorski

Jacqueline Renae “Jackie” Walorski (August 17, 1963 – August 3, 2022) was an American politician who served as a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives from Indiana from 2013 until her death in 2022. Born in South Bend, Indiana, she grew up in the city’s Gilmer Park neighborhood with her two older brothers. Her mother, Martha C. (née Martin), worked as a meat cutter at a local grocery store, and her father, Raymond B. Walorski, was a firefighter and owner of an appliance store. Of Polish and German ancestry, she attended Hay Elementary School and graduated from Riley High School in South Bend in 1981, experiences that rooted her in the working-class communities she would later represent.

After high school, Walorski pursued higher education with an early focus on faith and public service. She attended Liberty Baptist College (now Liberty University) in Lynchburg, Virginia, from 1981 to 1983. She then returned to Indiana and enrolled at Taylor University in Upland, where she completed a Bachelor of Arts degree in communications and public administration in 1985. Her academic training in communications and public administration provided the foundation for a career that combined media work, nonprofit leadership, and ultimately elected office.

Walorski began her professional career in journalism and nonprofit administration in northern Indiana. From 1985 to 1989, she worked as a television reporter for WSBT-TV, the CBS affiliate in South Bend. She then served as executive director of the St. Joseph County Humane Society from 1989 to 1991. In 1991, she was appointed director of institutional advancement at Ancilla College in Donaldson, Indiana, a position she held until 1996, when she became director of membership at the St. Joseph County Chamber of Commerce. From 1997 to 1999, she was director of annual giving at Indiana University South Bend. In 2000, she moved to Romania, where she founded Impact International, a foundation dedicated to providing medical supplies and assistance to impoverished children, and engaged in Christian missionary work before returning to the United States in 2004.

Upon her return, Walorski entered elective politics at the state level. In 2004, she ran for the Indiana House of Representatives in the 2nd District, a suburban area between South Bend and Elkhart, after Republican State Representative Richard W. Mangus retired. She defeated Democrat Carl H. Kaser by a margin of 64% to 36% and took office in 2005. She was reelected in 2006 with 53% of the vote and won a third term unopposed in 2008, serving in the Indiana House of Representatives until 2010. During her tenure, she became active in the Republican caucus and was appointed Assistant Floor Leader, serving on the Family, Children, & Human Affairs Committee and the Public Policy Committee. She sponsored Indiana’s Voter ID law, which required government-issued identification for in-person voting; the law was challenged in multiple lawsuits and ultimately upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in Crawford v. Marion County Election Board, becoming a model cited in the expansion of voter ID laws in other states. She also authored legislation aimed at combating identity theft, including a 2006 measure requiring companies to notify Indiana residents of security breaches that could lead to identity theft, identity deception, or fraud, and establishing a Class C felony with a $50,000 fine for possession of the identities of more than 100 persons. She was criticized for missing a key committee vote that could have stopped a daylight saving time bill from advancing, and after a separate DST measure passed, she introduced a bill to rescind DST, which did not succeed.

Walorski sought federal office beginning in the 2010 election cycle. In 2009, she announced her candidacy for Indiana’s 2nd congressional district, challenging incumbent Democratic U.S. Representative Joe Donnelly. She won the 2010 Republican primary with 61% of the vote, defeating Martin Dolan, Jack Jordan, and Tony Zirkle, but narrowly lost the general election to Donnelly, 48% to 47%. Within months, she declared her intention to run again in 2012. During the 2011–2013 legislative session, Indiana’s predominantly Republican legislature redrew the state’s congressional districts, and the new 2nd District boundaries incorporated all of Elkhart County, her home base, and increased the proportion of Republican voters. Donnelly chose not to seek reelection and instead ran successfully for the U.S. Senate. In the 2012 Republican primary, Walorski won 73% of the vote and carried all ten counties in the district. In the general election, she defeated Democratic nominee Brendan Mullen, an Iraq War veteran, by a margin of 49% to 48%, with Libertarian Joe Ruiz also on the ballot. She was subsequently reelected four times, serving five terms in Congress from January 3, 2013, until August 3, 2022, and representing Indiana’s 2nd congressional district during a significant period in American political history. As a member of the House of Representatives, she participated in the federal legislative process and represented the interests of her constituents in northern Indiana.

During her congressional service, Walorski aligned with the Republican Party’s conservative wing and was active in several caucuses, including the Republican Study Committee, the Veterinary Medicine Caucus, and the U.S.-Japan Caucus. She served on the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee and, in 2014, emerged as a leading voice calling for the resignation of Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki in response to the Veterans Health Administration scandal. In 2019, she was named ranking member of the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Worker and Family Support, and in 2020 she was appointed to the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, where she helped oversee aspects of the federal response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2021, she became the ranking member of the House Ethics Committee. On matters of national policy, she voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act, supported the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, and advocated privatizing Social Security, stating in March 2010 that she favored allowing individuals to invest in their own retirement accounts. She opposed the first round of Trump administration tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from U.S. allies in 2018, arguing that such duties threatened American businesses and workers and urging a faster process for granting product exclusions. She voted against the second impeachment of President Donald Trump and objected to the certification of the 2020 United States presidential election results. In the realm of social policy, Walorski expressed support in 2013 for a ban on late-term abortions. She initially backed the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act but withdrew her support for the 2015 version over concerns about its requirement that rape victims report to law enforcement to qualify for an exemption after 20 weeks; the House leadership canceled a planned vote amid objections from her and other Republicans. She later voted for a modified 2015 version that removed the police-reporting requirement and allowed exceptions for rape in conjunction with medical care or counseling, and she supported the 2017 version of the bill. In October 2017, she urged the Indiana State Department of Health to deny an application to open an abortion clinic in South Bend, contending it would undermine efforts to reduce abortions in the area. Throughout her tenure, she continued to introduce and support legislation affecting military families, including a May 25, 2018 proposal to double the federal death gratuity for families of service members killed on active duty from $100,000 to $200,000, while capping congressional death benefits at $74,000.

Walorski’s final term in Congress began after she won the 2022 Republican primary for Indiana’s 2nd congressional district without opposition. She continued to serve as a prominent Republican voice on fiscal, social, and oversight issues until her death on August 3, 2022. Her decade in the U.S. House of Representatives, combined with her earlier service in the Indiana House of Representatives and her work in journalism, nonprofit leadership, and international missionary activity, marked a career devoted to public service at the local, state, national, and international levels.