Randy Neugebauer

Robert Randolph “Randy” Neugebauer (born December 24, 1949) is an American politician and businessman who represented Texas’s 19th congressional district in the United States House of Representatives from a special election in 2003 until 2017. A member of the Republican Party, he served seven terms in Congress, during which time the National Journal in 2011 identified him as “the most conservative” member of the House. The 19th District, one of the most conservative areas of Texas and the nation, includes a large swath of West Texas, notably the cities of Lubbock and Abilene.

Neugebauer was born in St. Louis, Missouri, and was reared in Lubbock, Texas. His father worked as an insurance salesman and his mother was a real estate agent and interior designer. He has two brothers, Jon and Bradley, and a sister, Virginia Volpe. When he was nine years old, his parents divorced; his father later remarried and died in 1985. In 1963, his mother married Joe W. Smith, a bank manager, and the family remained rooted in Lubbock. Neugebauer graduated from Coronado High School in Lubbock and went on to attend Texas Tech University, where he earned a Bachelor of Business Administration degree in accounting in 1972 from the College of Business Administration, now known as the Rawls College of Business.

Following his graduation, Neugebauer entered the private sector, building a career in real estate and development that paralleled his mother’s professional path. He served as president of the development company Lubbock Land prior to his election to Congress, gaining experience in land development and homebuilding in West Texas. His leadership in the industry extended statewide; from 1996 to 1997 he was president of the Texas Association of Builders, a role that increased his visibility in business and political circles and helped shape his views on regulation, taxation, and economic development.

Neugebauer’s formal political career began at the local level in Lubbock. From 1992 to 1998 he served on the Lubbock City Council, where he focused on fiscal issues and municipal management. He was chosen by his colleagues as mayor pro tempore from 1994 to 1996. During his tenure in city government, Neugebauer advocated reducing taxes and privatizing certain municipal services, reflecting a consistent preference for limited government and market-based solutions that would later characterize his work in Congress.

Neugebauer was elected to Congress in a hotly contested special election runoff in the spring of 2003, following the retirement of 18-year Republican incumbent Larry Combest, who had been reelected to a tenth term in 2002 before announcing his departure. Although Combest was the first Republican ever to represent the district, the 19th had long been overwhelmingly conservative and had not supported a Democratic presidential candidate since 1964. Neugebauer was one of seven Republican candidates in the special election primary and campaigned on his conservative credentials, describing himself as a “pro-family, pro-life Christian who has a personal relationship with Jesus Christ” and emphasizing that “our region’s most precious resources are our values.” He led the primary field but fell short of a majority, forcing a runoff against Mike Conaway of Midland, then chairman of the Texas Board of Public Accountancy and a friend of President George W. Bush. In a closely fought contest, Neugebauer defeated Conaway by 587 votes, becoming only the fourth person to represent the 19th District since its creation in 1935. Conaway subsequently won election in 2004 to Congress from the newly reconfigured 11th District.

In the 2004 general election, Neugebauer sought a full term and faced a high-profile challenge from Democrat Charles Stenholm of Abilene, a 26-year incumbent who had represented the former 17th District. After the 2003 Texas redistricting, much of Stenholm’s territory, including most of Abilene, was merged into the 19th District. Although Stenholm brought considerable seniority, the new district retained about 60 percent of Neugebauer’s former territory, giving the incumbent a significant advantage. Neugebauer won by 18 percentage points and was subsequently reelected with little substantive opposition, each time receiving well over 60 percent of the vote. In the May 29, 2012 Republican primary, he defeated intra-party challenger Chris Winn, a former Lubbock County Republican chairman, by a margin of 45,372 votes (74.3 percent) to 15,675 votes (25.7 percent). On September 17, 2015, Neugebauer announced that he would not seek reelection to an eighth term in 2016, bringing his congressional service to a close at the end of the 114th Congress in January 2017.

During his tenure in the House of Representatives, Neugebauer served on several key committees and subcommittees. He was a member of the Committee on Agriculture, where he sat on the Subcommittee on General Farm Commodities and Risk Management and the Subcommittee on Livestock, Dairy, and Poultry, reflecting the agricultural base of his West Texas district. He also served on the Committee on Financial Services, including the Subcommittee on Capital Markets and Government Sponsored Enterprises and the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, the latter of which he chaired. In addition, he was a member of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, serving on the Subcommittee on Energy and Environment and the Subcommittee on Technology and Innovation. Neugebauer participated in several ideological and demographic caucuses, including the Tea Party Caucus, the Congressional Constitution Caucus, and the Congressional Hispanic Conference as an associate member.

Neugebauer was an active sponsor of legislation, particularly in areas related to insurance regulation and disaster mitigation. He sponsored the National Association of Registered Agents and Brokers Reform Act of 2013 (H.R. 1155; 113th Congress), which was designed to reduce regulatory costs for insurance companies operating in multiple states by transforming the National Association of Registered Agents and Brokers into a clearinghouse with its own standards. Under this system, insurance companies would be required to meet the requirements of their home state and those of NARAB, rather than the separate requirements of every state in which they did business. Proponents argued that the measure would lower compliance costs for insurers and ultimately make insurance more affordable for consumers; the bill passed the House on September 10, 2013. On April 26, 2013, he introduced the National Windstorm Impact Reduction Act Reauthorization of 2014 (H.R. 1786; 113th Congress), reauthorizing the National Windstorm Impact Reduction Program to improve understanding of windstorms and develop measures to reduce their damage, a matter of particular relevance to storm-prone regions such as West Texas.

Neugebauer’s congressional career was also marked by several high-profile controversies that drew national and international attention. On March 21, 2010, during House debate on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, he shouted “Baby killer!” during remarks by Representative Bart Stupak of Michigan, a leading anti-abortion Democrat, who was explaining a Republican motion related to the bill. More than twelve hours later, on March 22, 2010, Neugebauer publicly identified himself as the member who had made the outburst, apologized for the incident, and asserted that his words had been “It’s a baby killer,” referring to the bill rather than to Stupak personally. Reporters and others present in the chamber maintained that he had shouted “Baby killer!” directed at Stupak, and Stupak stated that he did not accept Neugebauer’s explanation, saying the words were “very clear” and that an apology should be made on the House floor. Fact-checking organizations and Stupak himself noted that the legislation did not provide public funding for abortion, contrary to Neugebauer’s characterization. The New York Times and the Colorado Springs Gazette compared Neugebauer’s outburst to Representative Joe Wilson’s “You lie!” interruption of President Barack Obama’s 2009 address to Congress, and to racial and sexual slurs reportedly shouted at Democratic legislators by protesters during the health care debate. The incident was widely reported in international media, including Canada’s Maclean’s, the United Kingdom’s The Times, and Australia’s Sydney Morning Herald.

Another widely publicized incident occurred on October 2, 2013, during the United States federal government shutdown of 2013. At the National World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C., Neugebauer confronted a National Park Service ranger who was enforcing the closure of the memorial due to the lapse in appropriations. In an exchange captured on video, he told the ranger that the Park Service “should be ashamed of themselves,” comments that drew significant criticism in the press and on social media for appearing to blame frontline federal employees for decisions made by elected officials. Neugebauer later contended that his remarks were taken out of context and that his criticism was directed at the agency’s leadership and the administration rather than at the individual ranger.

Neugebauer’s political profile was closely tied to conservative causes and to business interests, particularly in energy, real estate, and finance. Between 2003 and February 2010, he raised approximately $6.4 million in campaign funds, much of it from the oil and gas, real estate, commercial banking, and crop production and processing industries, as well as from leadership political action committees. His largest corporate and association donors included the National Auto Dealers Association, the National Association of Home Builders, Quantum Energy Partners, the National Beer Wholesalers Association, and the National Association of Realtors. Although he was outspoken against abortion during the congressional debate over health care reform, the nonpartisan organization OpenSecrets reported that he received a total of $3,000 during his career from individuals and committees associated with anti-abortion advocacy groups. After leaving Congress in January 2017, press reports indicated that Neugebauer was under consideration by the incoming Trump administration to lead the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a position ultimately filled by Mick Mulvaney.