Ralph Norman

Ralph Norman (2017)

Ralph Warren Norman Jr. (born June 20, 1953 in Rock Hill , South Carolina ) is an American real estate developer and Republican politician . He has been a member of the United States House of Representatives since June 26, 2017 .

Family, education and work

The son of Warren and Mary Norman attended public schools in Rock Hill, studied at the Presbyterian College in Clinton , where he earned a Bachelor of Science in Economics in 1975 . For over forty years he worked - with his brothers - for the real estate company Warren Norman Company , which his father founded and whose name it bears.

Norman lives in Rock Hill and is a member of the Presbyterian Church there. He has four children with his wife Elaine, whom he married in December 1974.

Political career

His political career began when Norman won the election to the House of Representatives of South Carolina in November 2004 for the 48th electoral district, which includes some suburbs of Charlotte, North Carolina and Rock Hill such as the planned town of Tega Cay in northern York County includes. He was a member of this House of Commons of his state legislature from 2005 to 2007. In the 2006 election, he decided not to run again, and instead ran for the seat of the 5th Congressional constituency of his state in the election to the United States House of Representatives , in which he was defeated by the Democratic elector John Spratt with 43 to 57 percent. On November 3, 2009, in a special election for his previous mandate in the 48th constituency, he defeated the Democrat Kathy Cantrell with 71 percent of the vote and has since been a member of the second legislative chamber of South Carolina. He won the biennial re-elections until 2016 with over 70 percent of the vote. In November 2010, he ran for the office of Speaker of the House of Representatives, but was defeated by Republican incumbent Bobby Harrell by 5-112 votes.

On February 16, 2017, he resigned from this mandate in order to apply again for the vacated seat of the US House of Representatives in the 5th congressional electoral district of South Carolina, which includes the southern suburbs of Charlotte in the north of the state from Spartanburg County to Sumter County, among other things . The previous Republican mandate holder Mick Mulvaney had become director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Donald Trump . On May 16, 2017, Norman prevailed in the run-off election of the party's internal primary election with about 200 votes ahead of his opponent, the centrist representative of the 47th electoral district in the state lower house, Tommy Pope .

The main election campaign against the Democrat Archie Parnell , who had worked for Goldman Sachs , received significantly less attention than the by-election in Georgia's 6th congressional electoral district , which was the most expensive congressional election ever and achieved a record turnout for a by-election. In contrast, participation in the election for the 5th district of South Carolina remained low, especially since Hillary Clinton, as the Democratic presidential candidate, lost the constituency in November 2016, 18 percent behind. The congressional electoral district had been in Democratic hands for over a hundred years, until Mulvaney captured it in the tea party wave of 2010 and has held it ever since, following a cheap redesign ( gerrymandering ) for the Republicans . Norman had a slight head start in fundraising, spending just over a million dollars on his campaign, including half a million from his own fortune. The central issue was health policy, as the Republicans in Congress tried at the same time to abolish Obamacare . Norman defeated Parnell closer than expected with 51 to 48 percent of the vote.

Norman took his swearing-in on June 26, 2017 and joined the conservative Freedom Caucus . He is a member of the Science, Space and Technology and Small Business Committees and five sub-committees, and is vice-chair of the sub-committee on the environment.

In the 2018 election , Norman will be challenged again by Parnell, who faced demands to withdraw from his own party after it became known that Parnell was violent against his then-wife in the 1970s.

Positions and controversies

In his political positions, Norman is considered a conservative supporter of Donald Trump and stands in particular for fiscal policy rigor and the attempt to shape politics according to entrepreneurial principles; he described himself as the most conservative member of the state legislature. In his farewell speech at the South Carolina State House in 2017, he called for the status quo to be challenged. In the 2017 election campaign, Norman followed the tradition of his predecessor Mulvaney's mandate with right-wing conservative positions and calls for tax cuts. He was criticized for his restrictive spending policy; As a member of the state parliament, he had voted against infrastructure investments, aid for farmers after the floods in 2015 and subsidies for industrial settlements.

Norman hit the headlines in the April 2018 congressional campaign when he presented his loaded handgun at an event and left it on the table for minutes. He said he would not be Gabrielle Giffords (a Democratic Congressman who was seriously injured and permanently damaged in the 2011 Tucson attack). Critics described this handling of the weapon as not responsible. In September 2018, his joke caused a stir at an election rally that Supreme Court judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg had been immorally touched by Abraham Lincoln (alluding to the allegation of attempted rape against Supreme Court candidate Brett Kavanaugh ).

Web links

• Ralph Norman in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)
• Norman's website at the congress.
• Normans campaign website .
• Norman's appearances at C-Span (English).
• Chris Bucher: Ralph Norman: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know. In: Heavy.com , May 2, 2017 (English).

supporting documents

1. ↑ ^{a b} Representative Ralph W. Norman ( Memento from October 20, 2006 in the Internet Archive ). In: SCStateHouse.net.
2. ↑ Ralph Norman, Jr.'s Biography. In: Vote Smart.
3. ↑ ^{a b c d} Chris Bucher: Ralph Norman: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know. In: Heavy.com , May 2, 2017.
4. ↑ Norman, Ralph W. In: Our Campaigns. For the constituency itself, see General Election 2004: SC State House 048. In: Our Campaigns.
5. ^ Rick Lyman: Seeing Plausible Target, Republicans Take Aim at a Democratic Seat in South Carolina. In: The New York Times , April 14, 2006.
6. ^ ^{A b} Norman Returned To SC State House. ( Memento of the original from October 13, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: Fits News , November 4, 2009. 
7. ^ Norman, Ralph W. In: Our Campaigns ; SC Speaker of the House 2010. In: Our Campaigns.
8. ^ Andrew Brown: Stakes high in South Carolina's 5th congressional district race. In: The Post and Courier , June 18, 2017.
9. ^ Bristow Marchant: SC legislator resigns seat to run for Congress. In: TheState.com , February 16, 2017.
10. ↑ Election Results: Norman Advances in Race for South Carolina's Fifth Congressional District. In: The New York Times , May 19, 2017; Jeffrey Collins: It's official: South Carolina conservative Ralph Norman beats centrist Tommy Pope in GOP congressional primary. In: The Post and Courier , May 19, 2017.
11. ^ Andrew Brown: Stakes high in South Carolina's 5th congressional district race. In: The Post and Courier , June 18, 2017; Election Results: Republican Wins US House Seat in South Carolina. In: The New York Times , June 21, 2017; Meg Kinnard: Republican Ralph Norman wins South Carolina House seat. In: The Chicago Tribune , June 20, 2017.
12. ↑ Emma Dumain: South Carolina US House delegation now complete with swearing-in of Republican Ralph Norman. In: The Post and Courier , June 26, 2017.
13. ↑ Ralph Norman, Jr.'s Biography. In: Vote Smart.
14. ↑ Schuyler Kropf: Sumter Democrat Archie Parnell running for Congress again vs. Republican Ralph Norman. In: The Post and Courier , October 9, 2017.
15. ↑ Jamie Lovegrove: Top South Carolina candidate refuses to quit congressional race after abuse discovery. In: The Post and Courier , May 21, 2018.
16. ↑ Meet Ralph. In: ElectRalphNorman.com.
17. ^ Matt Long: Rock Hill legislator resigns seat in SC House to run for Congress. In: South Carolina Radio Network , February 16, 2017.
18. ^ Andrew Brown: Stakes high in South Carolina's 5th congressional district race. In: The Post and Courier , June 18, 2017.
19. ↑ Jamie Lovegrove: US Rep. Ralph Norman pulls out loaded gun in constituent meeting to make point about safety. In: The Post and Courier , April 6, 2018.
20. ↑ John Wagner: Two GOP lawmakers criticized for tone-deaf comments about Kavanaugh accuser. In: The Washington Post , September 20, 2018; Jamie Lovegrove: SC GOP congressman jokes about Abraham Lincoln groping amid Kavanaugh Supreme Court drama. In: The Post and Courier , September 20, 2018.