Michele Bachmann facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Michele Bachmann
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Minnesota's 6th district
In office January 3, 2007 – January 3, 2015
Preceded by	Mark Kennedy
Succeeded by	Tom Emmer
Member of the Minnesota Senate
In office January 3, 2001 – January 2, 2007
Preceded by	Gary Laidig
Succeeded by	Ray Vandeveer
Constituency	56th district (2001–2003) 52nd district (2003–2007)
Personal details
Born	Michele Marie Amble (1956-04-06) April 6, 1956 (age 68) Waterloo, Iowa, U.S.
Political party	Republican (since 1978)
Other political affiliations	Democratic (before 1978)
Spouse	Marcus Bachmann ​ (m. 1978)​
Children	5
Education	Winona State University (BA) Oral Roberts University (JD) College of William & Mary (LLM)

Michele Marie Bachmann (/ˈbɑːxmən/; née Amble; born April 6, 1956) is an American politician who was the U.S. representative for MN's 6th congressional district from 2007 until 2015. A member of the Republican Party, she was a candidate for president of the United States in the 2012 election, but lost the Republican nomination to Mitt Romney.

Born in Waterloo, Iowa, Bachmann moved to Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, as a teenager. She graduated from Oral Roberts University's O. W. Coburn School of Law and the William & Mary Law School. After graduating, she briefly worked in tax law for the Internal Revenue Service before becoming a stay-at-home mother. She became involved in local politics, specifically around education.

Bachmann formally entered politics in 2000, when she was elected to the Minnesota Senate. In 2006, she was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. After her unsuccessful run for president, Bachmann was elected to another term in the House in 2012, before announcing her retirement before the 2014 election.

Since January 1, 2021, Bachmann has been dean of the Robertson School of Government at Regent University.

Early life, education, and early career

Bachmann in Anoka High School's yearbook

Bachmann was born Michele Marie Amble on April 6, 1956, in Waterloo, Iowa, to Norwegian-American parents David John Amble, an engineer, and Arlene Jean Amble (née Johnson). Two of her great-great-great-grandparents, Melchior and Martha Munson, emigrated from Sogndal, Norway, to Wisconsin in 1857. Her family moved from Iowa to Brooklyn Park, Minnesota when she was 13 years old. After her parents divorced when she was 14, David moved to California and remarried. Bachmann was raised by her mother, who worked at the First National Bank in Anoka, Minnesota, where they moved again. Three years later her mother married widower Raymond J. LaFave; the new marriage resulted in a family with nine children.

In Anoka High School, Bachmann was a cheerleader. She graduated from high school in 1974 and, after graduation, spent one summer working at kibbutz Be'eri in Israel with Young Life, an evangelical youth organization. In 1978, she graduated from Winona State University with a B.A. In 1979, Bachmann was a member of the first class of the O. W. Coburn School of Law, then a part of Oral Roberts University (ORU). There she studied with John Eidsmoe, whom she described in 2011 as "one of the professors who had a great influence on me". Bachmann worked as a research assistant on Eidsmoe's 1987 book Christianity and the Constitution, which argues that the United States was founded as a Christian theocracy and should become one again. In 1986, she received a J.D. degree from Oral Roberts University.

A member of ORU's final graduating class, she was also part of a group of faculty, staff, and students who moved ORU's library to what is now Regent University. In 1988, she received an LL.M. degree in tax law from William & Mary Law School. From 1988 to 1993, she worked as a tax litigation attorney for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). However, she did not take the American Bar Association exam and never got a license to become a private attorney. Bachmann left the IRS to become a full-time mother when her fourth child was born.

Early political career

Activism

Bachmann grew up in a Democratic family and has said she became a Republican during her senior year at Winona State University. She told the Star Tribune that she was reading Gore Vidal's 1973 novel Burr and that Vidal "was kind of mocking the Founding Fathers and I just thought—I just remember reading the book, putting it in my lap, looking out the window and thinking, 'You know what? I don't think I am a Democrat. I must be a Republican.'"

Minnesota Senate

Before launching her career for the Minnesota Senate, Bachmann was encouraged to run by her family and local conservative organizations. Bachmann became a Minnesota state senator after defeating incumbent Gary Laidig in district 56 in 2000. After redistricting due to the 2000 Census, she defeated Jane Krentz, a Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party (DFL) incumbent, in district 52.

During her career as state senator, she was known for her conservatism, particularly due to her opposition to gay marriage.

U.S. House of Representatives

From 2007 to 2015, Bachmann represented MN's 6th congressional district, which included the northernmost and eastern suburbs of the Twin Cities and St. Cloud. She became the first Republican woman from Minnesota to be elected to the House of Representatives.

Committee assignments

• Committee on Financial Services
  • Subcommittee on Capital Markets and Government-Sponsored Enterprises
  • Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations
• Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence

Political positions

Bachmann has described herself as a "strong fiscal conservative". Her views have been described as socially conservative, populist, and pro-business by journalists. Authors Lynne Ford and Mark Andrejevic and journalists Carl Hulse, Steve Benen, Martin Pengelly, and Brian Bakst described Bachmann as a far-right politician. During her time in Congress, she was a notable representative of the Tea Party movement and a critic of Barack Obama and the Democratic Party. She was a supporter of George W. Bush during the 110th Congress but also supported the repeal of his No Child Left Behind Act.

In 2010, the American Conservative Union gave her a rating of 100 while the Americans for Democratic Action gave her 0.

Education

Bachmann supports the teaching of creationism alongside evolution in public school science classes. During a 2003 interview on the KKMS Christian radio program Talk The Walk, Bachmann said that evolution is a theory that has never been proven one way or the other. She co-authored a bill (with no additional endorsements among her fellow legislators) that would require public schools to include alternative explanations for the origin of life as part of the state's public school science curricula. In October 2006, Bachmann told a debate audience in St. Cloud, Minnesota, "there is a controversy among scientists about whether evolution is a fact or not ... There are hundreds and hundreds of scientists, many of them holding Nobel Prizes, who believe in intelligent design." Despite this, there is an overwhelming scientific consensus that evolution is real, and that intelligent design is not. Indeed, at least one news report presenting a "sampling of Bachmann's ... ludicrous or plain old false claims", stated that Bachmann's claims are untrue, and that "when the science isn't on [Bachmann's] side, she simply improvises."

Bachmann has praised the Christian youth ministry You Can Run But You Cannot Hide International (YCRBYCH), hailing "the group's work of sharing the gospel in public schools". She appeared as a keynote speaker at their fundraisers in 2006 and 2009. Following a 2011 controversial invocation for the Minnesota House, YCRBYCH founder Bradlee Dean declared that criticisms of him and his ministry were also "intended to harm and destroy the presidential campaign of Congresswoman Michele Bachmann ... [who] previously praised and prayed for the work of my ministry".

Bachmann has had a history of opposing anti-bullying legislation. In 2006, she told the Minnesota Legislature that passing an anti-bullying bill would be a waste of time. "I think for all of us, our experience in public schools is there have always been bullies", she said. "Always have been, always will be. I just don't know how we're ever going to get to the point of zero tolerance ... What does it mean? ... Will we be expecting boys to be girls?"

Fiscal policy

Bachmann addressing a Tea Party Express rally in Minneapolis

In the Minnesota Senate, Bachmann opposed minimum wage increases. In a June 2011 interview, she did not back away from her earlier proposal to eliminate the federal minimum wage, a change she said would "virtually wipe out unemployment." Bachmann supports lowering taxes.

In a 2001 flyer, Bachmann and Michael J. Chapman wrote that federal policies manage a centralized, state-controlled economy in the United States. She wrote that education laws passed by Congress in 2001, including "School To Work" and "Goals 2000", created a new national school curriculum that embraced "a socialist, globalist worldview; loyalty to all government and not America." In 2003, Bachmann said that the "Tax Free Zones" economic initiatives of Republican Governor Tim Pawlenty were based on the Marxist principle of "from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs." She also said the administration was attempting to govern and run centrally planned economies through the Minnesota Economic Leadership Team (MELT), an advisory board on economic and workforce policy Pawlenty chaired. Before her election to the state senate, and again in 2005, Bachmann signed a "no new taxes" pledge sponsored by the Taxpayers League of Minnesota. As a state senator, she introduced two bills that would have severely limited state taxation. In 2003, she proposed amending the Minnesota Constitution to adopt the "Taxpayers' Bill of Rights" (TABOR).

Environment

Bachmann supports increased domestic drilling of oil and natural gas, as well as pursuing renewable sources of energy such as wind and solar. She is a strong proponent of nuclear power.

Bachmann has strongly opposed the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), pledging at an August 2011 campaign rally, "I guarantee you the EPA will have doors locked and lights turned off and they will only be about conservation." In 2007 and 2010, she actively solicited funds from the EPA on behalf of constituents in her congressional district.

Social Security and Medicare phase-out

Bachmann has called for phasing out Social Security and Medicare: "what you have to do, is keep faith with the people that are already in the system... But basically what we have to do is wean everybody else off."

Foreign policy

Bachmann speaking as a candidate for President in September 2011

Bachmann believes that the 2003 invasion of Iraq was justified. Bachmann has said that in dealing with Iran, diplomacy "is our option", but that other options, including a nuclear strike, should not be ruled out. She has also said that she is "a longtime supporter of Israel".

Global economy

In a discussion about the G-20 summit in Toronto, during an interview with conservative radio host Scott Hennen, Bachmann stated that she did not want America to be part of the international global economy.

Bachmann told The Wall Street Journal that Milton Friedman, Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams influenced her economic views. She said she was "an Art Laffer fiend" and loved Ludwig von Mises.

Immigration

Bachmann believes that strengthened enforcement of immigration laws is required for the growth of the American job market. She supports amending the Immigration and Nationality Act to allow only the immediate family of legal immigrants (not extended family members) priority consideration in the immigration process. She voted against the DREAM Act. She has also said the current law does not need modification but proper enforcement.

Bachmann said, "the immigration system in the United States worked very, very well up until the mid-1960s when liberal members of Congress changed the immigration laws." She has expressed support for immigration of highly skilled professionals such as chemists and engineers.

Bachmann opposed the 2013 immigration reform bill, claiming that its passage would mean the end of the Republican Party. On WorldNetDaily she said, "This is President Obama's number one political agenda because he knows we will never again have a Republican president ever if amnesty goes into effect."

Social issues

Same-sex marriage constitutional amendment

Bachmann supports both federal and state constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage and any legal equivalents.

Federal-backed home loans

According to The Washington Post, in 2008 Bachmann may have taken advantage of a federal program for a home loan, then called for dismantling the program, though the Post noted that the public and other members of Congress have taken advantage of such loans despite seeing reasons to criticize them. When asked about it, she said: "This is the problem. It is almost impossible to buy a home in this country today without the federal government being involved".

Political campaigns

2006 congressional campaign

Official photo, c. 2007

Bachmann won her Congressional seat in the 2006 election with 50% of the vote, defeating the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL) nominee Patty Wetterling and the Independence Party's John Binkowski.

The 6th District's representative since 2001, Mark Kennedy, announced in late 2005 that he would run for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Mark Dayton. Bachmann said, "God then called me to run" for the U.S. House seat, and that she and her husband fasted for three days to be more sure.

According to Bloomberg.com, evangelical conservative leader James Dobson put his organization Focus on the Family's resources behind Bachmann's 2006 campaign. The group planned to distribute 250,000 voter guides in Minnesota churches to reach social conservatives, according to Tom Prichard, president of the Minnesota Family Council, a local affiliate of the group. In addition to Minnesota, Dobson's group also organized turnout drives in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Michigan, Ohio, New Jersey and Montana.

During a debate televised by WCCO-TV on October 28, 2006, news reporter Pat Kessler quoted a story that appeared in the Star Tribune and asked Bachmann whether it was true that the church she belonged to taught that the Pope is the Anti-Christ. Bachmann replied that her church "does not believe that the Pope is the Anti-Christ, that's absolutely false ... I'm very grateful that my pastor has come out and been very clear on this matter, and I think it's patently absurd and it's a false statement."

In early July 2006, Bachmann received a fundraising visit from Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert. On July 21, Karl Rove visited Minnesota to raise funds for her election. In August, President Bush was the keynote speaker at her congressional fundraiser, which raised about $500,000. Bachmann also received fundraising support from Vice President Dick Cheney. The National Republican Congressional Committee put nearly $3 million into the race, for electronic and direct-mail ads against Wetterling, significantly more than the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spent on Wetterling's behalf. On November 7, Bachmann won the election with 50% of the vote to Wetterling's 42% and Binkowski's 8%.

2008 congressional campaign

In 2008 Bachmann was reelected, defeating DFL and Independence Party nominee Elwyn Tinklenberg with 46.4% of the vote to Tinklenberg's 43.4%. Because Tinklenberg was running as a DFL member in the Democratic primary, Bob Anderson was able to run in the Independence Party primary unopposed, despite not having that party's endorsement. Anderson received 10% of the vote.

2010 congressional campaign

In 2010 Bachmann was challenged by DFL nominee Tarryl Clark and Independence Party candidate Bob Anderson. With more than $8.5 million, Bachmann spent more than any other House of Representative candidate, although Clark was able to raise $4 million, one of the largest fundraising efforts in the nation for a U.S. House challenger. On November 2, 2010, Bachmann defeated Clark, 52% to 40%.

2012 presidential campaign

In early 2011, amid substantial speculation, Bachmann announced her candidacy for president. She participated in the second Republican presidential debate, in New Hampshire, on June 13, 2011, and during the debate announced that she had filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) earlier that day to become a candidate for the nomination. Bachmann formally announced her candidacy for the nomination on June 27, 2011, during an appearance in Waterloo, Iowa, her birth city.

Bachmann won the Ames Straw Poll hosted by the Iowa GOP on August 13, 2011, becoming the first woman ever to win the poll, but finished sixth in the January 3, 2012, caucuses, with 4.98% of the vote. On January 4 she canceled her scheduled campaign trips to South Carolina and suspended her campaign.

2012 congressional campaign

On January 25, 2012, Bachmann announced that she would run for reelection for her seat in Congress.

According to Politico.com, as of July 2012 Bachmann had "raised close to $15 million" for the 2012 election, a figure it called "astounding ... more than some Senate candidates will collect this year." From July to the end of September, Bachmann raised $4.5 million. This amount put her ahead of all other members of Congress (including Allen West who was in second place with $4 million) for the third quarter. Bachmann said she was "humbled by the enormous outpouring of grassroots support for my campaign focused on keeping America the most secure and prosperous nation in the world."

Despite a more favorable district Bachmann won reelection only narrowly, receiving just 4,298 more votes than her DFL challenger, Jim Graves.

Electoral history

Local elections

Congressional elections

2006

2008

2010

2012

Autobiography

In November 2011 Bachmann published her autobiography, Core of Conviction, in which she outlined the events and people who have shaped her values and beliefs. The book describes her break with the Democratic Party. "It was in the perilous fires of the Carter administration that my ideology was forged," she wrote. "In the seventies, Carter taught me what I was against, and then in the eighties, Reagan taught me what I was for." Reflecting on her role as a Tea Party leader, she elaborated, "I once said that the Tea Party represents 90 percent of Americans. I now realize that I misspoke. I should have said 100 percent, because I believe that nearly all Americans retain faith in the ordered liberty that the Constitution offers."

Personal life

Family

Husband Marcus Bachmann and Michele at the 2011 Time 100 gala, where Michele was an honoree

In 1978, as Michele Amble, she married Marcus Bachmann, now a clinical therapist with a master's degree from Regent University and a Ph.D. from Union Graduate School, whom she met while they were undergraduates. After she received an LL.M. in taxation from William & Mary School of Law in 1988, the couple moved to Stillwater, Minnesota, a town of 18,000 near Saint Paul, where they run a Christian counseling center that administered gay conversion therapy. Bachmann and her husband have five children: Lucas, Harrison, Elisa, Caroline, and Sophia.

Bachmann and her husband have also provided foster care to 23 other children, all of whom were teenage girls. The Bachmanns were licensed from 1992 to 2000 to handle up to three foster children at a time, with the last arriving in 1998. The Bachmanns began by providing short-term care for girls with eating disorders who were patients in a University of Minnesota program. Their home was legally defined as a treatment home, with a daily reimbursement rate per child from the state. Some girls stayed a few months, others more than a year.

Bachmann is a former beauty pageant contestant.

Citizenship

In May 2012 it was reported that Marcus Bachmann had registered for Swiss citizenship, which, under Swiss nationality law, would make Michele and their children Swiss citizens too. Within two days of the first reports of Bachmann's dual citizenship, Michele Bachmann announced that she had written to the Swiss consulate to renounce her Swiss citizenship.

Businesses

Bachmann and her husband own a Christian counseling practice, Bachmann & Associates. The clinic is run by her husband, who has a Ph.D. with "a concentration in clinical psychology" from Union Graduate School.

See also

In Spanish: Michele Bachmann para niños

• United States congressional delegations from Minnesota
• List of United States representatives from Minnesota
• Women in the United States House of Representatives

Images for kids

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  Bachmann speaking in April 2010

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  Bachmann in February 2011