Warren Davidson

Warren Earl Davidson (born March 1, 1970) is an American politician and former military officer serving as U.S. Representative for Ohio’s 8th Congressional District since 2016. Prior to political office he was an officer in United States Army Special Operations and led his family’s manufacturing business. Representative Davidson is a member of the Republican Party.

Davidson was born and raised in Sidney, Ohio, graduating from Sidney High School in 1988.

He and his wife Lisa married in 1995, they have two children.

Davidson enlisted in the Army after graduating high school in 1988. After training, he was stationed in Germany with the 3rd Infantry Division, during which time he witnessed the fall of the Berlin Wall. Soon after he received an opportunity to attend the United States Military Academy, graduating in the top ten percent of his class in 1995. He left with an officers' commission and a degree in American history and mechanical engineering. After West Point, he went to Army Ranger School in 1996, subsequently spending time leading the elite 101st Airborne Division, 75th Ranger Regiment, and The Old Guard.

He retired from the Army in 2000 and went on to earn his MBA from the University of Notre Dame.

After his graduate school he took over his family's business in the Ohio manufacturing industry, which he ran until entering public service. He recently returned to serve in a new capacity at his alma mater when he was appointed to the 2020 United States Military Academy Board of Visitors.

Elections

2016

Following the resignation of John Boehner from the U.S. House of Representatives, Davidson ran in a special election to succeed him. Davidson is a member of the House Freedom Caucus, helped push his predecessor to resign his seat. Davidson won the special election on June 7, 2016, and was sworn in on June 9, 2016.

2018

Davidson defeated Democrat Vanessa Enoch 66.6 to 33.4% in the 2018 elections.

2020

Davidson is running for reelection in 2020 again challenged by Democrat Vanessa Enoch.

Tenure

Committee assignments

• United States House Committee on Financial Services
  • Subcommittee on Monetary Policy and Trade
  • Subcommittee on Capital Markets, Securities, and Investment

Caucus memberships

• Republican Study Committee
  • Values Action Team
• House Freedom Caucus
• Second Amendment Caucus
• Steel Caucus
• Warrior Caucus
• Army Caucus
• Sound Money Caucus
  • Davidson created this caucus focused on financial stability, Dollar hegemony, and the wealth gap in July of 2020, and serves as its chair.

Abortion

Davidson is staunchly anti-abortion except to save the life of the mother. On August 12th 2020, Davidson and Rep. Mike Braun co-wrote a letter to Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin urging him to direct the IRS not to treat premiums for health insurance which covers abortions as medical care, stating "in all but the most extreme circumstances, abortion is an elective procedure."[1]

Cryptocurrencies

Representative Davidson is one of the most prominent members of Congress on the issue of cryptocurrencies, discussing various coins — in particular, Bitcoin — on the floor of the House, and has been described as a "vocal advocate of the industry outside the House."

In July of 2019, Davidson referred to Facebook's proposed digital currency LibraCoin as a "shitcoin"[2] during a congressional hearing, in a question to blockchain finance executive Meltem Demirrors. The derisive term is a popular meme in cryptocurrency circles and elicited attention online for its unprecedented use in Congress, and for the Monster Energy Zero Ultra Davidson appeared to be inconspicuously drinking at the time, itself often the subject of a meme called the Thirty Year Old Boomer

Foreign policy and the military

Rep. Davidson has objected to America's oversees military presence, and the continued wars in Iraq and Afghanistan on numerous occasions.

He favors ending the Authorization for the Use of Military Force Against Iraq which he describes as "horribly outdated, inadequate for today’s War on Terror, and stretched to the point of absurdity.. ..used to support ongoing missions.. ..against enemies, organizations, and nations with little or no connection to 9/11."

He voted against the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021 citing among other things "funding for military activity in Afghanistan with no change in strategy or plan to withdraw troops."

Healthcare

Davidson supports Republican efforts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. He has introduced his own legislation called The Patient Fairness Act aimed at expanding coverage via Health Savings Accounts (HSA's). It would expand availability of these tax-advantaged investible financial vehicles to a much larger swath of the population than the current propensity for only high deductible insurance plans to offer such a program. Davidson said he wanted to more than double the maximum investable allowance for the accounts, claiming it will build price transparency for insured patients, develop parity with employer sponsored healthcare, and by making them inheritable assets offer a vehicle to build inter-generational wealth.

Intelligence and surveillance activities

Davidson supports curtailing many of the broad signals intelligence permissions granted in the wake of the September 11th attacks which he has described as a "extralegal spying regime" of "vague laws and lax protections" He has worked to orchestrate several major attempts to reform the laws in recent years.

The first major attempt at reform came in Davidson's original cosponsorship of H.R. 5675, The Safeguarding Americans' Private Records Act (SAPRA) in January 2020 alongside the notably unusual coalition of Progressive Caucus Democrats like Pramila Jayapal and Freedom Caucus Republicans like Matt Gaetz. The bill aimed at significant reforms including new transparency of FISA Court decisions and ensuring 4th amendment constraints on "tangible things" requests subsequent to the decision in Carpenter v. United States. Efforts stalled however after House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-NY) cancelled markup on the bill at the request of House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA).

Another came during debate over reauthorization of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), when Davidson worked with Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), to introduce the Lofgren-Davidson Amendment which was to serve as an outright prohibition on warrentless search of American's internet activities by the Intelligence Community via Section 215 of the USA FREEDOM Act (aka the Library Records provision). Reauthorization of the soon-to-expire Section 215 concerned a set of provisions known informally as the “business records” power, the “call detail records” authority, the “roving wiretaps” provision, and the never used “lone wolf” amendment. The new language among other reforms would have constrained these powers by creating an affirmative burden on the government to be absolutely sure the target in question is not a U.S. person prior to obtaining internet records, and make unlawful the incidental collection of U.S. persons data via selection of all web traffic data for a particular video, search query, or webpage. In addition, if an order could result in a U.S. persons' data, it would have been unlawful without a warrant narrowly tailored to a specific subject. It also eliminated the lone wolf amendment. The proposal mirrored a companion Senate amendment by Senators Ron Wyden (D-WA) and Steve Daines (R-MT), which had narrowly failed in that body. Davidson said he would support reauthorization of FISA so long as the amendment was included.

After Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee Adam Schiff (D-CA) made a statement to the New York Times suggesting that the Lofgren-Davidson amendment would not completely eliminate warrentless surveillance, Davidson and original Senate sponsor Ron Wyden quickly abandoned support of the amendment over fears that the agreement reached between Lofgren and Chairman Schiff over the weekend had betrayed much of the intent of the amendment with omissions and loopholes to be interpreted maliciously by the secretive FISA Court.Davidson went on to oppose the amendment and underlying reauthorization bill saying "this is Rep. Schiff and intelligence hawks working overtime to protect the surveillance state status quo." The entire bill was later pulled by Speaker Pelosi after the president indicated he would veto and moderate republicans indicated opposition. Barring further action Section 215 powers lie dormant as authority expired March 15th, 2020.

After Attorney General William Barr tried to suggest that FISA could be reauthorized with assurances the Justice Department would fix abuses through administrative rulemaking, Davidson pushed back against suggestions that any agency decisions could stand in for crucial legislative reform.

Rep. Davidson cited compromises of "Americans’ privacy in the name of fighting terror" as a reason for his vote against the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021.