Charlie Dent

Dent was ranked as the 47th most bipartisan member of the U.S. House of Representatives during the 114th United States Congress (and the fourth most bipartisan member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Pennsylvania) in the Bipartisan Index created by The Lugar Center and the McCourt School of Public Policy that ranks members of the United States Congress by their degree of bipartisanship (by measuring the frequency each member's bills attract co-sponsors from the opposite party and each member's co-sponsorship of bills by members of the opposite party).

Charles Wieder Dent (born May 24, 1960) is an American politician who served as a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives for PA's 15th congressional district from 2005 to 2018.

Born in Allentown, Pennsylvania, Dent worked in a variety of occupations after graduating from Pennsylvania State University.

He earned a master's degree in public administration from Lehigh University and served as an aide to Congressman Donald L. Ritter.

Dent is a 1978 graduate of Allentown's William Allen High School.

He received a bachelor's in international politics from Pennsylvania State University in 1982 and a masters in public administration from Lehigh University in 1993.

He is a member of Phi Kappa Psi, and previously worked as a development officer for Lehigh University, an industrial electronics salesman, a hotel clerk, and an aide to U.S. Representative Donald L. Ritter.

Before being elected to the United States Congress, Dent was a member of the State Legislature for 14 years.

From 1991 to 2004, he served in the Pennsylvania General Assembly.

He represented Pennsylvania's 132nd house district from 1991 to 1999 after unseating Democratic incumbent Jack Pressman in a heavily Democratic district in 1990.

In 1998, Dent won an open 16th District Senate seat when Democrat Roy Afflerbach, who later served as Mayor of Allentown from 2002 to 2006, retired to take up an ultimately unsuccessful bid for Congress.

In 2004, Dent won election to the United States House of Representatives, succeeding Pat Toomey.

In the House, Dent became a member of the centrist Republican Main Street Partnership and the Tuesday Group.

Dent was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 2004, succeeding Pat Toomey, who gave up his seat to challenge Arlen Specter for the U.S. Senate.

He defeated Democrat Joe Driscoll 59%–39%.

He won re-election 54%–44% against Charles Dertinger.

He won re-election 59%–41% against Allentown Democratic Party Chairman Sam Bennett.

Dent won re-election against Bethlehem Mayor John Callahan with 54% of the vote, the smallest percent of the vote he received in any of his election campaigns.

Dent defeated Democrat Rick Daugherty, the Chairman of the Lehigh County Democratic Party, 57%–43%.

Dent won re-election unopposed.

Dent defeated Daugherty in a rematch, 58%–38%.

Dent is a moderate Republican.

He became co-chair of the Tuesday Group in 2007.

He served on the House Committee on Appropriations, and previously chaired the House Ethics Committee.

In April 2011, after admitting that it was highly controversial, Dent voted along with the other Republican members of the House for a budget bill that would have abolished government-run Medicare.

It proposed to make senior citizens purchase individual private health insurance using vouchers that would have covered only a part of their costs.

The non-partisan National Journal gave Dent a composite ideological rating of 62% conservative and 38% liberal in 2013.

The National Journal considered Dent to be one of the three most moderate Republicans in that year.

GovTrack placed Dent near the ideological center of the House of Representatives; the liberal American Civil Liberties Union gave him a rating of 35% and the fiscally conservative United States Chamber of Commerce gave him a 95% rating.

In 2014, Dent introduced a bill to give states more flexibility in how they provide health insurance to children from families between 100 and 133 percent of the federal poverty level, according to The Ripon Advance.

The Next Generation Choices Foundation selected Dent to be the Elsie Hillman Speaker at their annual National Cancer Prevention Day event in 2016 in recognition of his efforts to support legislation related to cancer prevention.

Before retiring, Dent voted in line with President Trump's position on legislation 93% of the time.

In September 2017, Dent announced that he would retire from Congress and not seek re-election to another term in 2018.

After announcing his retirement during late 2017, he said that dealing with the "freewheeling president" became "exhausting".

According to The Hill, he said "disorder, chaos, instability, uncertainty, intemperate statements" were not "conservative virtues".

In April 2018, Dent announced that he would retire in May 2018, not serving out the remainder of his term.

He resigned on May 12, 2018, leaving the seat vacant.

Dent was born and raised in Allentown, Pennsylvania, the son of Marjorie L. (née Wieder) and Walter R. Dent.

He is of German, English, and Irish descent.

He delivered a farewell speech on May 10, and resigned on May 12, 2018, leaving the seat vacant.