John Shadegg

John Barden Shadegg (born October 22, 1949) is an American politician and former U.S. representative for Arizona's 3rd congressional district, serving from 1995 until 2011.

He is a member of the Republican Party.

The senior Shadegg, a conservative political consultant and public relations specialist, supported Barry Goldwater's 1952, 1958, 1968, 1974, and 1980 U.S. Senate campaigns and worked with F. Clifton White and Peter O'Donnell to organize the Draft Goldwater Committee in the 1963–64 presidential campaign.

The Shadeggs are of partial Swiss descent.

He served in the Arizona Air National Guard from 1969 to 1975.

John Shadegg was born in Phoenix and received a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Arizona at Tucson in 1972 and a Juris Doctor from the University of Arizona Law School, also in Tucson, in 1975.

In 1975, he went to work for the law firm of Treon, Warnicke, Dann and Roush.

Shadegg.

In 1982, Shadegg led the re-election campaign of Robert Corbin, for Arizona Attorney General.

The election was challenged with claims that Corbin buried the prosecution looking into the murder of organized crime investigative reporter Don Bolles which Corbin's former employer was suspected in.

Shadegg served as Special Assistant Attorney General for Corbin between 1983 and 1990.

He was also Corbin's chief lobbyist, where he was the point man for the impeachment of Gov. Evan Mecham.

Shadegg served as special counsel to the Arizona state House Republican caucus in 1991 and 1992 and an adviser to the United States Sentencing Commission before entering the House.

He was the only member of the Republican Class of 1994 serving in leadership until resigning the post to run for Majority Leader in January 2006.

The district, numbered as the 4th district before the 2000 census, included much of northern Phoenix.

Shadegg is the son of the former Eugenia Kerr and Stephen Shadegg, both deceased.

From 2000 to 2002, Congressman Shadegg served as chairman of the Republican Study Committee (RSC), a group of conservative House Republicans.

Following the 2004 election, Shadegg was elected Chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee, the fifth-ranking position in the House Leadership.

In 2005, Shadegg voted against a bill to create a flag-burning amendment to the Constitution.

Shadegg is a staunch advocate of a federal prohibition of online poker.

On January 13, 2006, Shadegg officially joined the race for the House Majority Leader as a compromise alternative candidate to Representatives Roy Blunt and John Boehner.

Shadegg received the support of the National Review, the Club for Growth, and the Arizona Republic.

Feb. 2, after Shadegg came third in the first ballot, his supporters switched to second place Boehner, ensuring Boehner's election on the second ballot.

Shadegg ran for House Minority Whip following the loss of Republican control of the House in November 2006, losing to Blunt.

Shadegg voted for a bill to build a 700 mi fence along the border between the United States and Mexico (Secure Fence Act of 2006).

In 2006, he cosponsored H.R. 4411, the Goodlatte-Leach Internet Gambling Prohibition Act and H.R. 4777, the Internet Gambling Prohibition Act.

In 2007, he opposed several bills to set a deadline to withdraw troops from Iraq.

Shadegg voted against the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007, which increased the federal minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25 an hour.

On September 29, 2008, Shadegg voted against the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 which created the Troubled Assets Relief Program.

Shadegg is vehemently opposed to the Healthcare Reform Package that was tabled in October 2009.

He said the reform package is a "Soviet-style gulag health care", and will make American healthcare something akin to that available to the prisoners of Russian gulag.

On October 14, 2009, Shadegg joined with three fellow Representatives in calling for the investigation of CAIR (the Council on American-Islamic Relations) over allegations of trying to plant "spies", based on a CAIR memo indicating that they "will develop national initiatives such as Lobby Day, and placing Muslim interns in Congressional offices."

The request came in the wake of the publication of a book, Muslim Mafia, the foreword of which had been penned by Congresswoman Sue Myrick, that portrayed CAIR as a subversive organization allied with international terrorists.

CAIR has countered that these initiatives are extensively used by all advocacy groups and accused Shadegg and his colleagues of intending to intimidate American Muslims who "take part in the political process and exercise their rights."

In November 2009, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg expressed confidence in the security of having five 9/11 suspects brought to trial in lower Manhattan, to which Shadegg gave an overheated response: "Well mayor, how are you going to feel when it is your daughter that is kidnapped at school by a terrorist?".

He later apologized to the mayor and his family for "the insensitivity of my remarks."

In every Congress since the 104th Congress, U.S. Congressman John Shadegg has introduced the Enumerated Powers Act, although it has not been passed into law.

At the beginning of the 105th Congress, the House of Representatives incorporated the substantive requirement of the Enumerated Powers Act into the House rules.

On March 17, 2010, after criticizing the lack of a single-payer health care system or an alternative public option in health insurance reform proposals by the Obama administration, Shadegg, who has previously responded to the possibility of such a system as, "full on Russian gulag, Soviet-style gulag health care", stated in an interview, "I would support single-payer."

Shadegg's spokeswoman later clarified the remark, explaining that the Congressman believes that "Forcing them [health insurance companies] to compete, even through a public option, would be better than an individual mandate which will not work."