Mac Thornberry

In the 1880s, Thornberry's great-great-grandfather Amos Thornberry, a Union Army veteran, moved to Clay County, just east of Wichita Falls.

His family has operated a ranch in the area since 1881.

He received his Bachelor of Arts in history from Texas Tech University in Lubbock.

He then obtained his Juris Doctor from the University of Texas School of Law in Austin.

He served as a staffer to two other Texas Republican congressmen, Tom Loeffler and Larry Combest, and as deputy assistant Secretary of State for Legislative Affairs under Ronald Reagan before joining his brothers on the family ranch.

Thornberry has called President Reagan "...a great man and a great president, ranking in the top tier of all of our chief executives."

He also practiced law in Amarillo.

Thornberry is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Committee on Armed Services (Ranking Member)

Republican Study Committee

William McClellan "Mac" Thornberry (born July 15, 1958) is an American politician who served as the U.S. representative for Texas's 13th congressional district from 1995 to 2021.

A member of the Republican Party, Thornberry represented the most Republican district in the United States by partisan voting index.

The district covers the Texas Panhandle and stretched between the Oklahoma and New Mexico borders.

Thornberry is a lifelong resident of Clarendon, 60 miles (97 km) east of Amarillo in the heart of the 13th.

From January 1995 to July 2017, Thornberry missed 140 of 15,276 roll call votes, or 0.9%, fewer than the median of 2.2% among the lifetime records of representatives currently serving.

He served on a bipartisan commission in 2007 that drew up recommendations for winning the war in Iraq with both lethal and non-lethal approaches, such as diplomacy and foreign aid.

On domestic issues, Thornberry pressed for repeal of the estate tax and for tax credits to encourage production of oil in marginal wells.

Thornberry lost his 2009 bid to chair the full Armed Services Committee to Buck McKeon, R-Calif., who had more seniority.

He served as vice chair of the full committee during McKeon's time as chairman.

Thornberry was critical of President Barack Obama's 2010 arms control deal with Russia for precluding the use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear nations.

But he has been more pragmatic than other defense hawks.

In 2010 Thornberry sponsored a bill to expand access to state veterans' homes to parents whose children died while serving in the military.

That bill became law.

After taking the committee gavel at the beginning of the 114th Congress, Thornberry spearheaded a major Department of Defense acquisition reform effort that received bipartisan and bicameral support from House Armed Services Committee Ranking Member Adam Smith (D-Wash.) and Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain (R-AZ).

Thornberry previously served on the United States House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

In January 2011 he introduced a bill to help states set up special health care courts staffed by judges with expertise in the subject.

The judges would serve as an alternative to juries that Republicans say are inclined to award unnecessarily large damage amounts in malpractice cases.

Thornberry consistently voted for term limits for U.S. Representatives, but did not intend to term-limit himself unless a constitutional amendment imposing term limits on all members of Congress had passed.

Thornberry pressed the House to pass a farm bill every five years in order to give farmers and ranchers more stability.

In 2012 Thornberry introduced the Smith-Mundt Modernation Act of 2012 to amend the 1948 Smith-Mundt Act prohibiting the domestic dissemination of propaganda produced for foreign audiences.

In 2013 he voted for the five-year Farm Bill, which included annual cuts of $2 billion from food stamps, which would have been the largest change to food policy since 1996.

The House did not pass the bill.

In 2013 Thornberry introduced H.R. 2081, legislation to encourage production of all forms of domestic energy, including oil and gas, nuclear, and alternative energy and fuels.

Thornberry voted to open the Outer Continental Shelf to oil drilling.

He voted to bar the EPA from regulating greenhouse gases, and voted against tax credits for renewable electricity.

From 2015 to 2019, Thornberry served as chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, the first Texan of either party to hold this position.

The committee oversees the Pentagon, all military services, and all Department of Defense agencies, including agency budgets and policies.

In September 2019, Thornberry announced that he would not run for reelection in 2020, and former Physician to the President Ronny Jackson was elected to succeed him.

On September 30, 2019, it was announced that Thornberry would not seek reelection in 2020.

According to the National Journal Congressional Almanac, "In the House, Thornberry has compiled a solidly conservative voting record, though he has a pragmatic streak and is hardly the most ideological Republican in the Texas delegation. In keeping with his scholarly nature, his official website includes an essay explaining his philosophy and explaining his interest 'in continuing to push government to work smarter and more efficiently.'"