U.S. House of Representatives
From 2007 to 2015, Bachmann represented , 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.
110th Congress Foreign affairs Bachmann voted "No" on a January 2007 resolution in the House of Representatives opposing President
George W. Bush's
plan to increase troop levels in
Iraq, but called for a full hearing in advance of the troop surge, saying, "the American people deserve to hear and understand the merits of increasing U.S. troop presence in Iraq. Increased troop presence is justifiable if that measure would bring a swift conclusion to a difficult conflict." She hesitated to give a firm endorsement, calling the hearings "a good first step in explaining to the American people the course toward victory in Iraq." Later that year, she went to Iraq, where she said she was convinced that "the war effort is heading in the right direction."
Higher education On July 11, 2007, Bachmann voted against the College Cost Reduction and Access Act. The act raised the maximum
Pell grant from $4,310 to $5,200, lowered interest rates on subsidized student loans from 6.8% to 3.4%, raised loan limits from $7,500 to $30,500, disfavored married students who filed joint tax returns, provided more favorable repayment terms to students who could not use their education to prosper financially, and favored public sector over private sector workers with much more favorable loan forgiveness benefits. Supporters of the bill said it would allow more students to attend college and prosper for the rest of their lives. Bachmann said she opposed the act because "it fails students and taxpayers with gimmicks, hidden costs and poorly targeted aid. It contains no serious reform of existing programs, and it favors the costly, government-run direct lending program over nonprofit and commercial lenders."
Energy and environment During the summer of 2008, as national gasoline prices rose to over $4 a gallon, Bachmann became a leading Congressional advocate for increased domestic oil and natural gas exploration in the
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) and the
Outer Continental Shelf. She joined ten other House Republicans and members of the media on a Congressional Energy Tour to the
National Renewable Energy Laboratory in
Golden, Colorado, and to Alaska. The trip was arranged by Arctic Power, an Alaskan
lobbying group that advocates for
ANWR development. Its purpose was to receive a firsthand account of emerging renewable energy technologies and the prospects of increased domestic oil and natural gas production in Alaska, including ANWR. Bachmann rejects the idea that climate change is real, progressing, and primarily caused by humans. She has claimed that
global warming is "all voodoo, nonsense, hokum, a hoax" and has been called "one of the GOP's loudest
global warming skeptics." She has claimed, baselessly, that "because life requires carbon dioxide and it is part of the planet's life cycle, it cannot be harmful." On the House floor on
Earth Day 2009, Bachmann said she opposed
cap and trade climate legislation, again making disproven claims that "carbon dioxide is not a harmful gas, it is a harmless gas. Carbon dioxide is natural; it is not harmful ... We're being told we have to reduce this natural substance to create an arbitrary reduction in something that is naturally occurring in the earth." In March 2008 Bachmann introduced H.R. 849, the
Light Bulb Freedom of Choice Act. The bill would have repealed two sections of the
Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 signed into law by
George W. Bush. The 2007 Energy Act mandates energy efficiency and labeling standards for
incandescent and
fluorescent bulbs. Bachmann's bill would have required the
Government Accountability Office to show that a change to fluorescent bulbs would have "clear economic, health and environmental benefits" before enforcing lighting efficiency regulations. The bill would have allowed these standards to remain in place if the comptroller general found they would lead to consumer savings, reduce carbon-dioxide emissions and pose no health risks to consumers (such as risks posed by the presence of mercury in fluorescent bulbs). The bill languished in the House and became inactive at the end of the 110th Congress. Bachmann reintroduced the bill in March 2011.
Tort reform On June 3, 2008, President Bush signed the Credit and Debit Card Receipt Clarification Act (H.R. 4008) into law. The bipartisan bill, which Bachmann cosponsored with Congressman
Tim Mahoney (D-
Fla.), removed statutory damages for violations of a 2003 federal law prohibiting merchants from printing consumers' credit card numbers and expiration dates on sales receipts, in order to end
class-action lawsuits aimed at businesses that violated the law.
Financial sector Bachmann opposed both versions of the
Wall Street bailout bill for America's financial sector. She voted against the first proposed $700 billion bailout of financial institutions, which failed to pass, by a vote of 205–228. She also advocated breaking up
Fannie Mae and
Freddie Mac and barring executives from excessive compensation or
golden parachutes, and advocated a plan that would suspend
mark-to-market accounting rules and suspend the
capital gains tax.
Auto industry The American auto companies approached Congress to ask for roughly $15 billion in loans to keep them operational into 2009. Bachmann criticized that bill, fearing that the initial sum of money would be followed by subsequent ones without the companies making changes to revive their business. Bachmann supported an alternative plan for American auto companies and the rest of the auto industry that would have set benchmarks for reducing their debt and renegotiating labor deals and have set up the financial assistance as interim insurance instead of a taxpayer-financed bailout.
Call for a media "exposé" of alleged "anti-Americanism" of Barack Obama and members of Congress On October 17, 2008, Bachmann gave an interview on
MSNBC's
Hardball with Chris Matthews in support of the presidential campaign of Senator
John McCain that brought the Minnesota 6th Congressional District race national attention. During the interview she criticized
Barack Obama for his association with
Jeremiah Wright and
Bill Ayers, saying, "usually we associate with people who have similar ideas to us, and it seems that it calls into question what Barack Obama's true beliefs, and values, and thoughts are ... I am very concerned that he [Obama] may have
anti-American views." She noted the bombing campaign orchestrated by
Bill Ayers before discussing his association with Obama, arguing that "Bill Ayers is not someone the average American wants to see their president have an association with." Matthews followed up by asking "But he [Obama] is a Senator from the state of Illinois; he's one of the members of Congress you suspect of being anti-American. How many people in the Congress of the United States do you think are anti-American? You've already suspected Barack Obama; is he alone or are there others?" Bachmann answered, "What I would say is that the news media should do a penetrating exposé and take a look ... I wish they would ... I wish the American media would take a great look at the views of the people in Congress and find out are they pro-America, or anti-America. I think people would love to see an exposé like that." In response, the five Democratic members of Minnesota's congressional delegation—
Tim Walz,
Betty McCollum,
Keith Ellison,
Collin Peterson and
Jim Oberstar—issued a joint statement questioning Bachmann's ability to "work in a bipartisan way to put the interests of our country first in this time of crisis." Former Secretary of State
Colin Powell and former Minnesota Governor
Arne Carlson said her comments had influenced their decisions to endorse Obama for president. Bachmann brought up the interview before business leaders and Republicans during a campaign stop in
St. Cloud, Minnesota, on October 21, 2008. She claimed she never intended to question Obama's patriotism. "I made a misstatement. I said a comment that I would take back. I did not, nor do I, question Barack Obama's patriotism ... I did not say that Barack Obama is anti-American nor do I believe that Barack Obama is anti-American ... [But] I'm very concerned about Barack Obama's views. I don't believe that socialism is a good thing for America." At a March 2010 fund-raiser for the
Susan B. Anthony List, Bachmann said, "I said I had very serious concerns that Barack Obama had anti-American views—and now I look like Nostradamus". In March 2011 she was asked on
Meet the Press whether she still believed that Obama held un-American views. She responded, "I believe that the actions of this government have—have been emblematic of ones that have not been based on true American values." Pressed for clarification, she said, "I've already answered that question before. I said I had very serious concerns about the president's views."
111th Congress Global currency On March 26, 2009, following comments by China proposing adoption of a
global reserve currency, Bachmann introduced a resolution calling for a Constitutional amendment to bar the dollar from being replaced by a foreign currency. Current law prohibits foreign currency from being recognized in the U.S., but Bachmann expressed concerns relating to the president's power to make and interpret treaties. Earlier that month, at a
Financial Services Committee hearing, Bachmann asked both Treasury Secretary
Timothy Geithner and Federal Reserve Chairman
Ben Bernanke whether they would reject calls for the U.S. to move away from the
U.S. dollar and they replied that they would.
2010 Census In a June 17, 2009, interview with
The Washington Times, Bachmann expressed concern that the questions on the
2010 United States census had become "very intricate, very personal" and that
ACORN, a community organizing group that had
come under fire the previous year, might be part of the
Census Bureau's door-to-door information collection efforts. She said, "I know, for my family, the only question we will be answering is how many people are in our home. We won't be answering any information beyond that, because the Constitution doesn't require any information beyond that." According to
PolitiFact, her statement was incorrect, as the Constitution does require citizens to complete the census. Fellow Republican representatives
Patrick McHenry (
N.C.),
Lynn Westmoreland (
Ga.) and
John Mica (Fla.), members of the
Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on Information Policy, Census and National Archives, which oversees the census, subsequently asked Bachmann not to boycott the population count. Along with Congressman
Ted Poe (
Tex.-02), Bachmann introduced the
American Community Survey Act to limit the amount of personal information the U.S. Census Bureau solicits. She reiterated her belief that the census asked too many personal questions.
Cap-and-trade legislation In March 2009 Bachmann was interviewed by the
Northern Alliance Radio Network and promoted two forums she was hosting the next month in St. Cloud and Woodbury about Obama's proposed cap-and-trade tax policy to limit
greenhouse gas emissions. She said she wanted Minnesotans "armed and dangerous on this issue of the energy tax because we need to fight back." Bachmann's office quickly clarified that she was speaking metaphorically, meaning "armed with knowledge". According to the
Star Tribune, her quote went viral across the Internet.
AmeriCorps In 2009 Bachmann became a critic of what she characterized as proposals for mandatory public service. Of the
Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act, an expansion to
AmeriCorps (a federal community service organization), she said in April: The original bill called for an exploration of whether a mandatory public service program could be established, but the section on creating a "Congressional Commission on Civic Service" was stripped from the bill. In August 2009 Bachmann's political opponents publicized in the local media and the
blogosphere what they described as the "ironic" fact that her son, Harrison, joined
Teach for America, part of the AmeriCorps program.
Health care Bachmann contributed to the "
death panel" controversy when she read from a July 24 article by former New York Lt. Gov.
Betsy McCaughey on the House floor.
Sarah Palin said that her "death panel" remark was inspired by what she called the "
Orwellian" opinions of
Ezekiel Emanuel as described by Bachmann, who accused him of advocating health care rationing by age and disability. According to
PolitiFact and
Time, Bachmann's euthanasia remarks
distorted Emanuel's position on health care for the elderly and disabled. FactCheck.org stated, "We agree that Emanuel's meaning is being twisted." When many doctors wanted to legalize
euthanasia or
physician-assisted suicide, Emanuel opposed it. On August 31, 2009, Bachmann spoke at an event in Colorado, saying of Democratic health care overhaul proposals that: She outlined ideas for changing the health care system, including: "Erase the boundaries around every single state when it comes to health care", enabling consumers to purchase insurance across state lines; increase the use of
health savings accounts and allow everyone to "take full deductibility of all medical expenses", including insurance premiums; and
tort reform. Bachmann denounced the government-run health insurance
public option, calling it a "government takeover of health care" that would "squeeze out private health insurance".
Criticism of President Obama's visit to Asia In a November 3, 2010, interview with
Anderson Cooper, while discussing spending cuts for Medicare and Social Security suggested by Representative
Paul Ryan, Bachmann was asked what spending cuts she would make to reduce the deficit. She cited President Obama's then-upcoming visit to Asia as an example, saying it "is expected to cost the taxpayers $200 million a day. He's taking two thousand people with him. He'll be renting out over 870 rooms in India. And these are 5-star hotel rooms at the Taj Mahal Palace hotel. This is the kind of over-the-top spending—it's a very small example, Anderson." Bachmann was apparently referring to information in a story from the
Press Trust of India, attributed to "a top official of the Maharashtra Government privy to the arrangements for the high-profile visit", information that was also published in U.S.-based media such as
The Drudge Report. While stating that they could not give the actual projected figures for security reasons, staffers maintained costs were in line with the official travel costs of previous presidents Bush and Clinton.
112th Congress Leadership run After the
2010 elections and Representative
Mike Pence's announcement that he was stepping away from his leadership position in the House, Bachmann announced her intention to seek the position of
House Republican Conference Chair. As Bachmann was the founder of the House's Tea Party Caucus, her announcement caused some to see the leadership election as "an early test of how GOP leaders will treat the antiestablishment movement's winners". Many among the House's Republican leadership, including
Eric Cantor and the retiring Pence, were quick to endorse Representative
Jeb Hensarling for the position;
Speaker-to-be John Boehner remained neutral on the issue. Supporters of Bachmann's run included Representatives
Steve King,
John Kline,
Louie Gohmert,
Chip Cravaack, and
Erik Paulsen, as well as media personality and political commentator
Glenn Beck. Listing her qualifications for the position, Bachmann noted, "I've done an effective job speaking out at a national and local level, motivating people with our message, calling attention to deficits in Obama's policy. I was instrumental in bringing tens of thousands of people to the U.S. Capitol to rally against Obama care and to attend our press conference." Despite Bachmann's leading all other representatives in fundraising, a Republican aide said some "members are getting resentful of Bachmann, who they say is making the argument that you're not really a Tea Party supporter unless you support her. That's gone through the formation of the Tea Party Caucus and the formation of this candidacy of hers. It's just not so." On November 10 Bachmann released a statement ending her campaign for Conference Chair and giving Hensarling her "enthusiastic" support.
Committee assignment In 2011, House Speaker John Boehner selected Bachmann for a position on the
House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, in which role she was responsible for overseeing the
Central Intelligence Agency and the
National Security Agency. Bachmann, who had not previously served on any committee concerned with foreign policy issues, requested the position,
Repeal of Dodd–Frank reform Soon after beginning her third term, Bachmann introduced legislation to repeal the
Dodd–Frank financial reform law. She said, "I'm pleased to offer a full repeal of the job-killing Dodd–Frank financial regulatory bill. Dodd–Frank grossly expanded the federal government beyond its jurisdictional boundaries. It gave Washington bureaucrats the power to interpret and enforce the legislation with little oversight. Real financial regulatory reform must deal with these lenders who were a leading cause of our economic recession. True reform must also end the bailout mind-set that was perpetuated by the last Congress." She also took issue with the law for not addressing the liabilities of the taxpayer funded Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Bachmann's bill was endorsed by conservative groups such as the
Club for Growth and
Americans for Prosperity. It gained four other Republican co-sponsors, including Representative
Darrell Issa, who became the new chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee at the start of the 112th Congress. Bachmann's call for total repeal was seen as more drastic than the approach advocated by her fellow Republican
Spencer Bachus, who became the House Financial Services Committee Chairman when Republicans gained the House majority. Bachus planned "to provide 'vigorous' oversight of regulators efforts to reform banking and housing ... reform Fannie and Freddie", and "dismantle pieces of [the] Dodd–Frank Act that he believes 'unnecessarily punish small businesses and community banks.'"
State of the Union response Bachmann responded to Obama's 2011 State of the Union speech on the Tea Party Express website; her speech was broadcast live by
CNN. She insisted that her response was not intended to counter
Paul Ryan's official Republican party response. When asked whether the speech was an indication of competition with Ryan and Boehner's leadership team, Bachmann dismissed such a view as "a fiction of the media", saying she had alerted Ryan and the leadership team that her response might go national and that no objections were raised.
Health care Bachmann continually called for repeal of the
Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). In an appearance on
Meet the Press on March 6 and during a March 7 interview with
Sean Hannity, Bachmann claimed that the Obama administration and Congressional Democrats had hidden $105 billion in spending in the overhaul of the American Health Care System. She portrayed the Democratic leadership as timing the release of the bill's text to avoid detection of the spending. "We didn't get the bill until a literally couple of hours before we were supposed to vote on it", she said. She also said the spending was split up within different portions of the bill to mask its total cost. Bachmann was told this by the conservative
Heritage Foundation, which claimed to have read the tallies of the Congressional Research Service and Congressional Budget Office. According to some reports of the costs, "about $40 billion would go to the Children's Health Insurance Program, $15 billion would go to Medicare and Medicaid innovation programs, and $9.5 billion would go to the Community Health Centers Fund." When asked during the Meet the Press interview if she would take back her previous comments that Obama "may have anti-American views" and that his administration had "embraced something called gangster government", Bachmann stood by her statements, saying, "I do believe that actions that have been taken by this White House—I don't take back my statements on gangster government. I think that there have been actions taken by the government that are corrupt ... I said I have very serious concerns about the president's views, and I think the president's actions in the last two years speak for themselves." In a September 2011 Republican presidential debate in Tampa, Bachmann criticized
Rick Perry for his support for the
humanpapilloma virus (HPV) vaccine and his support for mandating the HPV vaccine for all sixth-grade Texas girls. The
American Academy of Pediatrics,
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
American Academy of Family Physicians,
American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists,
Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices and other medical organizations worldwide support immunizing girls and boys against HPV. HPV can cause lesions and genital warts, and has been linked to cervical cancer as well as genital and oral cancers in people of any gender. Because the vaccine is effective only if given before the onset of sexual activity and subsequent exposure to the virus, medical groups recommend the three-dose vaccine be given to 11- and 12-year-olds. During the debate and in interviews afterward, Bachmann accused Perry of "crony capitalism" (because Perry's former chief of staff was chief lobbyist for a drug company manufacturing the vaccine), and baselessly claimed that the HPV vaccine was dangerous and caused "mental retardation." sent a series of letters to oversight agencies at five federal departments citing "serious security concerns" about what Bachmann has called a "deep penetration in the halls of our United States government" by the
Muslim Brotherhood. They requested formal investigations into what Bachmann called "influence operations" by the Brotherhood. Bachmann also accused
Huma Abedin, an aide to Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton and former Rep.
Anthony Weiner's wife, of having family connections to the Muslim Brotherhood. Bachmann's comments drew what
The Washington Post called "fierce criticism from fellow lawmakers and religious groups." Ed Rollins, Bachmann's former campaign manager, called on her to apologize to Abedin and characterized her allegations as "extreme and dishonest." In a letter to Bachmann, her colleague Rep.
Keith Ellison, D-Minn., a
Muslim, asked for evidence backing her claims and stated, "Your response simply rehashes claims that have existed for years on anti-Muslim websites and contains no reliable information that the Muslim Brotherhood has infiltrated the U.S. government". Bachmann replied that "the intention of the letters was to outline the serious national security concerns I had and ask for answers to questions regarding the Muslim Brotherhood and other radical group's access to top Obama administration officials". In a July 19 interview with radio and TV show host
Glenn Beck, Bachmann repeated and expanded her allegations, accusing Ellison of having "a long record of being associated with the
Council on American–Islamic Relations and with the Muslim Brotherhood". Ellison replied that "I am not now, nor have I ever been, associated with the Muslim Brotherhood." but the case was
settled out of court on June 28, 2013. On July 26, 2013, the
House Ethics Committee announced they were conducting a full investigation of Bachmann, saying that they had received a referral from the
Office of Congressional Ethics.
Retirement On May 29, 2013, Bachmann announced that she would not seek reelection to her Congressional seat in 2014. This announcement, which she made through a pre-recorded video released on YouTube, was made shortly after her former 2012 Democratic challenger, Jim Graves, announced his intentions to run for her seat once again in 2014. Despite Bachmann's claims to the contrary, this led to widespread speculation in the press that she sought to avoid facing off in a rematch against an opponent who nearly defeated her in the preceding election cycle. In a June 2013
Fox News interview, she said she was "not going silent" and would remain involved in politics. She did not rule out a future run for office, or even the
White House. With her retirement from Congress, the ethics investigations against her were dropped. David Lightman and Trevor Graff, writing for
McClatchyDC, argued that Bachmann left a "legacy of political missteps and lots of incendiary rhetoric—often loaded with false accusations and wild exaggerations."
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 ==