Todd Christopher Young (born August 24, 1972) is an American politician and attorney serving as the senior United States senator from Indiana, a seat he has held since 2017. From 2011 to 2017, he was the U.S. representative for . Young is a member of the Republican Party.
Young was first elected to the Senate in 2016. From 2019 to 2021, he served as the chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. He was reelected in 2022.
Early life, education, and military career Young was born on August 24, 1972, in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, the second of three children of Nancy R. (née Pierce) and Bruce H. Young. He lived in Marion County, Indiana, for several years before settling in Hamilton County, Indiana, where he attended public schools and won a state soccer championship. In 1990, Young graduated from Carmel High School in Carmel, Indiana.
After graduating from high school, Young attended the Naval Academy Preparatory School in Newport, Rhode Island. In May 1991, he received an appointment from the Secretary of the Navy to attend the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, where his classmates elected him a class officer and he earned a varsity letter as a member of Navy's NCAA Division I soccer team. He graduated cum laude in 1995, earning a Bachelor of Science degree in political science, and accepted a commission in the United States Marine Corps.
Upon graduating from Annapolis, Young trained for six months at the Basic School in Quantico, Virginia. In 1996, he completed the Naval Intelligence Officer Basic Course in Dam Neck, Virginia. Young then led the intelligence department of VMU-2, an unmanned aerial vehicle squadron based in Cherry Point, North Carolina. In 2000, while stationed in the Chicago area, Young earned a Master of Business Administration from the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business.
Post-military career Young was honorably discharged from active duty in 2000 as a U.S. Marine Captain. After leaving active duty, he spent a year in London, attending the University of London's Institute of United States Studies. After writing a thesis on the economic history of Midwestern agriculture, in 2001 Young received his MA in American politics.
In the summer of 2001, Young traveled to former communist countries in Eastern Europe, where he studied the transition from centrally planned economies to free markets through an executive education program with the Leipzig Graduate School of Management, the first private business school in eastern Germany. He worked as an adjunct professor of public affairs at Indiana University's School of Public and Environmental Affairs and attended law school at night. In 2004, he joined Indiana-based Crowe Chizek and Company as a management consultant, helping state and local government clients improve service delivery to Indiana citizens.
In 2006, Young earned his J.D. from the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law, where he was president of the school's Federalist Society chapter. Upon graduation he joined the Paoli, Indiana-based firm Tucker and Tucker, P.C. Young is a member of the 2007 class of the Indiana Leadership Forum.
In 2001, Young moved to Washington, D.C., where he briefly worked at The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. Then he became a staffer for U.S. senator Richard Lugar. In 2003, Young volunteered for Mitch Daniels's campaign for governor of Indiana. He was a delegate to the Indiana Republican state convention. From 2007 to 2010, Young served as Assistant Deputy Prosecutor for Orange County, Indiana. In 2007, Young founded a fiscal responsibility advocacy group, the National Organization for People vs. Irresponsible Government Spending.
U.S. House of Representatives Elections
2010
On January 26, 2009, Young announced that he would run for the United States congressional seat in Indiana's 9th district as a Republican.
Young competed with fellow Republicans Mike Sodrel and Travis Hankins for the party's nomination for Congress and won, challenging incumbent Democrat Baron Hill in the general election. Young was endorsed by former Vice President Dan Quayle, Lieutenant Governor Becky Skillman, Attorney General Greg Zoeller, Secretary of State Todd Rokita, Auditor Tim Berry, and Treasurer Richard Mourdock.
Young won the primary and general elections, defeating Hill, and was seated in the 112th Congress in January 2011."Republican Todd Young wins easily over incumbent Baron Hill", Louisville Courier-Journal; accessed November 9, 2016.
2012
Young defeated Shelli Yoder, winning 55% of the vote in the newly redrawn 9th district.
2014
Young defeated Bill Bailey, winning 62% of the vote.
Tenure
In the 112th Congress, Young voted with the Republican Party 95% of the time. During the 113th Congress, the Human Rights Campaign, which rates politicians' support for LGBT issues, rated Young 30%, indicating a mixed record. In July 2012, Young took over as the lead sponsor of the REINS Act, a bill that passed the House in 2011 and would require congressional approval for rules with greater than $100 million in economic impact.
In the 112th Congress, Young was a member of the House Budget Committee and the House Armed Services Committee. On the latter, he focused on seapower, electronic warfare, and military grand strategy of the United States. During the first session of the 112th Congress, he employed one of the German Marshall Fund's Congressional Fellows as military legislative aide.
In 2010, Young said he was uncertain what was causing the observed heating of the planet, that it could be sunspots or normal cycles of nature, and that "the science is not settled". That same year he signed a pledge sponsored by Americans for Prosperity promising to vote against any global warming legislation that would raise taxes.
In 2011, he voted for the Energy Tax Prevention Act of 2011.Energy Tax Prevention Act of 2011 votes, April 7, 2011; accessed November 9, 2016. In 2014, he said that it is "not necessarily the case" that there is a scientific consensus on climate change."In their own words: Todd Young on climate change", video clip on WLKY.com, October 8, 2014.
According to Five Thirty Eight, Young voted with President Trump's position on legislation during his first term about 82% of the time.
Sponsored legislation Fairness for American Families Act () – Introduced by Young on July 11, 2013, this bill would "amend the Internal Revenue Code, as amended by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, to delay until 2015 the requirement that individuals maintain minimal essential health care coverage." The bill was proposed in response to a July 2, 2013, decision by the Obama administration to delay the employer mandate found in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, but do nothing to the individual mandate requirement.
When he introduced the Fairness for American Families Act, Young argued that "rather than driving healthcare costs down, the individual mandate is imposing a new tax and burdensome costs on middle class families" and therefore "hardworking Americans deserve the same exemptions that President Obama is unilaterally granting to businesses and labor unions."
Save American Workers Act of 2013 – a bill to amend the way in which the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (popularly known as Obamacare) defines full-time worker by raising the 30-hour threshold to 40 hours a week, in an effort to remove the incentive some companies may have to reduce their employees' hours to avoid the employer healthcare mandate. Young introduced it into the House on June 28, 2013. In 2023, Young and Tim Kaine co-sponsored legislation to end 1991 and 2002 congressional resolutions that authorized the use of military force (S.316). The bill repealed the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) in Iraq and passed with a bipartisan majority.
119th Congress
National Biotechnology Initiative Act - a bill to improve coordination across the federal government on biotechnology policy.
Committee assignments Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation Subcommittee on Science, Manufacturing, and Competitiveness Subcommittee on Communications, Media, and Broadband Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and Data Security Subcommittee on Surface Transportation, Maritime, Freight, and Ports (Chairman) Select Committee on Intelligence Committee on Finance Subcommittee on International Trade, Customs, and Global Competitiveness Subcommittee on Health Care (Chairman) Subcommittee on Social Security, Pensions, and Family Policy Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship Caucus memberships Congressional Cement Caucus Congressional German-American Caucus Congressional Soccer Caucus
Appointments
National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology
U.S. Senate
Elections
2016
Rather than run for reelection to the House, Young ran in the 2016 election to fill the Senate seat of the retiring Dan Coats. Although Young was certified as having submitted enough signatures to qualify for the primary ballot, that official certification was challenged, and a tally by the Associated Press concluded that Young had fallen short. The state Election Commission scheduled a hearing on the challenge for February 19, 2016. The commission voted down the challenge with a 2–2 vote and Young remained on the ballot. Young won the Republican primary with 67% of the vote, defeating U.S. Representative Marlin Stutzman.
Young was initially slated to face former U.S. Representative Baron Hill, whom Young had defeated in 2010, but on July 11, Hill announced he was dropping out of the Senate race. Hill was replaced by Evan Bayh, who had held the seat from 1999 to 2011. Young defeated Bayh, 52.1% to 42.4%.
2022
Young won the Republican nomination without opposition. He was reelected in the general election, defeating Democratic nominee Thomas McDermott Jr., 58.6% to 37.9%.
Although he had asked for an endorsement in April 2021, Young was one of only four Senate Republican incumbents to run without Trump's endorsement in 2022, alongside John Thune, James Lankford, and Lisa Murkowski.
Tenure On January 3, 2017, Young was sworn into the U.S. Senate in the 115th Congress by Vice President Joe Biden. Young was ranked the ninth-most bipartisan senator in the first session of the 115th Congress by the Bipartisan Index, a metric created by the Lugar Center and Georgetown's McCourt School of Public Policy to assess congressional bipartisanship. GovTrack noted that during the same period, Young joined more bipartisan bills than any other freshman senator.
Young voted to certify the Electoral College count on January 6, 2021. He also said he supported efforts to create a bipartisan "Election Integrity Committee" to review the 2020 presidential election. While entering the US Capitol to participate in the certification on January 6, 2021, Young was accosted by pro-Trump protesters. He was asked why he would vote to support the count, claiming voter fraud. Young said, "When it comes to the law, our opinions don't matter; the law matters."
Young publicly acknowledged Biden as president-elect immediately following the official Electoral College tally on December 15, 2020. Upon the storming of the Capitol, Young tweeted, "This is not a peaceful protest—it is violence and reprehensible. It must stop." In the wake of the attack, Young would not say whether he supported using the Twenty-fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution to remove Trump, saying he trusted the Vice President and Trump cabinet members to "conscientiously and legally carry out their duties until January 20."