The new congressman from Indiana’s 9th District is Republican Todd Young, who unseated Democratic Rep. Baron Hill in 2010. Born in Lancaster, Pa., Young spent the first 13 years of his life outside Indiana, but his family has deep ties to the Hoosier State stretching back five generations. His father is a small business owner who sells heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning equipment. His mother is a registered nurse. He went to high school in Hamilton County, Ind., where his prowess on the soccer field helped his school win a state championship. When he graduated in 1990, he enlisted in the Navy and a year later received an appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy, where he played on the school’s Division I soccer team. When he graduated, he joined the Marine Corps because of its reputation for toughness. “If I was going to be in the military, I wanted to be in the warrior class,” he told National Journal. In the Marines, he worked with unmanned aerial vehicles doing reconnaissance work, which included a stint aiding government anti-narcotics efforts in the Caribbean. In 1998, he was transferred to Chicago, where he managed Marine recruiting in the area. Read More

The new congressman from Indiana’s 9th District is Republican Todd Young, who unseated Democratic Rep. Baron Hill in 2010. Born in Lancaster, Pa., Young spent the first 13 years of his life outside Indiana, but his family has deep ties to the Hoosier State stretching back five generations. His father is a small business owner who sells heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning equipment. His mother is a registered nurse. He went to high school in Hamilton County, Ind., where his prowess on the soccer field helped his school win a state championship. When he graduated in 1990, he enlisted in the Navy and a year later received an appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy, where he played on the school’s Division I soccer team. When he graduated, he joined the Marine Corps because of its reputation for toughness. “If I was going to be in the military, I wanted to be in the warrior class,” he told National Journal. In the Marines, he worked with unmanned aerial vehicles doing reconnaissance work, which included a stint aiding government anti-narcotics efforts in the Caribbean. In 1998, he was transferred to Chicago, where he managed Marine recruiting in the area.

An avid reader, Young attended the University of Chicago’s business school at night, in large part to gain a better understanding of the stories he found in The Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times. “It was that economic knowledge that I really desired,” he said. Young became a fan of free-market economist Friedrich von Hayek. Young applied to the University of London’s Institute of United States Studies, where he wrote a thesis on the economic history of Midwest agriculture. Shortly after graduating, Young moved to Washington, where he worked first at the conservative Heritage Foundation and later for Republican Indiana Sen. Richard Lugar as his legislative assistant for energy policy. In 2004, Young returned to Indiana to help craft energy and veterans’ affairs policies for the gubernatorial campaign of Republican Mitch Daniels. He also earned a law degree at the University of Indiana, where he met his wife, Jennifer, who is now a practicing attorney and a leader in the local Republican Party.

In the GOP primary for the right to challenge Hill, Young narrowly won a contest with former Rep. Mike Sodrel, a trucking company owner who briefly held the House seat from 2005 to 2006. (Hill first won the seat in 1998 and held it until he was defeated in 2004 by Sodrel, and then won it back in the pro-Democratic year of 2006.)

In the general election campaign, Young portrayed Hill as a rubber stamp for the Obama administration and Democratic congressional leadership, hammering Hill for his votes in favor of the $787 billion economic stimulus bill, the health care overhaul, and an energy bill setting limits on carbon emissions. Hill emphasized his Hoosier roots as a former high school basketball star, while characterizing Young as a wealthy, out-of-touch lawyer who had spent much of his career outside the state. Hill also slammed Young for comments at a town hall meeting referring to Social Security as a “Ponzi scheme.” Young said that his comments were taken out of context and that he does not endorse privatizing the program.

The candidates raised and spent about the same amount of money, Hill with $2 million and Young with $1.9 million. Young was also the beneficiary of $437,000 in independent expenditures from the National Republican Congressional Committee and more than $250,000 from the conservative American Future Fund. He won with 52% of the vote to 42% for Hill. Libertarian candidate Greg Knott got 5%.