"Bill Young" redirects here. For the football player, see Bill Young (football).

Charles William "Bill" Young, also known as C.W. Bill Young, (born December 16, 1930 in Pittsburgh), American politician, has been a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives since 1971, representing Florida's 10th congressional district. Young is currently the most senior Republican member of the House of Representatives. From 1999 to 2005, he was the Chairman of the House Committee on Appropriations; he gave up the position because of Republican-set term limits. He is currently ranking minority member of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense; he was chairman of this subcommittee from 1995 to 1999, and again from 2005 to 2007.

Young was a member of the Florida Senate for 10 years before being elected to Congress.

• 1 Personal
• 2 2006 State of the Union address
• 3 Earmarks
• 4 2006 re-election
• 5 Walter Reed Army Medical Center scandal
• 6 External links

Young was born near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, moved to the St. Petersburg area at the age of 15. He served in the Army National Guard from 1948 to 1957. [1]

In 1985, Young divorced his first wife, with whom he had three children, and married his current wife, Beverly, 25 years his junior. They met when she went to work as a secretary in his congressional office. They have had two children together, Billy, and Patrick, and the couple raised Beverly's son, Robbie, from her first marriage. [2][3]

He was elected to Congress in 1970 from what was then the 8th District and has been reelected 17 times. The district, which has changed numbers three times during Young's tenure (it was the 8th District from 1971 to 1973, the 6th District from 1971 to 1983, the 8th District again from 1983 to 1993 and has been the 10th since 1993) was once considered a Republican stronghold. However, it has become friendlier to Democrats in recent years. Bill Clinton and Al Gore carried the district from 1992 to 2000, and John Kerry narrowly lost it in 2004. However, Young's seniority and his long tenure on the Appropriations Committee have kept him in office over the years.

At the State of the Union address on January 31, 2006, Young's wife was asked to leave shortly after anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan was ejected for wearing an anti-war T-shirt. Beverly Young's T-shirt stated: "Support the Troops â€" Defending Our Freedom." She argued with Capitol Hill police in the hallway outside the House chamber. "They said I was protesting," she told the St. Petersburg Times. "I said, 'Read my shirt, it is not a protest.' They said, 'We consider that a protest.' I said, 'Then you are an idiot.'"

Young was angry about the way his wife was treated. "Because she had on a shirt that someone didn't like that said support our troops, she was kicked out of this gallery," Young said on the House floor the following day, holding up the gray shirt. "Shame, shame," he said. [4]

Capitol Police Chief Terrance Gainer apologized in a statement late that same day. [5] Young said he was not necessarily satisfied. "My wife was humiliated," he told reporters. He suggested that "sensitivity training" might be in order for the Capitol Police. [6]

In 2005, Young received 3,570 earmark requests from members of Congress, because of his position on the appropriations committee. He believes that requests for earmarks should not be publicly disclosed. In March 2006, Young spokesman Harry Glen said "This has been the policy of the committee for years. It's internal correspondence from one member to another." [7]

There was speculation that Young planed to retire rather than running again in 2006 [8], as well as speculation that if Young did decide to retire, his wife would run to replace him. In fact, neither happened; he was the only Republican to file in his district by the deadline of May 12, 2006. [9] He defeated Democrat Samm Simpson, a cable TV show producer and progressive activist, in the November election. Simpson was the only Democrat to file.

The Washington Post articles that publicized the scandalous conditions at Walter Reed Medical Center in late February 2007 included quotes from both Young and his wife. Young was quoted as saying "When Bev or I would bring problems to the attention of authorities of Walter Reed, we were made to feel very uncomfortable." Beverly Young said she complained several times, including directly to the commanding general, Lt. Gen. Kevin C. Kiley. She told the Post that she once saw a soldier who was lying in urine on his mattress pad in the hospital, and that when a nurse ignored her complaint, she "went flying down to Kevin Kiley's office again, and got nowhere. He has skirted this stuff for five years and blamed everyone else." Young and his wife told the Post that they simply "stopped visiting the wounded at Walter Reed out of frustration".

As chairman of the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee during 2005 and 2006, Young did not call hearings or otherwise engage in active oversight on the matter. At a hearing of that that subcommittee on March 7, 2007 regarding the conditions at Walter Reed, Young said that he was aware of patient care problems at Walter Reed long before the Washington Post exposed them, but that "We did not go public with these concerns, because we did not want to undermine the confidence of the patients and their families and give the Army a black eye while fighting a war." [10]

• U.S. Congressman C.W. Bill Young official House site
• Bill Young at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
• Federal Election Commission â€" C. W. Bill Young campaign finance reports and data
• On the Issues â€" Bill Young issue positions and quotes
• OpenSecrets.org â€" C. W. Bill Young campaign contributions
• Project Vote Smart â€" Representative C. W. Bill Young (FL) profile
• SourceWatch Congresspedia â€" Bill Young profile
• Washington Post â€" Congress Votes Database: Bill Young voting record
• Bill Young for U.S. Congressman â€" official campaign site

Allen Boyd (D), Corrine Brown (D), Ander Crenshaw (R), Ginny Brown-Waite (R), Cliff Stearns (R), John Mica (R), Ric Keller (R), Gus Bilirakis (R), Bill Young (R), Kathy Castor (D), Adam Putnam (R), Vern Buchanan (R), Connie Mack IV (R), Dave Weldon (R), Tim Mahoney (D), Kendrick Meek (D), Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R), Robert Wexler (D), Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D), Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R), Ron Klein (D), Alcee Hastings (D), Tom Feeney (R),