Chip Roy

Charles Eugene "Chip" Roy (born August 7, 1972) is an American attorney and politician serving as the U.S. Representative for Texas's 21st congressional district. He is a Republican.

Roy was born in Bethesda, Maryland, and raised in Lovettsville, Virginia. He earned bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Virginia and spent three years as an investment banking analyst. He earned his Juris Doctor at the University of Texas School of Law, and worked for then-Texas attorney general John Cornyn. Roy also worked on Cornyn's 2002 campaign for the United States Senate. When Cornyn was elected, Roy joined his staff on the United States Senate Judiciary Committee. He returned to Texas as a prosecutor in the office of the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Texas.

Roy joined the administration of Texas governor Rick Perry as director of the Office of State-Federal Relations. Roy was the ghostwriter of Perry's 2010 book Fed Up! and worked for Perry's 2012 presidential campaign. After his election to the Senate in 2012, Ted Cruz chose Roy as his chief of staff. After Ken Paxton was elected Attorney General of Texas in 2014, Roy became first assistant attorney general. In 2016 Roy left the office of the attorney general to head the Trusted Leadership PAC, which was supporting Cruz's presidential campaign.

Elections

2018 general election

In the 2018 elections Roy ran for the United States House of Representatives in Texas's 21st congressional district to succeed Lamar Smith, who did not run for reelection. Roy defeated Matt McCall in the Republican Party primary election, and faced Joseph Kopser in the general election. Roy defeated Kopser 50%–48% in a closer-than-expected victory.

Tenure

On February 14, 2019, as Congress passed a $333 billion spending package, Roy tweeted, "the deal provides de facto amnesty for anyone claiming to be even in the household of a potential sponsor of an unaccompanied alien minor AND is thus the 'Child Trafficking Promotion Act'". According to a February 15, 2019, Fox News article, this was a misunderstanding of a reference to an "amnesty" claim in the budget's section 224. Fox reported that while this "appears" to "block the deportation" of undocumented people by saying that "no funds may be used to detain or deport any "sponsor" or "potential sponsor" of an "unaccompanied alien child", a United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official told Fox News that "terms like "potential sponsor" have precise meanings in Department of Homeland Security regulations, meanings that severely limit the number of people the budget keeps safe from deportation.

In May 2019 Roy, acting entirely by himself, prevented passage of a request for unanimous consent for a $19.1 billion disaster aid package. With President Trump's support, the bill had passed 85-8 in the Senate and needed passage in the House to be presented to the president for a signature to become law. It would have provided urgently needed hurricane relief funding for farmers in Southeastern U.S. and to assist hurricane victims and repair infrastructure in Puerto Rico, as well as to aid in the recovery suffered by flooded industry and residents in Central Texas. Roy received bipartisan criticism for his objection.

On June 28, 2019, in response to the humanitarian crisis involving migrant children at the southern border, Roy proposed legislation to amend the Antideficiency Act (ADA) to allow the United States Border Patrol to accept donations from people who want to help migrant children directly. Roy's bill, the Charitable Donations Freedom Act, also called the Charitable Donations Freedom Act, was criticized as being so broad that it "appears to allow the government to accept any good at any time and limits Congress’s oversight".

Roy, the ranking member on the United States House Oversight Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties chaired by Jamie Raskin (D-MD), objected to the title—"Kids in Cages: Inhumane Treatment at the Border"—of a July 2019 subcommittee hearing on the health and safety of children at child detention centers on the southern US border.

He is a member of the Freedom Caucus, consisting of conservative and libertarian Republican members of the House of Representatives.

On December 18, 2019, Roy voted against both articles of impeachment against Trump. Of the 195 Republicans who voted, all voted against both impeachment articles.

Committee assignments

• Committee on Oversight and Reform
• Committee on the Budget
• Committee on Veterans' Affairs

Caucus memberships

Roy met his wife, Carrah, at the University of Texas. They have two children. Roy was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma in 2011.