Not many freshman members of the House minority party get invitations to the vice president’s official residence, the Naval Observatory, like Rep. Greg Pence, R-Ind. But dinner with his younger brother, Vice President Mike Pence, is personal, not political, according to the older Pence.
And that’s about the extent of the Pences’ trans-Pennsylvania Avenue relationship, at least so far, Greg Pence told the Washington Examiner in an interview. Almost five months in as the representative of Indiana’s conservative 6th Congressional District, which takes in large swathes of the Hoosier State’s east and southeast, Pence says he’s concentrating on his own record and legislative proposals, including job creation and infrastructure initiatives.
“I was always happy to share my last name with my brother,” said Pence, 62, who also shares the vice president’s crisp, snow-white hairstyle. “Back in 1999 when he decided to run for Congress, I said, ‘Use it, take advantage of it.'”
The feigned indifference toward Mike Pence, 59, is part of the congressman’s attempt to differentiate himself from the vice president, who came to D.C. in 2001 after being elected to serve the same district. Mike Pence went on to win the Indiana governorship in 2012 before he was selected as now-President Trump’s running mate in 2016.
“My father always had a saying, ‘Climb your own mountain,'” Greg Pence, the eldest of six children, said. “And all of my siblings are very different people, very independent and, frankly, we’re all pretty successful as family people, as husbands, fathers, and members of our community. So there’s no necessary advantage or disadvantage; I just am a Pence.”
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There have been previous vice presidents whose family members have contested or held public office, St. Louis University School of Law professor Joel Goldstein told the Washington Examiner.
“Prescott Bush Jr. challenged Sen. Lowell Weicker for the GOP Senate nomination in 1982, but then withdrew from the race before the election,” Goldstein wrote in an email of the Connecticut political figures. “Beau Biden was attorney general in Delaware while his dad was vice president. Hubert H. Skip Humphrey III (Minnesota attorney general, state senator, and candidate for governor), Ted Mondale (Minnesota state senator and candidate for governor), George and Jeb Bush, Ben Quayle (U.S. House of Representatives lawmaker for Arizona), and Liz Cheney were among those who followed their vice president fathers into politics, although after their political service ended.”
Future Texas governor and President George W. Bush and younger brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, were elected after their father, President George H.W. Bush, left the White House. Liz Cheney, now House Republican conference chairwoman, clinched Wyoming’s at-large district during the 2018 midterm cycle and is eyeing a 2020 open seat Senate run. Her first election to the House, in 2016, came nearly eight years after her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, left office, though it was to the same congressional seat he held from 1979 to ’89.
Greg Pence, a Marine veteran and former small business owner, is quick to quash speculation having a relative in the White House has helped burnish his career.
“My brother was my congressman, and my governor and now my vice president, and I let people know I don’t speak for the administration,” he said. “And I am, I think people pretty quickly see that I’m kinda comfortable in my own skin and I’m my own person.”
Pence was a member of the Marines for five-and-a-half years, rising to the rank of first lieutenant. After leaving the military, Pence earned a master’s in business administration from Loyola University Chicago, specializing in finance, and set up a real estate company called Pence Group, worth between $5 million and $25 million, according to financial disclosure documents filed during his 2018 campaign.
Not all of his business ventures, however, were a success. Kiel Bros. Oil, a firm of which Pence’s father was vice president and he was president, collapsed in 2004, triggering his resignation and reportedly costing Indiana millions to clean up its old sites. Pence also had to step down from the board of Home Federal Bank, a local bank that had lent Kiel money.
“The Kiel family asked me to guarantee loans and I did, but we negotiated those out,” he said.
Looking forward, Pence brings a robust agenda to Capitol Hill. The father of four and grandfather of six explained how he was inspired to seek his first elected role to counter the exodus of manufacturing jobs, “stagnant” wages, and a shrinking middle class. He added that infrastructure and veterans’ issues were key concerns for his constituents, policies he can exert some influence over through his House Transportation and Infrastructure and Foreign Affairs committee assignments.
“For Transportation-Infrastructure, I’ve introduced some bills for the ag community. I’m focusing right now on what I think maybe we can get some things done different than a whole new infrastructure bill, but I’m focusing on trucks and different components of that in the ag industry,” he said.
The other piece of legislation he’s sponsored is the Our Obligation to Recognize American Heroes Act. The measure, which borrows its name from the “Oorah” Marine chant, aims at obtaining financial compensation from Iran-backed Hezbollah for the 1983 truck bomb attack on a compound housing U.S. Marines in Beirut, Lebanon. More than 240 American service members died in the explosion.
“I was in Beirut, Lebanon, in 1983, left right before they blew up those barracks, and this is going after reparations for the families of the deceased and going after Iran,” he said. “I will tell you it is very personal.”
[Also read: Bipartisan bill aims to give families of Beirut bombing victims $1.68B in Iranian funds]
