Mac Thornberry was born in Clarendon, Texas and raised on the family ranch nearby in Donley County. The Thornberry family has been ranching in the 13th district since 1881 - first in the Wichita Falls area and then near Clarendon. Mac continues to be involved in the cattle business today with his father and brothers.
After attending Clarendon Public Schools, Mac graduated from Texas Tech University and from the University of Texas Law School. He spent the next few years working in Washington, including a position in the Reagan Administration's State Department as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs. He then practiced law in Amarillo while also engaged in ranching.
Mac is known as "a distinguished thinker on defense issues and foreign affairs" (Esquire, November 2006). "His hard work on defense and homeland security issues has earned him a reputation as one of the brainiest and most accessible lawmakers on those issues." (Almanac of American Politics, 2006).
Mac serves on the Armed Services Committee and the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. He serves as the Vice Chairman of the Armed Services Committee where he will also lead the Subcommittee on Emerging Threats. He continues to serve on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. He has also been asked by the Speaker of the House to lead an initiative on cybersecurity, which will focus Congress’s efforts to combat the growing national security and economic threat.
Six months before the attacks of September 11, 2001, Mac introduced a bill to create a Department of Homeland Security, warning of the dangers of a terrorist attack against the U.S. homeland. "His unheralded writing of that bill gave Thornberry an aura of prescience as soon as the World Trade Center's twin towers were felled and the Pentagon was torn open by hijacked airliners." (Congressional Quarterly, 01-05-2002).
In Congress Mac has always pushed a reform agenda to make government work better amid new circumstances and challenges. In this session of Congress, he has authored legislation to reform health care, civil service and government employment, and strategic communications.
Mac has consistently received awards and recognition from such groups as the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), American Conservative Union, Citizens for a Sound Economy, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the American Farm Bureau.
Mac and his wife Sally have been married for more than 20 years and have two children. |
