Zachary Paul Wamp (born October 28, 1957) is an American politician who was the U.S. representative for from 1995 to 2011. He is a member of the Republican Party. The district is based in Chattanooga and includes large parts of East Tennessee, including Oak Ridge.
Early life and education
Wamp was born in Fort Benning, Georgia, and grew up in East Ridge, Tennessee, a community adjacent to Chattanooga, where his father worked as an architect. He attended The Lutheran School, a Lutheran elementary school. Later, with his two brothers, he attended The McCallie School, an all-male prep school in Chattanooga, as a day student, from the age of 11 until he graduated in 1976. He was president of the student council, active in athletics, and was the MVP of the varsity basketball team at McCallie in 1976. He was baptized, raised and confirmed in the Lutheran Church. He spent his freshman year at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1977–78 and briefly returned in 1979–80 after his sophomore year at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville between (1978–79). However, he graduated from neither and ultimately dropped out of college. He had struggled with drug and alcohol problems as a student and would eventually enter rehab.
Early career
After leaving college, Wamp became a national sales supervisor for Olan Mills, a photography company based in Chattanooga that primarily produces church directories, and later became a successful commercial and industrial real estate broker. He worked in his family's architectural and development business and became vice president of Charter Real Estate Corporation in 1989. In 1992, he joined Fletcher Bright Co. in Chattanooga as a commercial and industrial real estate broker.
He began his career in politics as a precinct vice chairman and Youth Coordinator for the 1983 Chattanooga mayoral campaign of Gene Roberts. He became President of the Young Republicans and was later elected chairman of the Hamilton County, Tennessee Republican Party, then regional director for the Tennessee GOP.
U.S. House of Representatives
Elections
Wamp ran for the House of Representatives as a Republican in 1992 against nine-term Democrat Marilyn Lloyd. He nearly scored a major upset, only losing by 1.3 points—only 2,900 votes out of 210,000 total votes cast.
When Lloyd did not run for re-election in 1994, Wamp ran again. Battling through a hotly contested primary, he easily defeated his childhood friend and sitting State Representative Kenneth J. Meyer by nearly two to one. During the race, Wamp signed the Contract with America. He also personally committed to serve no more than six terms and further committed to not accept special interest PAC money. He proposed a plan to pay congressmen the same as Lieutenant Colonels and linked his Democratic opponent, Randy Button, to Bill Clinton. Wamp won the general election with 52% of the vote, during the Republican Revolution. He likely got coattails from Bill Frist's and Fred Thompson's strong 1994 statewide elections, and was helped by Lloyd crossing party lines to endorse him. He was re-elected with slightly less difficulty in 1996. After his first two elections, he never faced another close contest; from 1998 onward, he won by 64 percent or more of the vote. Wamp explored seeking a seat in the United States Senate to succeed Bill Frist, who had promised to serve no more than two terms. He decided against running for that seat in October 2004.
2006
When he was elected to the House in 1994, Wamp pledged to serve just twelve years (six terms) in the House. However, shortly after winning reelection to a sixth term in 2004, Wamp announced he would run again in 2006 after all, citing his status as Tennessee's only member of the powerful Appropriations Committee. The pledge was "a mistake," he told the Associated Press in 2004.
Wamp faced Brent Benedict, a computer programmer and consultant. During the campaign, Benedict made an issue of Wamp breaking his term limit pledge, saying that he would hold himself to six terms if elected. Despite this, Wamp was easily reelected.
Following the GOP losing the U.S. House and U.S. Senate in the 2006 midterm elections, Wamp reflected on the defeat saying, "For the first six years of the 12 years, we were focused on policy and principles, and politics was secondary. The second six years, politics became primary: raising money, going negative, consolidating power."
2008
He won re-election with 69% of the vote, his best election performance.