Congressman Roy Blunt

Faithful Politician

When Roy Blunt received his degree from Southwest Baptist University (MO), it wouldn’t be the last time he would walk across the university’s stage. A couple decades and a few county and state political positions later, Blunt served the school as its president for four years.

At the end of his term as university president, however, Blunt decided the time was ripe to move on. “I told my college president friends I decided to get out of politics and run for Congress,” he says. “I had been an elected official before becoming university president. Republicans were the majority party for first time in my lifetime, so I thought Congress would be a place of wide-reaching service. But of all the positions I’ve held—county official, state-wide elected official, etc.— the best job I’ve had was being a university president.”

His decision to run for Congress proved to be fruitful. The people of Southwest Missouri have sent Blunt to Washington to represent them five times (beginning in 1997), returning him to Congress with more than 70 percent of the vote against three opponents in 2004.

Blunt, who became Majority Whip earlier in his career than any Member of Congress in the last seven decades, was reelected to a second term as Whip in November 2004. As Whip, the third highest job in the House, Congressman Blunt is responsible for corralling the votes necessary to complete the Republican agenda. He selects and leads a team of Deputy and Assistant Whips, which columnist Robert Novak has described as “the most efficient party whip operation in congressional history.”

Having served on then-Governor George W. Bush’s original ten-person exploratory committee and as the liaison between the House and the Bush campaign, Blunt has close ties to the Bush Administration. When Blunt was named Missouri’s Republican of the Year in 2000, President Bush described him as “a leader who knows how to raise his sights and lower his voice.”

“Faith has a significant impact on the way I do my work,” says Blunt. “The importance of integrity, the importance of fulfilling the commitments you make can’t be underestimated. With a faith base like I have, one doesn’t always have to be successful every day, but one does need to live up to one’s principles. God doesn’t expect you to be successful in the world’s eyes, but faithful. When success comes with faithfulness, those are great days, but I’m confident that’s not the way God measures things.”

Blunt fought for President Bush’s $1.35 trillion tax cut, working twenty-nine hours through the night to reach agreement on the largest tax cut in a generation. Continuing his focus on tax fairness, he worked to enact four major tax relief packages in the four years of President Bush’s first term, putting more money in the hands of the people who earned it and helping the economy rebound from a recession and the September 11 attacks.

Blunt was the principle sponsor of the Charitable Giving Act, legislation designed to encourage more Americans to help more charities. The legislation, which passed the House and Senate overwhelmingly, would provide 86 million Americans who do not itemize on their tax returns the opportunity to deduct a portion of their charitable contributions, and provide incentives for individuals to make contributions to charity from their Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs).

Though it’s been years since Blunt was university president, he still maintains close ties with the people and principles of Christ-centered education. “I’m always interested in Christian higher education,” Blunt says. “Any college can teach you how to earn a living. The added value of Christian higher education is that you learn skills and values as to how to live your life.”