Kenneth Michael Conaway (born June 11, 1948) is an American politician who was the U.S. representative for from 2005 to 2021. He is a member of the Republican Party. The district Conaway represented is located in West Texas and includes Midland, Odessa, San Angelo, Brownwood, and Granbury. Conaway led the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections (with assistance from Trey Gowdy and Tom Rooney) after the Intelligence Committee chair, Devin Nunes, recused himself. Aside from serving as the chair of the House Ethics Committee, he served as the chair of the House Agriculture Committee, and later its ranking member. Conaway indicated in July 2019 that he would not be seeking reelection. Conaway was succeeded by fellow Republican August Pfluger.
Background
Conaway was born in Borger in the Texas Panhandle northeast of Amarillo, the son of Helen Jean (McCormick) and Louis Denton Conaway. He graduated in 1966 from Permian High School in Odessa in Ector County, where he was a standout player for the Permian Panthers and a member of the first Permian State Championship team in 1965. After High School, he attended Ranger College on a football scholarship before attending Texas A&M University-Commerce (then named East Texas State University), lettering in Football for the Lions from 1966 to 1969 and was a member of two Lone Star Conference championship teams. He majored in Accounting, graduating in 1970.
Career
Military
Conaway served in the United States Army from 1970 to 1972.
Private sector
Conaway was an accountant and became a Certified Public Accountant in 1974, chief financial officer at a bank, and from 1981 to 1986 was the chief financial officer of Arbusto Energy Inc, an oil and gas exploration firm operated by George W. Bush.
Texas government
Soon after Bush was elected governor of Texas, he appointed Conaway to the Texas State Board of Public Accountancy, which regulates accountancy in Texas. He served on the board as a volunteer for seven years, the last five as chairman.
U.S. House of Representatives
Committee assignments (116th Congress)
- Committee on Agriculture (Ranking Member)
- Committee on Armed Services
- Subcommittee on Intelligence, Emerging Threats and Capabilities
- Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forces
- Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence
Caucus memberships
- CPA Caucus (Founder)
- International Conservation Caucus
- Reliable Energy Caucus
- Sportsmen's Caucus
- Congressional Constitution Caucus
- Congressional Western Caucus
- United States Congressional International Conservation Caucus
Tenure
Conaway endorsed former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney for president in 2008. On May 13, 2016, Conaway endorsed the Republican presumptive nominee Donald Trump for president in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
In 2006, Conaway voted against extending the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Conaway served on committees of the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), the campaign arm of the House Republican caucus.
In January 2007, Conaway began chairing the three-member audit committee for the NRCC. By January 28, 2008, Conaway had uncovered a fraud, where hundreds of thousands of dollars were missing from NRCC bank accounts, and supposed annual audits on the NRCC books had actually not been performed since 2001.
Conaway introduced legislation to extend and reform the federal tax credit to support wide scale commercial deployment of carbon capture and storage.
Speaker Paul Ryan announced Conaway's new role as leader of the House Intelligence Committee in April 2017 after chairman Devin Nunes temporarily recused himself from investigations into Russian interference in the U.S. 2016 election.
In February 2018, Conaway prevented efforts by the Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee to investigate financial links between Trump, his businesses, his family and Russian actors. Conaway prevented subpoenas for related bank records, Trump's tax returns and witnesses. One of the findings was that the committee had found no evidence of collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign in the 2016 election; Democrats on the committee said that they had come to no such conclusion.
Conaway won re-election in the general election held on November 4, 2014. He polled 107,752 votes (90 percent); his challenger, Libertarian Ryan T. Lange, received 11,607 (10 percent).
Conaway announced in July 2019 that he would not be running for reelection.