42 Facts About Andy Ogles

William Andrew Ogles IV is an American politician and businessman who has served as the US representative for Tennessee's 5th congressional district since 2023.

Andy Ogles had previously worked as a conservative activist, serving as the executive director of the Laffer Center, a conservative think tank and the Tennessee chapter of conservative advocacy group Americans for Prosperity.

Andy Ogles has taken strongly conservative positions and been described by media as on the far-right of the political spectrum.

Andy Ogles was one of the original 19 members of Congress to vote against Kevin McCarthy for Speaker of the House.

Andy Ogles is known for his staunch support for Donald Trump.

Andy Ogles has proposed a constitutional amendment to enable Trump to serve a third presidential term, as well as filed articles of impeachment against judges who rule against the Trump administration.

Andy Ogles later studied at Middle Tennessee State University, where he failed every course taken in the fall of 1995 and the fall of 1998; he returned to the university in 2007 and graduated with a 2.4 grade point average, with a Bachelor of Science in liberal studies.

Andy Ogles said in late February 2023 that his failed university courses were due to "an interfamilial matter" that led him to abandon his studies "to financially support my family during a difficult time"; and that he eventually completed his studies with online courses.

NewsChannel 5 additionally reported that MTSU declined to confirm Andy Ogles' degree, referencing a federal law allowing students like Andy Ogles the ability to block the release of academic records.

Andy Ogles later became involved with the Laffer Center, a conservative think tank.

Andy Ogles has been a Club for Growth Foundation fellow.

Andy Ogles made two unsuccessful bids for elected office, a run for the state's 4th district in 2002 and for Tennessee Senate in 2006, losing in the Republican primary both times.

In September 2017, Andy Ogles announced he would challenge incumbent US senator Bob Corker, who he believed was insufficiently conservative, in the following year's primary.

That led incumbent US representative Marsha Blackburn, the eventual winner, and former representative Stephen Fincher to announce they would seek the seat, and as their campaigns were likely to be well-funded, Andy Ogles announced shortly afterward that he would withdraw.

The executive director position seemed to involve mainly "administrative" work, reported NewsChannel 5, with Andy Ogles not being named as an author of any economic reports uploaded on the Laffer Center's website.

Ogles' congressional website claims that "while working at the Laffer Center, Andy became a nationally recognized expert on tax policy and healthcare, having been featured in numerous publications, including The Wall Street Journal and Investor's Business Daily".

NewsChannel 5 questioned this claim, being unable to find any articles in the publications independently citing him as an expert, only finding three columns written by Andy Ogles in these publications, all of which were written when he was a lobbyist, before he worked for the Laffer Center.

In 2011, Andy Ogles worked as a chief operating officer for Abolition International, a non-profit organisation which described its work as giving grants to "holistic ministries".

Andy Ogles supported a sales tax increase that passed in 2020.

The county commission complained it had not been aware of any concerns Andy Ogles had had over the budget, noting that he rarely attended meetings and had taken no part in the budget process.

Andy Ogles said that since he could not vote at the meetings it was not necessary for him to attend them and that he kept up by watching them online.

Andy Ogles seemed to some observers to have gotten off to a strong start in the primary, announcing that he had raised nearly half a million dollars in the campaign's first month.

Andy Ogles explained that he had not counted a $320,000 personal loan to the campaign.

Records showed that Andy Ogles had indeed been from a few days to almost a year late paying taxes on his Franklin home between 2005 and 2015, leading to interest charges.

Andy Ogles was endorsed by the House Freedom Caucus, the House Republican Conference's farthest-right bloc.

Andy Ogles declined all invitations to debate, drawing criticism from McCarthy.

Andy Ogles raised almost $1 million for his campaign, including what he falsely represented at the time as a $320,000 personal loan, and spent $573,000.

On January 1,2023, Andy Ogles signed a letter by fellow representatives Scott Perry and Chip Roy expressing opposition to fellow Republican Kevin McCarthy in the upcoming house speakership election after McCarthy did not accept all their proposed House rules changes.

Andy Ogles explained in a statement that this was because he believed negotiations between McCarthy and the other holdouts were going well.

Shortly after being sworn in, Andy Ogles was appointed to the House Financial Services Committee.

The first bill Andy Ogles introduced, the Inflation Reduction Act of 2023, would repeal the previous year's Inflation Reduction Act.

In May 2024, Andy Ogles introduced a pair of bills in the House in response to the 2024 pro-Palestinian protests on university campuses.

Andy Ogles filed his first campaign finance report more than a week after the deadline, the only candidate in the race at that time to be late in doing so.

Andy Ogles blamed the delay on "issues retrieving bank statements".

Questions were raised about the $320,000 loan Andy Ogles claimed to have made his campaign, a loan not reflected in any of his personal financial disclosures to the House and beyond his apparent means.

Andy Ogles said the larger amount previously stated was a "pledge" as to how much of his own money he was prepared to put into the campaign if necessary and was mistakenly included on the reports.

Andy Ogles has called for the United States Department of Education to be defunded.

Andy Ogles denies the legitimacy of the 2020 United States presidential election.

In July 2022, Andy Ogles signed a pledge for an amendment to term limit representatives.

In January 2025, Andy Ogles proposed to amend the Twenty-second Amendment to the United States Constitution to allow American presidents who have two non-consecutive presidency terms to seek a third term as president.

Andy Ogles's cousin Brandon Ogles is a former member of the Tennessee House of Representatives.

Andy Ogles faced criticism when nearly $25,000 in donations received via GoFundMe to finance a child burial garden in his stillborn child's memory appeared to have gone unspent.