Alexander Xavier Mooney (born June 7, 1971)[1] is an American politician who served as the U.S. representative for West Virginia's 2nd congressional district from 2015 to 2025.
[5] In November 2022, Mooney filed to run for U.S. Senate in 2024 for the West Virginia seat occupied by outgoing Democrat Joe Manchin.
Mooney's mother, Lala, was a Cuban refugee who escaped political imprisonment at age 21, shortly after the Bay of Pigs Invasion.
[10] In early 2008, he traveled to New Hampshire to testify in support of a state bill that would require legislative approval for amendments that the private Board of Trustees of Dartmouth College wished to make to its charter.
Maryland's redistricting based on the 2010 census significantly redrew the boundaries of incumbent Roscoe Bartlett's 6th district.
[19] After creating an exploratory committee to challenge Bartlett in the Republican primary,[20] Mooney decided not to run against him.
He subsequently had to withdraw his candidacy because he was still Bartlett's part-time outreach director at the time he filed to run.
Seven-term Republican incumbent Shelley Moore Capito was giving up the seat to run for the United States Senate.
[38] In two May 2022 reports, the Office of Congressional Ethics determined that Mooney had "likely violated House rules and federal law" by accepting impermissible gifts and using official resources for personal purposes.
[39] The OCE transmitted the reports to the House Ethics Committee, which opened an investigation into Mooney's conduct.
[53] Along with Matt Gaetz and a handful of Republicans, Mooney broke with his party and voted to end assistance to Saudi Arabia in the War in Yemen.
[55] In June 2021, Mooney was one of 49 House Republicans to vote to repeal the 2002 Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq.
[62] In December 2020, Mooney was one of 126 Republican members of the House of Representatives to sign an amicus brief in support of Texas v. Pennsylvania, a lawsuit filed at the United States Supreme Court contesting the results of the 2020 presidential election, in which Joe Biden defeated[63] incumbent Donald Trump.
The Supreme Court declined to hear the case on the basis that Texas lacked standing under Article III of the Constitution to challenge the results of an election held by another state.
[67] Mooney did not support the objection to Arizona's electoral votes, which was sponsored by Senator Ted Cruz.
[68] Mooney was in the House Chamber listening to the certification debate when Trump supporters attacked the United States Capitol.
"[68] In response to his decision, the Charleston Gazette-Mail editorial board charged him with "subverting democracy" and said that he and Representative Carol Miller were complicit in the Capitol attack by their unwavering support of Trump.
[70] On January 11, 2021, the Democrats introduced a resolution to call on Vice President Mike Pence to invoke the Twenty-fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution to remove Trump in response to the attack on the Capitol.
It is wrong to have sent members of Congress home and then try to adopt without any debate a precedent-setting resolution that could imperil our Republic.