U.S. Army

In 2005, Kooyenga and his two brothers joined the United States Army, a decision they made as a result of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. He attended the United States Army's basic training, Officer Candidate School and the Military Intelligence Officer Course.^[10]

After completing the year-long Army training Kooyenga returned to his career in public accounting. Kooyenga was deployed to active duty in Iraq from January 2008 to November 2008. Although trained as a Military Intelligence Officer, Kooyenga was assigned as the 4th Infantry Division's Officer in Charge of Economic Development in Baghdad. Kooyenga was awarded the Bronze Star for his service.^[10]

His experience in Iraq overseeing the construction of roads and bridges, as well as the death of a friend at the hands of a suicide bomber, inspired his interest in politics.^[11]

Kooyenga still serves in the U.S. Army Reserve and in June 2022 was selected for the rank of lieutenant colonel.^[12]

Politics

In Fall 2010, Kooyenga was elected to represent the 14th District for the Wisconsin State Assembly. He was sworn into office on January 3, 2011. Kooyenga endorsed Mitt Romney in the 2012 presidential election.^[13]

During his time in the Assembly, Kooyenga emerged as a conservative star as part of the "CPA Caucus," a group of four certified public accountants in the Assembly who specialized in analyzing state finances.^[11] The group's work led to the discovery of a previously unreported $650 million surplus within the books of UW System institutions. That discovery led to an 8-year tuition freeze, which was lifted in 2021 with Kooyenga's support. Kooyenga said as a result of the tuition freeze, the UW System "has dramatically increased their transparency."^[14] Kooyenga later praised the UW System for voluntarily freezing tuition for another year.^[15]

In May 2017, Kooyenga removed a protester's sign, which had a valid permit, from a public area of the Wisconsin State Capitol which was critical of President Donald Trump and Republicans.^[16] Kooyenga removed the sign because he thought it was inappropriate.^[17] The owner filed a lawsuit against Kooyenga and the State of Wisconsin for violating his First Amendment rights, which led to the State paying him $30,000 to settle the lawsuit in April 2018.^[16] Kooyenga repaid the $30,000 to the state in July 2018.^[18]

Kooyenga announced his campaign for Wisconsin State Senate's 5th District in September 2017, seeking to fill the seat left vacant by Leah Vukmir, who was running for the U.S. Senate.^[19] He won the November 2018 election with 51.15% of the vote against Democratic opponent Julie Henszey.

During his time in the Senate, Kooyenga worked on a range of issues related to education, tax cuts and budgeting, professional licensure, and healthcare.^[20] In August 2019, he and Rep. Amy Loudenbeck introduced telehealth legislation^[21] that was signed into law months before the COVID-19 pandemic began. As a member of the Joint Committee on Finance,^[22] Kooyenga also assisted in writing the 2021-23 state budget and argued for conservative tax policy including tax cuts.^[23]

In 2021 he introduced bipartisan legislation in the Wisconsin legislature to introduce ranked-choice voting (RCV). He argued that RCV would reduce polarization and extremism by removing incentives for legislators to cater to extremist elements within their parties.^[24] He also introduced an amendment to the state constitution to return oversight of federal funding to the state legislature^[25] as well as legislation to clean up industrial pollutants from the Milwaukee Estuary.^[26]

In April 2022 Kooyenga announced he would not seek re-election to the State Senate, citing his commitments to the U.S. Army, private sector career, and his four children as reasons for stepping down from public service.^[27]