Talk:Tom MacArthur

Requested Edits to Page
This is Chloe, Communications Director for freshman Congressman Tom MacArthur. In the interest of updating this Wikipedia page to reflect full and accurate biographical information about Congressman MacArthur, I'd like to request the following edits to be made.

1) Change section: "2014 Congressional Campaign" to "U.S. House of Representatives"

2) Under new section "U.S. House of Representatives", add new subsections, "Election", "Legislation", "Committee Assignments"

3) Under "Election" subsection, add "2014" sub-subsection, and move text that was previously under "2014 Congressional Campaign" to this section.

4) Under "Legislation", add the following text: "On February 2nd, 2015, MacArthur introduced the "Disaster Assistance Fairness and Accountability Act of 2015" that will prevent the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) from recouping disaster relief funds from individuals who applied for them in good faith . This is a partial list of bills that MacArthur has co-sponsored: • H.R. 22, the "Hire More Heroes Act," is a bill that was introduced into the United States House of Representatives during the 114th Congress. This bill "amends the Internal Revenue Code to add a provision to exempt any employee with coverage under a health care program administered by the Department of Defense, including the TRICARE program, or by the Veterans Administration, from classification as an eligible employee of an applicable large employer for purposes of the employer mandate under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act to provide such employees with minimum essential health care coverage." • H.R. 160, the "Protect Medical Innovation Act of 2015", a bill to repeal the medical device excise tax introduced in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. • H.R. 413, the "Partnership to Build America Act of 2015" • H.R. 594, the "Waters of the United States Regulatory Overreach Protection Act of 2015" • H.R. 596 (long title: To repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and health care-related provisions in the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010), a bill that would repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and instruct several House Committees to work on creating a new health care reform bill. • H.R. 641, the "Conservation Easement Incentive Act of 2015"

5) Under "Committee Assignments", add the following text: "• House Armed Services Committee →• Subcommittee on Tactical Air and Land Forces →• Vice Chair of Subcommittee on Military Personnel • House Natural Resources Committee →• Subcommittee on Water, Power, and Oceans →• Subcommittee on Federal Lands"

6) Under "Personal Life", Congressman MacArthur no longer lives in Randolph, NJ. His permanent residence is in Toms River, NJ. Change first sentence to: "MacArthur lives in Toms River, New Jersey, and also owns homes in Barnegat Light and Randolph, New Jersey."

7) Under "Personal Life", include names of Congressman MacArthur's wife and children. Change second sentence to: "He and his wife Debbie have three children, David, Isabella, and Gracie, who passed away in 1996 at the age of eleven."

Thanks for all the help! Because I'm an employee of the Congressman's, I won't make these changes myself. Instead, I'm hoping an editor will approve these requests, and either I or an editor can implement. TMacCommsStaff (talk) 17:10, 3 March 2015 (UTC)


 * Edit it yourself. Earn your keep. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.55.101.94 (talk) 16:34, 22 April 2015 (UTC)


 * Chloe, Please ignore the "edit if yourself" comment above. You are doing exactly the right thing as per Wikipedia's Conflict of Interest policies (WP:COI). I would presume the person making the comment does not yet understand how Wikipedia works.


 * I saw your request on the Teahouse page and see what I can do to help you. I need to look at some comparable House member pages to see how they are done. Many of your requests seem reasonable, but I need to be careful not to give Undue Weight (WP:UNDUE) to a listing of co-sponsored bills. Thank you for providing a list of possible sources to start with. Carl Henderson (talk) 00:30, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

This article says in the healthcare section that MacArthur is part of a delegation of New York. MacArthur is from New Jersey. Sorry, I don't have time to fix this. MikeCaseyComedy (talk) 07:37, 24 March 2017 (UTC)


 * The linked article from the NYT also does not mention Congressman MacArthur by name, nor does it even reference the Tuesday Group. The reference seems completely irrelevant and should probably be removed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:640:109:9C2C:359E:BE62:77C9:1CA (talk) 17:36, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

Updated Requested Edits forthcoming
Apologies to the anonymous poster, and apologies to the editing community. We misunderstood the standards for requesting edits, and will be updating this request shortly to better conform to Wikipedia standards and make it easier for editors to review requests. Again, I'm sorry for the difficulty. ChloeTMacStaff (talk) 21:38, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

Help updating the page for COI
This is Chloe, Communications Director for freshman Congressman Tom MacArthur. Because MacArthur just took office, I think a Wikipedia reader could benefit from having an expanded biographical page, similar to his predecessor Jon Runyan and other Members of Congress. However, as I have a clear conflict of interest as an employee of the Congressman's, I'd like to suggest some changes in the hope that an editor can review and implement, rather than making them myself.

I also wanted to apologize for previously misunderstanding the proper way to work with the editing community. Without a proper understanding of Wiki markup, I requested edits to be implemented to this page, but did not properly format them, and was told by an editor to make the changes myself. In the future, and as I have done below, I will propose edits in Wiki markup following WP:MOS, WP:RELIABLE, and WP:NPOV. Despite the request from the editor, I will not be implementing any changes on my own, as I have a clear conflict of interest with the subject.

With all of that in mind, here are the issues I identified with the current article:


 * For other Members of Congress, entries are usually formatted with information about the election as a subsection under a U.S. House of Representatives. This page has a separate Election section. In my mark-up below, I simply moved the existing information about his election under a new header, U.S. House of Representatives.


 * There is no information about MacArthur's tenure in Congress, including his committee assignments or legislation. In my mark-up below, I created a U.S. House of Representatives section, and included the information that is commonly included on a Member of Congress's page.


 * MacArthur's personal life section is outdated, as he has since permanently moved. I also added information about the MacArthurs' charitable foundation, which I believe is a specific and sensible addition that a reader would benefit from learning.

Because of the above, I've drafted some updated sections that I'd like to propose, followed by markup.

{{hidden|header=Markup language|content= content= ==U.S. House of Representatives==

2014
When Jon Runyan, a Republican who represented NJ's 3rd congressional district in the United States House of Representatives, announced that he would not run for reelection in 2014, MacArthur chose to run for the Republican Party nomination. MacArthur resigned from the Randolph council to move into the congressional district. He ran against Steve Lonegan in the Republican Party's primary election, and defeated him. He faced Aimee Belgard of the Democratic Party in the general election.

MacArthur defeated Belgard by an 11-point margin, winning the popular vote in both Ocean and Burlington Counties.

Legislation sponsored
On February 2nd, 2015, MacArthur introduced the "Disaster Assistance Fairness and Accountability Act of 2015" that will prevent the Federal Emergency Management Agency from taking back disaster relief funds from individuals who applied for them in good faith.

On March 25th, 2015, MacArthur introduced the "Veterans' Mental Health Care Access Act" to allow veterans with a Choice Card to access mental health care at any facility eligible for reimbursement by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Committee assignments

 * Committee on Armed Services
 * Subcommittee on Tactical Air and Land Forces
 * Subcommittee on Military Personnel (Vice Chairman)
 * Committee on Natural Resources
 * Subcommittee on Federal Lands
 * Subcommittee on Water, Power, and Oceans
 * headerstyle=background:#ccccff}}

Looking forward to working with you! Please let me know if there are questions or other ways I can improve. ChloeTMacStaff (talk) 18:11, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

Role in ACA repeal attempt is lead-worthy
The version of the ACA repeal that passed the House is referred to as the ACA bill with the MacArthur amendment. It's a pretty big deal in a congressional career to have played a key role in almost (by one vote in the Senate) repealing the Affordable Care Act. Thus, it belongs in the lead. Furthermore, when he lost his re-election bid, his important role in ACA repeal efforts was cited as a reason. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 23:51, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
 * , if that is true, then the content should be supported by text in the main body of the article with appropriate sourcing to support it before adding it to the lead. A ping would be helpful in the future if you need a response, especially on a new thread. – wallyfromdilbert (talk) 00:40, 23 February 2020 (UTC)
 * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_MacArthur#Healthcare . Snooganssnoogans (talk) 00:44, 23 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes, that is a good section where you could put the information. As it is currently written, I think it would make more sense if the lead paragraph mentioned it in relation to his unnsuccessful reelection, or mentioned the "MacArthur Amendment". Maybe something like, "In 2017, he proposed the "MacArthur Amendment", which would have allowed states to waive out of the ban on pre-existing conditions and helped revive Republican efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act. The repeal effort was ultimately unsuccessful, but it inspired Democrat Andy Kim to challenge him in the 2018 general election, which MacArthur lost." What do you think? – wallyfromdilbert (talk) 01:14, 23 February 2020 (UTC)
 * I don't think the "it inspired Democrat Andy Kim to challenge him in the 2018 general election, which MacArthur lost." is particularly pertinent. He was going to be challenged anyway. What will cement MacArthur's place in history is that he almost repealed the ACA. I will add the first part to the lead. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 15:07, 13 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I don't fully understand why this text does not provide the long-term easy-to-understand encyclopedic language that gets to the gist of this: "MacArthur played an important role in Republicans' 2017 efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). After having initially voted no on a January 2017 bill to repeal the ACA, MacArthur proposed a revised version of the repeal bill in April 2017 that passed the House of the Representatives. The repeal effort was defeated in the Senate in a narrow vote where Republican senators Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, and John McCain joined with all Senate Democrats in voting against it." Your proposed version doesn't note how close it came to repealing the ACA. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 15:08, 13 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Obviously I disagree that the language you are using is "long-term easy-to-understand encyclopedic language", and I don't think that it accurately reflects the weight of the sources (also, note that MacArthur did not propose a revised bill; he introduced an amendment to an already existing bill). I am not sure how the details of the Senate vote are relevant for the lead of MacArthur's article. They are not particularly notable for his biography, and they are more appropriately detailed in the main body. – wallyfromdilbert (talk) 22:53, 13 March 2020 (UTC)
 * That he was the architect of the bill that come close (one vote) to repealing the ACA is clearly relevant. Mentioning that this was the Collins, Murkowski and McCain vote (a vote that readers might actually remember or be aware of) will provide readers with the info they need to connect events. There have been multiple attempts to repeal the ACA. I don't understand why we should place a burden on readers to try to figure out which one it was. And it's not like the lead is filled to the brim with other content, so there are no size-constraints. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 23:06, 13 March 2020 (UTC)
 * He was not the architect of the American Health Care Act of 2017. I added a link to the MacArthur Amendment in the lead so that the specific details can remain in the body of the article. The lead should focus on details that are relevant to MacArthur's life. – wallyfromdilbert (talk) 01:04, 14 March 2020 (UTC)