User:Andrew Stephenson
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Introduction
My main area of responsibility is the economy and budget, but I'm also in charge of the Club for Growth, United Kingdom, Germany, Netherlands and co-ordinating foreign travel. Prior to becoming an admin at the end of December 2006 I spent 12 months as a Republican, and prior to that 7 months as a Democrat. I am often referred to by the nickname of "Stephy" (which I almost reluctantly came to accept after Republicans started calling me that upon joining their party), but have previously also been referred to as "Stevie" and "Steph". I live in Australia and am the only non-American admin at USG.
Player/Admin History
Reset 4
Joined USG on June 10th, 2005 as Andrew Stephenson (D-PA), a fairly mainstream Democrat who supported free trade. After spending 4 years in the House (2015-18), I ran in the Mid-Atlantic Senate race, defeating Karen Dayton Deveraux (D-PA) in an internal party primary and Skyla Mayne (R-PA) in the general election, receiving 57.5% of the vote. I spent 2 years in the Senate before the game had a reset at the end of 2020, roughly the end of 2005 in actual time.
Reset 5
Then member of the Republican Party, who would join the admin team a few weeks into the reset, Jonathan Hayes convinced me to switch parties when the reset happened. Thus began a year of Andrew Stephenson (R-CT), a moderate Republican from New England who I described as a cross between John McCain and Lincoln Chafee. In 2008 I ran against William Scott (D-MA) for one of the New England Senate seats, resulting in a tight loss with 48.9% of the vote.
I spent 2 years in the House, during which the highlight was delaying the Federal Budget in the House Budget Committee long enough to restrict the amount of time the Democrats had in the Senate before the shut down deadline arrived, thus almost derailing the budget despite a minority in both the House and Senate. At the end of that I again ran for the Senate again in 2010, this time against Governor Scott Schroeder, and won with 50.2% of the vote.
In the Senate I had a tendency to be a bit of a maverick, voting against the party line quite often, including being the deciding vote in confirming Governor James Anderson (D-IL) as Secretary of Homeland Security.
In 2012 I ran in the Republican Presidential Primary, pulling off a win in the early state of New Hampshire, but failing to get any serious momentum after that.
The game reset at the end of 2014, when my character was up for re-election.
Reset 6
Just as I had left the Democratic Party 12 months earlier, I left the Republican Party in the midst of a USG reset, this time to become an admin in December 2006. Initially having responsibility for Australia and New Zealand, I gave up control of those countries due to time constraints. From mid-2007 on, once my real life commitments relaxed, I began to take on a few more responsibilities, picking up responsibility for the United Kingdom, Germany, Netherlands and foreign travel. Along with Hayden, I am the only day to day admin who is not responsible for a region within USG.