About Gregg
Gregg Harper’s first experience in politics was as a college student serving as the phone bank chairman for Judge Charles Pickering’s 1978 U.S. Senate campaign. After working to help Judge Pickering, electing conservatives to public office became a passion for Gregg. He served as the Republican Chairman for Rankin County, Mississippi’s largest Republican County, for eight years, and as a former member of the state Republican Executive Committee, he worked in many races as well as organizing grassroots efforts to elect Republican governors, Republican senators, and Republican congressmen.
Gregg Harper has continued to work in the trenches helping to grow the Republican Party. He served as a Mississippi Delegate to the 2000, 2004, and 2008 Republican National Conventions, and was a legal volunteer in 2000 for the Bush-Gore recount in West Palm Beach, Florida and for Jim Talent’s 2002 Senate race in Missouri. Gregg also served as a Republican Representative on the Mississippi Secretary of State’s Election Task Force in 2001 and authored a Minority Report in support of Voter Identification.
Gregg was the Rankin County chairman for Chief Justice Jim Smith’s re-election to the Mississippi Supreme Court in 2000, and served on the campaign steering committees for Congressman Chip Pickering, Lt. Governor Amy Tuck, and Lt. Governor Phil Bryant. He served as the 2007 Get Out the Vote chairman for Rankin County, and his leadership resulted in the county having the highest percentage turnout of registered voters and highest number of Republican voters in the state of Mississippi.
The son of a former petroleum engineer and a mom who worked two days a week until she was 88 years old, Gregg learned the value of hard work and the importance of a solid education. However, no two things in Gregg’s life have been more foundational and important to him than his Christian faith and his family. The Harpers are members of Crossgates Baptist Church in Brandon, Mississippi, where he is a deacon and served for many years as a college Sunday School teacher. Gregg also served as the board attorney for the Mississippi Baptist Children’s Village until his election to Congress.
His wife, Sidney, and he have been married for 32 years, and are the parents to Livingston and Maggie, who are both students at Mississippi State University. Gregg’s passion is serving others and ministering to those less fortunate. One particular ministry that is personal to Sidney and to him is working to help parents raising children with special needs.
Gregg has been an active member of the Pearl Chamber of Commerce, the Rankin County Chamber of Commerce, and is an avid supporter of Pearl public schools where both he and his children graduated from high school. As a strong advocate for our Second Amendment rights, Gregg is a Life Member of the National Rifle Association.
Gregg Harper graduated from Mississippi College in 1978 with a Chemistry degree and from the University of Mississippi Law School in 1981. He was a practicing attorney for over twenty-seven years and served as the prosecuting attorney for the cities of Brandon and Richland.
Currently in his second term of Congress, Gregg serves his congressional district and his state on the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, where he is a member of the Subcommittee on Environment and the Economy and the Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade. Additionally, he was appointed by Speaker John Boehner to serve his second term on the Committee on House Administration, where he is the chairman of the Subcommittee on Elections, and is one of only ten members on Committee on Ethics. For the past two terms in Congress, his peers have elected him to represent their class on the Republican Steering Committee.
For as long as he can remember, Gregg Harper has had a desire to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives. After working for many years to help build the Mississippi Republican Party, Gregg’s longtime desire was realized on January 6, 2009 when he took the Oath of Office in Washington, D.C. Congressman Harper is humbled by the honor to represent Mississippi in our nation’s capital.