Rep. Fred Upton (R)

The congressman from the 6th District is Fred Upton, a Republican first elected in 1986. The grandson of one of the founders of Whirlpool, Upton grew up in St. Joseph, attended the University of Michigan and worked for David Stockman, first on Stockman’s congressional staff, then from 1981 to 1985 at the White House in OMB. Upton returned home and ran in the 1986 Republican primary against Rep. Mark Siljander, a conservative and evangelical Christian, and won 55%-45%. Upton is less like the congressional David Stockman, a scourge when it came to federal spending, and more like the OMB Stockman, who rued the Reagan tax cuts.

Upton has a moderate voting record, and he freely exercised his independence when his party controlled the House from 1995 to 2006. He sought, with limited success, to use his leverage to reduce the size of tax cuts during the Bush presidency. He has backed increases in the minimum wage, increased funding for Amtrak, and Democratic measures to expand the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. He also voted with Democrats to preserve the Endangered Species Act and to expand embryonic-stem-cell research, which uses discarded embryos from in vitro fertilization; both positions were at odds with those of his party. In February 2007, he broke with his party to oppose the Bush administration plan for a “surge” of troop strength in Iraq. “The Iraqis don’t want us there. We’re viewed as part of the problem, not the solution,” he said. But he later backed Bush’s veto of Democratic proposals to restrict spending on the war.

Upton is the third most senior Republican on the Energy and Commerce Committee, and is a strong candidate to become the top Republican on the panel in 2011, when the current ranking member, Republican Joe Barton of Texas, reaches his term limit. Next in line in seniority is Ralph Hall of Texas, but Hall will turn 88 in 2011, and would unlikely be the party’s choice for such a critical committee post. Upton has been particularly involved in telecommunications issues on the committee and chaired the Telecommunications Subcommittee for six years when Republicans controlled the House. He supported a bill to allow regional telephone companies to provide broadband service more easily, and he pushed for higher fines against broadcasters for indecent programming, from $32,500 to $325,000. He also criticized the recording industry for inadequate parental advisory labels on music that contains sex, violence or strong language, but took the view that the First Amendment bars Congress from regulating the content. Bush signed his bill to create a “safe playground for kids” on the Internet, free of pornography and other inappropriate material. Overall, Upton has backed deregulation of the broadcast industry, including the lifting of cross-ownership media bans in the same market. In his committee work, Upton also has been a big booster of additional nuclear power facilities. As the one-time chairman of the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, Upton investigated the Salt Lake City Olympics scandal and defects in Firestone-Bridgestone tires.

Upton has been re-elected by wide margins. But in 2008, his defeat of outspoken liberal Kalamazoo City Councilor Don Cooney by 59% to 39% was his lowest percentage win since 1990, and was reflective of his gradually declining winning percentages in Berrien and Kalamazoo counties. In the 2006 election, he defeated Kim Clark, a modestly financed theater owner and former television producer, with 61%.