Rep. Sanford Bishop (D)

The congressman from the 2d District is Sanford Bishop, a Democrat first elected in 1992. Bishop grew up in Mobile, Ala., where his father was a college president. He went to Morehouse College in Atlanta, where he was student body president in 1968 and sang at Martin Luther King Jr.’s funeral. He went to Emory Law School, then served in the Army. After a year in New York, he settled in Columbus to practice law. He was elected to the state Legislature in 1976 at age 29. He served there until 1990, when he was elected to the Georgia Senate. In 1992, he ran for the U.S. House against Democratic Rep. Charles Hatcher, who, with more than 800 check overdrafts, was tarred by the House bank scandal that year. Bishop defeated Hatcher in the runoff 53%-47% and won the general election 64%-36%.

Bishop is a moderate Democrat who calls himself a “traditionalist” on cultural issues. His style is nonconfrontational. Along with Rep. Artur Davis, D-Ala., he has a voting record that’s among the most conservative in the Congressional Black Caucus. He is also a member of the conservative Blue Dog Democrats and supported a balanced budget, school prayer, a ban on flag burning and a proposed amendment to prohibit same-sex marriage. He was one of 10 House Democrats to vote for President Bush's tax cuts in 2001.

In 2003, Bishop won a long-sought seat on the Appropriations Committee. He has worked to safeguard his district’s military facilities and has delivered funds to its military installations. Bishop also has been active on farm programs. He worked with the Republican House majority in 1996 on the Freedom to Farm Act to fashion a “market-oriented, no-net cost” program for peanuts. In 2002, he helped to craft the scaled-back program for peanut support, which was based on phasing out quotas and price guarantees. On the 2008 farm bill, he again was focused on the peanut farmers in his district. He helped design the peanut-rotation program, which he said encourages “a cleaner, greener method of planting while ensuring an affordable and accessible supply to the markets that rely on U.S.-grown peanuts.”

After the Democrats won control of the House in 2006, Bishop was considered for the chairmanship of the Intelligence Committee, but it ultimately went to Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas. Instead, Bishop gained seats on the constituent-friendly Agriculture, Defense and Military Construction subcommittees at Appropriations. In 2007, he got committee approval for $74 million for peanut storage in the Iraq War supplemental spending bill. When Bush objected, Bishop responded that the money would help farmers compete internationally. In 2008, he won passage of an amendment to the defense spending bill that provided 180 days of health care for military members who transition from active to reserve status.

In 2000, Bishop faced serious re-election competition from Dylan Glenn, a former aide to George H.W. Bush on the staff of the Republican National Committee. The contest between two African-Americans in a rural, then majority-white district was unprecedented, but race was not an issue in the campaign. Bishop largely ignored the challenger and ran on his record, while Glenn offered the perspective of a new generation focusing on economic growth. Bishop won 54%-46%. Redistricting changes made a serious challenge less likely. Bishop contemplated a run in 2008 against Sen. Saxby Chambliss, but decided to stay in the House, where his seniority gives him growing influence. He was an early supporter of Democrat Barack Obama for president, though his wife, Vivian Creighton Bishop, who is prominent at home as the municipal court clerk for Muscogee County, actively backed Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton.