The congressman from the 2nd District is John (Jimmy) Duncan, a Republican first elected in 1988. He has been a frequent maverick on economic and foreign policy issues, something that has hindered his ascension up the House GOP ranks. Read More

The congressman from the 2nd District is John (Jimmy) Duncan, a Republican first elected in 1988. He has been a frequent maverick on economic and foreign policy issues, something that has hindered his ascension up the House GOP ranks.

His father, who was the senior Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee, represented the 2nd District from 1964 until his death in May 1988. Jimmy Duncan got a bachelor’s degree in journalism at the University of Tennessee and a law degree from George Washington University. He practiced law and was a trial judge in the 1980s. When his father died, he won the seat despite a spirited challenge from Democrat Dudley Taylor, a scion of another prominent East Tennessee political family. Taylor attacked Duncan for his ties to scandal-tarred banker and Democratic politician Jake Butcher. But Duncan won with 57% in November. He has not been seriously challenged since then.

While Duncan is known for his independence, he has become more inclined to side with his party in recent years. He was one of just 10 Republicans in April 2009 to vote in favor of the Democrats’ bill to curb employee bonuses at financial companies receiving government bailout funds. In July 2009, he was one of two Republicans to support expanded regulatory oversight of all executive compensation. In April 2011, he voted against the compromise that Republicans struck with President Obama on the fiscal 2011 budget to avert a shutdown. Duncan opposed normal trade relations with China and the Bush administration’s 2001 No Child Left Behind education law that imposed mandatory testing on schools. In October 2002, he was one of six Republicans—and the only Tennessean—who voted against the use of force in Iraq. He argued that there was not sufficient proof that Iraqi Leader Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. He did please some anti-government conservatives in November 2010 when he took to the House floor to declaim the Transportation Security Administration’s “very embarrassing, intrusive” procedures for pat-down searches of airport travelers.

But his contrariness has had its price. Duncan was a candidate for the chairmanship of the House Resources Committee in 2003, but Republican Speaker Dennis Hastert passed over him and five other senior Republicans to give the post to the more loyal Richard Pombo of California. When Republicans recaptured the House in 2010, the Resources chairmanship went to the more loyal Doc Hastings of Washington state. In 2006, Duncan made a big push for the top Republican position on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. But he lost to John Mica of Florida, who was more junior but, once again, more of a party regular. In 2011, Duncan became chairman of the committee’s Subcommittee on Highways and Transit, where he sought to play a major role in getting a multi-year surface transportation bill into law. He has disdained “radical environmentalists” whom he accused in a June 2010 floor speech of being insensitive to rural Americans: “Most of them are city people, anyway. They probably think it would be good if everyone was forced to live in 25 or 30 urban areas, with the country left totally empty.”

Before joining his caucus’ push to ban earmarks, Duncan wasn’t shy about seeking funding for local projects, from resurfacing the Foothills Parkway in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park to a rail and trolley system for downtown Knoxville. Another of his legislative interests has been a bill to require the disclosure of contributions to presidential libraries, which the House passed in 2009 by a 388-31 vote. The Senate did not act on it, and he reintroduced it in 2011.

In Knoxville, Duncan’s annual barbecue dinner draws as many as 5,000 people and reinforces his local popularity. Although he shows no signs of retiring, when Duncan does decide to leave Congress, his son, John Duncan III, is said to be interested in the seat. The younger Duncan was elected Knox County trustee in 2010.