The congressman from the 2nd District is Trent Franks, a Republican first elected in 2002. He grew up in Colorado, attended college briefly, and started his own oil-and-gas exploration business. His political career began when he won a single term in the Arizona House in 1984. There, he was known for wearing a tie tack in the shape of the feet of a fetus, as a constant reminder of his anti-abortion-rights views. In 1987, he was the director of the Governor’s Office for Children under Evan Mecham, a conservative Republican who was later impeached. In 1989, he became executive director of the Arizona Family Research Institute, an organization associated with James Dobson’s Focus on the Family, and he was a consultant to conservative Pat Buchanan’s presidential campaign. Franks fought unsuccessfully for a 1992 ballot initiative to limit abortion rights. He designed the state’s 1997 scholarship tax credit legislation, a much litigated measure that ultimately was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court. The plan provides tax credits for donations to nonprofit organizations to help families pay for private education. In 1994, he ran for an open U.S. House seat but lost to John Shadegg in the Republican primary, 43%-30%. Read More

The congressman from the 2nd District is Trent Franks, a Republican first elected in 2002. He grew up in Colorado, attended college briefly, and started his own oil-and-gas exploration business. His political career began when he won a single term in the Arizona House in 1984. There, he was known for wearing a tie tack in the shape of the feet of a fetus, as a constant reminder of his anti-abortion-rights views. In 1987, he was the director of the Governor’s Office for Children under Evan Mecham, a conservative Republican who was later impeached. In 1989, he became executive director of the Arizona Family Research Institute, an organization associated with James Dobson’s Focus on the Family, and he was a consultant to conservative Pat Buchanan’s presidential campaign. Franks fought unsuccessfully for a 1992 ballot initiative to limit abortion rights. He designed the state’s 1997 scholarship tax credit legislation, a much litigated measure that ultimately was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court. The plan provides tax credits for donations to nonprofit organizations to help families pay for private education. In 1994, he ran for an open U.S. House seat but lost to John Shadegg in the Republican primary, 43%-30%.

In 2002, Republican Rep. Bob Stump announced he was retiring and endorsed Lisa Atkins, his chief of staff throughout his 26-year congressional career. When the campaign started, Franks was not in the top tier of candidates. But his base of Christian conservatives and abortion opponents, plus an infusion into his campaign of $300,000 of his own money, made him a contender. Franks spent heavily on radio ads, and he benefited from the distribution of a voter guide by the Center for Arizona Policy, which described itself as “the only organization in Arizona actively fighting in the Legislature and media for conservative, traditional views on gambling, homosexuality, and pornography.” Franks called for overturning the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion and for constitutional protection for fetuses. He endorsed a flat tax as a step toward eliminating the federal income tax, supported individual investment accounts in Social Security, and called for tougher enforcement of immigration laws. His base of activists made the difference. He finished first with 28% of the vote, only 797 votes ahead of Atkins, who got 26%. In November, he won 60%-37%.

In the House, Franks has accumulated one of the GOP’s most conservative voting records while emerging as one of its fiercest rhetorical firebrands. He was among the first House Republicans to join the Tea Party Caucus in 2010. He introduced a bill in 2009 making it a crime for practitioners to perform abortions based on the sex or race of a child. And he wrote an anti-child pornography bill. In the 111th Congress (2009-10), he disappointed members of the Surprise City Council when he withdrew several submitted earmark requests in response to the House GOP’s self-imposed earmark ban, including a $10 million project to build an interchange at a busy intersection. He proved his outsider stripes by announcing he had no interest in serving on the Appropriations Committee, which controls the government purse strings and is ground zero for earmarked spending. But he succumbed to pressure from Republican leaders and earned their gratitude in December 2003 by switching his vote to support the Medicare prescription drug bill during a tension-filled, three-hour roll-call vote. Many conservatives opposed the massive expansion of the program to pay for prescription drugs for senior citizens.

On the Armed Services Committee, Franks has strongly supported missile defense and he unsuccessfully sought in 2009 to amend the defense authorization bill to restore a proposed $1.2 billion cut in the program. After his appointment to a House GOP group on national security in April 2010, he said President Barack Obama “has enacted policies that embolden our enemies and alienate and endanger many of America’s most cherished allies.” From 2007 to 2009, he was the ranking Republican on the Constitution Subcommittee of Judiciary, where he worked to promote building a fence along the country’s borders to stem illegal immigration. In 2009, Franks became the ranking Republican on the Commercial and Administrative Law Subcommittee of Judiciary. On a personal note, he has encouraged public awareness of facial deformity similar to the one he has battled. Franks has had multiple surgeries to correct a cleft palate.

In his first bid for re-election in 2004, Franks faced a competitive primary against Rick Murphy, a free-spending radio station owner, who hammered Franks for supporting the prescription drug bill. Murphy was endorsed by several local Republican officials who complained about their lack of contact with Franks. Murphy also attacked Franks for abandoning his promise not to take money from political action committees. Franks won 64%-36%. He narrowly lost Mohave County, but he took 68% in Maricopa, which cast 76% of the total vote. In November, Franks won 59%-39%.

Franks has won re-election easily in recent years. In the early maneuvering for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination, Franks backed Duncan Hunter of California, the top Republican on the Armed Services Committee, as “an unequivocal social conservative and fiscal conservative” over home-state favorite Sen. John McCain. In November 2008, he called newly elected Obama “the most dangerous president the country has ever had,” and in September 2009, he castigated Obama as “an enemy of humanity” because of his support for abortion rights. Franks also angered African-Americans when he declared in 2010 that their population has been decimated more by abortions than by slavery.