Education: U. of MD, 1963-67, U of Baltimore, J.D. 1970
Professional Career: Prosecutor, Baltimore Cnty. State's Atty. Office, 1970-75.
Political Career: Baltimore Cnty. Cncl. 1986-94; Baltimore Cnty. exec., 1994-2002.
Ethnicity: White/Caucasian
Religion: Methodist
Family: Married (Kay); 2 children
The congressman from the 2nd District is Dutch Ruppersberger, a Democrat elected in 2002 in a district drawn specifically for him. Ruppersberger grew up in Baltimore, attended the University of Maryland, and graduated from the University of Baltimore Law School. Working as a Baltimore County assistant state’s attorney, Ruppersberger had a near-fatal car accidentin 1975while investigating a drug-trafficking case. When he asked his doctors at the University of Maryland’s Shock Trauma Center how he could thank them, he said, they urged him to run for office so he could fund their facility. In 1986, he won a seat on the Baltimore County Council and made good on his promise to help the hospital. In1994, he was elected Baltimore County executive, a position once held by Republican Vice President Spiro Agnew. Read More
The congressman from the 2nd District is Dutch Ruppersberger, a Democrat elected in 2002 in a district drawn specifically for him. Ruppersberger grew up in Baltimore, attended the University of Maryland, and graduated from the University of Baltimore Law School. Working as a Baltimore County assistant state’s attorney, Ruppersberger had a near-fatal car accidentin 1975while investigating a drug-trafficking case. When he asked his doctors at the University of Maryland’s Shock Trauma Center how he could thank them, he said, they urged him to run for office so he could fund their facility. In 1986, he won a seat on the Baltimore County Council and made good on his promise to help the hospital. In1994, he was elected Baltimore County executive, a position once held by Republican Vice President Spiro Agnew.
Barred from seeking a third term in 2002, Ruppersberger seriously considered running for governor. But he was dissuaded by state party leaders who felt he was too politically vulnerable at the time. In 2000, he had backed a plan to give him the power of eminent domain to redevelop large pieces of the county, but in a resounding rebuke, voters rejected it 2-to-1 in a referendum. Compounding the situation for Ruppersberger was a damaging story in The Baltimore Sun saying that he had given county work to a firm to which he had financial ties. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, the daughter of the late Robert F. Kennedy, became the gubernatorial candidate, while Ruppersberger got a favorable district for a House run when Democrats redrew the congressional map.
However, he was still weakened politically and faced a primary fight. His little-known opponent, investment banker Osman Bengur, spent more than $500,000 of his own money. But the state’s Democratic establishment lined up behind Ruppersberger, and he won 50%-36%. The fall campaign was not much easier. The open seat attracted former Republican Rep. Helen Delich Bentley, who held the 2nd District seat for a decade until she ran, unsuccessfully, for governor in 1994. With a strong record of constituent service and cross-party popularity, she had a chance to overcome the new district’s Democratic leanings. Both candidates supported additional dredging of shipping channels in the Chesapeake Bay plus increased port security. Ruppersberger won, 54%-46%. His popular-vote margin was more than 13,000 in the small part of the district in Baltimore city, which he carried 79%-21%, and only 3,000 in the rest of the district.
In the House, Ruppersberger has had the least liberal voting record among Democrats from Maryland. With the help of Baltimore native and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, he became the first freshman appointed to the Intelligence Committee, where he called for expanded oversight of the intelligence agencies and for shifting resources from the Iraq war to terrorist “safe havens” in Afghanistan. Pelosi in January 2011 named him the panel’s ranking Democrat over several other lawmakers, including her close friend Anna Eshoo of California.
Ruppersberger has not hesitated to criticize the Obama administration—he said in April 2009 that he had not been adequately consulted on its ambitious plan to buy and launch spy satellites, and worked to add language to the fiscal 2010 intelligence authorization bill to ensure better oversight of satellite programs. In early 2010, he threw his support behind a House-passed bill to strengthen cyber security, an area he said had been neglected under Obama. He is a frequent participant at events held by “the Cockroaches,” a group of several hundred current and former intelligence officials, contractors and others in the spy world that meets for periodic off-the-record dinners.
In other areas, Ruppersberger initiatedOperation Hero Miles to facilitate the use of frequent-flyer miles to assist U.S. troops in Iraq traveling home on civilian airlines during the Christmas season, and made the program permanent by including it in the Defense Department spending bill. Concerned about the potential sale of shipping operations at the Port of Baltimore to the United Arab Emirates, he helped to enact port-security legislation.
Ruppersberger has been re-elected easily. His earlier statewide ambitions have dimmed with the election of other Baltimore-area Democrats to vacant seats for governor and the Senate.
National Journal’s rating system is an objective method of analyzing voting. The liberal score means that the lawmaker’s votes were more liberal than that percentage of his colleagues’ votes. The conservative score means his votes were more conservative than that percentage of his colleagues’ votes. The composite score is an average of a lawmaker’s six issue-based scores. See all NJ Voting
More Liberal
More Conservative
2012
2011
2010
Economic
65
(L) : 34 (C)
67
(L) : 33 (C)
65
(L) : 34 (C)
Social
64
(L) : 35 (C)
63
(L) : 37 (C)
61
(L) : 35 (C)
Foreign
60
(L) : 39 (C)
61
(L) : 38 (C)
56
(L) : 38 (C)
Composite
63.5
(L) : 36.5 (C)
63.8
(L) : 36.2 (C)
62.5
(L) : 37.5 (C)
Interest Group Ratings
The vote ratings by 10 special interest groups provide insight into a lawmaker’s general ideology and the degree to which he or she agrees with the group’s point of view. Some organizations provide just one combined rating for 2009 and 2010, the two sessions of the 111th Congress. About the interest groups.
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The first Almanac of American Politics was published in 1971, and it hasn’t missed an election since.
The nation’s most authoritative source of information about members of Congress, their districts,
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