The congressman from the 1st District is Peter Visclosky, a Democrat first elected in 1984. Visclosky grew up in Lake County. His father was mayor of Gary in the early 1960s, and Visclosky went to college there and to law school at the University of Notre Dame. He practiced law and then worked for six years in Washington for 1st District Rep. Adam Benjamin, a Democrat. Benjamin died suddenly of a heart ailment in 1982, and Visclosky returned to Indiana. In 1984, he ran for the seat in the Democratic primary against Katie Hall, a black state senator who had been given the 1982 nomination—and thus the election, in this Democratic district—by Gary Mayor Richard Hatcher, who was also the district’s party chairman. In the 1984 contest, she faced a determined Visclosky, who pulled out all the stops to connect with voters since he couldn’t rely on the local Democratic establishment, which was backing Hall. He called himself the “Slovak Kid” to connect with the district’s many European ethnic groups, and he held hot dog dinners to attract young people and others not usually steeped in local politics. Visclosky narrowly prevailed over Hall with 34% of the vote to her 33%. Read More

The congressman from the 1st District is Peter Visclosky, a Democrat first elected in 1984. Visclosky grew up in Lake County. His father was mayor of Gary in the early 1960s, and Visclosky went to college there and to law school at the University of Notre Dame. He practiced law and then worked for six years in Washington for 1st District Rep. Adam Benjamin, a Democrat. Benjamin died suddenly of a heart ailment in 1982, and Visclosky returned to Indiana. In 1984, he ran for the seat in the Democratic primary against Katie Hall, a black state senator who had been given the 1982 nomination—and thus the election, in this Democratic district—by Gary Mayor Richard Hatcher, who was also the district’s party chairman. In the 1984 contest, she faced a determined Visclosky, who pulled out all the stops to connect with voters since he couldn’t rely on the local Democratic establishment, which was backing Hall. He called himself the “Slovak Kid” to connect with the district’s many European ethnic groups, and he held hot dog dinners to attract young people and others not usually steeped in local politics. Visclosky narrowly prevailed over Hall with 34% of the vote to her 33%.

Visclosky’s voting record has trended moderate, and he concentrates much of his effort on projects to help the local economy, especially the steel industry. He has a solid pro-union voting record. He is a leader of the Congressional Steel Caucus and has been vigilant in monitoring surges in steel imports. When George W. Bush was elected president in 2000 with critical help from steel-producing areas, Visclosky had greater leverage, and Bush did impose steel import quotas. But when the quotas were removed, Visclosky protested that Bush “stabbed the American steelworkers in the back.” In 2008 and 2009, he sought to require that federally funded projects use only American-made steel, and he called for increased duties on subsidized steel, especially steel from China. Two years later, he led the Steel Caucus in calling for an investigation into China’s investment in an American steel company. He opposed the House-passed bill in 2009 establishing a cap-and-trade system to curb greenhouse gas emissions because it “leaves no margin of error as it relates to jobs in the domestic steel industry.”

As the chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development, Visclosky was one of the powerful “cardinals” of the House. But he was forced to step aside, at least temporarily, in June 2009 after he was subpoenaed as part of a grand jury investigation into possible corruption. The next-in-line in seniority, Democrat Ed Pastor of Arizona, took over the subcommittee for the duration of the investigation, and the following year also oversaw the fiscal 2011 energy and water spending bill. In 2007, The Indianapolis Star reported that Visclosky had steered more than $12 million to out-of-state defense companies that contributed to his campaign. Much of that federal money had been secured through the efforts of a lobbying firm, PMA Group, that hired a former top Visclosky aide, Richard Kaelin, the newspaper reported. Visclosky said he expected to be cleared of wrongdoing. “I have always abided by the law and adhered to the rules and code of ethics of the House,” he said in a June 2, 2009, statement. The Committee on Standards of Official Conduct (Ethics) formally cleared him and six other Appropriations members in February 2010, but a Justice Department investigation reportedly was still ongoing.

Visclosky has been adept at securing federal funding for projects in his district and doling them out to other lawmakers. One of his efforts was passing an exemption to the federal Johnson Act that made Lake Michigan waters eligible for gambling and thus allowing riverboat casinos for Gary. On broader national issues, Visclosky in 2007 rejected the Bush administration’s request for $89 million for a new nuclear warhead, and he slashed from $405 million to $120 million the administration’s proposed funding for reprocessing fuel rods in nuclear power plants, which was opposed by environmentalists.

At home, Visclosky appeared secure until he became a target in the corruption probe in early 2009. But Republicans had trouble finding a candidate who could compete in the costly Chicago media market, and the GOP nomination again fell to Mark Leyva, a carpenter who had lost four previous races to Visclosky. All Leyva could do was narrow the margin of victory for Visclosky, who won with 59% of the vote.