Florida at a Glance State Profile - Gov. Bush (R) - Sen. Graham (D) - Sen. Nelson (D) Presidential Politics Congressional Districting - 01 - Miller (R) - 02 - Boyd Jr. (D) - 03 - Brown (D) - 04 - Crenshaw (R) - 05 - Thurman (D) - 06 - Stearns (R) - 07 - Mica (R) - 08 - Keller (R) - 09 - Bilirakis (R) - 10 - Young (R) - 11 - Davis (D) - 12 - Putnam (R) - 13 - Miller (R) - 14 - Goss (R) - 15 - Weldon (R) - 16 - Foley (R) - 17 - Meek (D) - 18 - Ros-Lehtinen (R) - 19 - Wexler (D) - 20 - Deutsch (D) - 21 - Diaz-Balart (R) - 22 - Shaw Jr. (R) - 23 - Hastings (D) Almanac 2002 Home States & Districts Elected Officials For district profiles and additional information on the elected officials of Florida, please use the pull-down menu above.

Tampa is one of America's boomtowns whose history goes back just a little more than a century. Its industrial past can be traced to 1886, when Cuban cigarmakers left Key West for what became the Ybor City neighborhood of Tampa. Soon after, it was the major takeoff spot for U.S. troops in the Spanish-American War of 1898. It also became a major citrus distribution center. The old industrial city developed along the waterfront, where today you can find the world's longest sidewalk (6.5 miles along Bayshore Boulevard) and still see the 13 minarets of Tampa pioneer Henry B. Plant's 1890s Arabian-style Tampa Bay Hotel (long since taken over by the University of Tampa). For a time, Tampa was Florida's one industrial city. Now, with a diversified economy, a fast-growing service sector, tourist attractions led by Busch Gardens, and a famously pleasant and convenient airport, it has moved ahead, with subdivisions and condominiums, office towers and low-rise commercial buildings spreading inland across swamps and lowlands.

Through all this, and in contrast to St. Petersburg with its many retirees, Tampa has remained a city of families and young people, a place with a blue-collar past that is quickly moving upscale as it expands--with a major league baseball franchise since 1995 and the Super Bowl in 2001. The Bureau of Labor Statistics called it the number-one area nationwide in job growth in 1999. Tampa is an important military command center: Central Command, which ran the Gulf war, is headquartered at the still-thriving MacDill Air Force Base, and General Norman Schwarzkopf, a strong supporter of George W. Bush in 2000, remains a Tampa-area resident.

The 11th Congressional District of Florida consists of Tampa and two-thirds of surrounding Hillsborough County. Tampa was historically Democratic as St. Petersburg was Republican, though the two sides of Tampa Bay have more or less converged politically; in 2000 Hillsborough cast a majority for George W. Bush while Pinellas went for Al Gore. But the 11th District voted twice for Bill Clinton and then for Gore.

The congressman from the 11th District is Jim Davis, a Democrat first elected in 1996. Davis grew up in Tampa, returned after law school, was elected in 1988, at 31, to the state House. There he showed insider skills and interests, favoring a requirement that criminals serve 85% of their sentences and rewriting the education formula to help Hillsborough County. After the 1994 election he was elected state House Majority Leader--the last Democrat to hold that job, since Republicans won a majority in 1996. That year, Congressman Sam Gibbons decided to retire after 34 years, including seven months as Ways and Means chairman and a frustrating final two years in the minority. Davis was far from the best-known candidate, but he showed great skill at raising money and was the only one running TV ads for the September primary. Sandy Freedman, Tampa's mayor from 1986-95, led that contest with 35%, to 25% for Davis. Both supported the balanced budget amendment, the 1996 welfare reform and called for more managed care. Davis won the runoff 56%-44% and in the general faced Republican Mark Sharpe, who had given Gibbons two close contests. He attacked Davis as a fan of higher taxes and a career politician. Davis insisted he was a New Democrat, supporting the Defense of Marriage Act and opposing the penny-per-pound sugar tax on the Florida ballot; he also called for more education spending. Davis won by a solid 58%-42%.

Davis was elected the Democratic freshman class president and got a seat on the Budget Committee. He favored a number of New Democrat causes: fast-track on trade, federal funding of charter schools, the partial-birth abortion ban. He helped enact a Medicare anti-fraud bill. Prompted by eviction of Medicaid beneficiaries from a Tampa nursing home, he joined Republican Michael Bilirakis and Senator Bob Graham in sponsoring a bill to stop such evictions, which Clinton signed in 1999. On impeachment, he started off saying, "I'm not in the camp of 'I believe the president.' I'm in the camp of 'Let's have a thorough investigation and learn the facts.'" But he voted against the Republicans' impeachment inquiry resolution and against impeachment. In 1999 he voted with Republicans on their education bill after they accepted his Transition to Teaching proposal for recruiting teachers at mid-career from other jobs; Hillsborough County has been plagued by teacher vacancies. "It's not the first time, and it won't be the last," Davis said about voting against his party. When that bill deadlocked, he won $34 million for a version of his proposal in the 2000 budget. He opposed Governor Jeb Bush's voucher program as harmful to public schools. After securing a deal to liberalize trade in manufactured fertilizers, whose chief U.S. shipping port is Tampa, Davis voted for permanent normal trade relations with China.

Davis has entrenched himself in the seat, with no major-party opposition in 2000. In the House, however, he was "deeply, deeply disappointed" over his failure to win a seat on the Energy and Commerce Committee in January 2001. He has expressed interest in running for governor in 2002. Republican redistricters could create a Tampa-centered seat which leans more their way, though that would be at the cost of making neighboring districts more vulnerable, all of which have Republican incumbents.

Cook's Call:
Potentially Competitive. Though this is hardly a safe Democratic district, Davis has not had any trouble racking up big margins since his first win in 1996. But Republicans, who control the redistricting process, are interested in marginalizing this seat in 2002. Talk that Davis is interested in running for governor could give them more flexibility. But too much tickering with this district could tilt it either way. This is a seat to keep an eye on during the battle over redistricting.

The People:

• Pop. 2000: 628,167; Pop. 1990: 562,293, up 11.7% 1990-2000.
• 69.3% White, 20.4% Black, 2.2% Asian, 0.4% Amer. Indian, 0.1% Hawaiian, 2.9% Two+ races, 4.6% Other. 20% Hispanic origin.

2000 Presidential Vote Gore (D) 110,026 (53%) Bush (R) 92,309 (44%) Nader (Green) 4,794 (2%)

1996 Presidential Vote Clinton (D) 98,028 (52%) Dole (R) 75,004 (40%) Perot (I) 14,849 (8%)