Rep. Rick Renzi (R) Elected 2002, 1st term
Born:	June 11, 1958, Ft. Monmouth, NJ
Home:	Flagstaff
Education:	N. AZ. U., B.S. 1980, Catholic U., J.D. 2002
Religion:	Catholic
Marital Status:	married (Roberta)
Professional Career:	Admin., Defense Dept, 1984-89; Owner, Patriot Insurance Co., 1989-02; Owner, Renzi & Campbell Dev. Inc., 1994-02; Owner, Renzi Vino vineyard, 1998-present.
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Beyond Phoenix and the Valley of the Sun, Arizona is a vast state of stunning beauty: The awe-inspiring Grand Canyon, the subtle pastel hues of the Painted Desert, the sheer cliff walls of Canyon de Chelly, the still waters of Lake Powell, the mountainous pine forests around Flagstaff, the rust-red rocks of Sedona. It is also the home of man-made landmarks: The celebrated U.S. 66, now mostly superseded by Interstate 40, but you can still take the exit ramp and ride on the old 66 in Holbrook and Winslow and Williams; the old gold mining camp of Prescott, home since 1888 of America's oldest annual rodeo; Jerome, a mining town built improbably on hillside stilts, now reborn as an artist colony; and old copper mining towns like Globe.

All of these places are in the 1st Congressional District, which covers over half the state's area and is larger than Pennsylvania. It covers most of northern Arizona, except for Mohave County and the Hopi Indian Reservation and a narrow band of land connecting them; and it covers the central part of eastern Arizona. It reaches south to the northern edges of the Phoenix and Tucson metro areas. The 1st is the home of the nation's largest and fastest-growing Indian population: 22% of its residents identify themselves as American Indians, the highest percentage in any congressional district in America. There are many reservations here--Fort Apache, San Carlos, Zuni--but by far the largest is the Navajo Nation in the northeast. (The Hopi are excluded because they have a long and angry boundary dispute with the Navajo and have been asked to be put in another district. The Hualapai and Havasupai are also carefully excluded.) Most of the Navajo are in (oddly) Apache County, with the rest in Navajo and Coconino Counties. They have a history of fiercely contested tribal elections and, alas, considerable corruption; this winner-take-all political governance does not seem to have served the community well: Unemployment runs around 36% and nearly 30% live without running water or electricity.

Environmental stewardship is an everyday issue for residents of this part of Arizona. Near Flagstaff firefighters thin forests by tree-cutting and controlled burns. In Page, north of the Grand Canyon, townspeople making money off Lake Powell oppose the Sierra Club's proposal to get rid of Glen Canyon Dam and the lake. Mexican wolves were released in 1998 in the mountains of the Apache National Forest, and environmental restriction advocates rejoiced when the federal government in 2000 paid $1 million to stop pumice mining operations on the San Francisco Peaks. But the biggest story in recent years was the Rodeo-Chediski fires near Show Low in east central Arizona. Two separate blazes in the summer of 2002 merged into the largest wildfire in Arizona history and consumed 470,000 acres and destroyed 467 homes.

The 1st District was designed to be closely divided between the two parties, and it is. But there are sharp divisions within the district itself. The copper mining counties (Greenlee, Graham, Gila) are historically Democratic and still register that way, but tend to vote Republican. Apache County, with its Navajo majority, is heavily Democratic; Coconino County, which includes Flagstaff, part of the Navajo Reservation and Sedona, is increasingly Democratic. Prescott and Yavapai County are heavily Republican; Prescott is where Barry Goldwater always began his Arizona campaigns. In 2002 this was an open seat, with no incumbent; it is one of three new, closely divided western districts--the others are the Colorado 7th and the Nevada 3d--which were fiercely contested by the two national parties in 2002.

The congressman from the 1st District is Rick Renzi, a Republican elected in 2002 in his first bid for elective office. Renzi grew up in Sierra Vista, Arizona, near Fort Huachuca and the Mexican border, and graduated from Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff. His curriculum vitae became a source of controversy in the campaign. He billed himself as a "hometown, Flagstaff boy," but he has spent most of his life outside the district. In 1986 he moved to Virginia to work for the Defense Department and in 1989 he started an insurance business in Virginia. In 2002, he received a law degree from Catholic University in Washington. Since 1991, he and his family lived in a $765,000 house with five acres in Burke, Virginia, where he was a registered voter. In 1999 he declared himself an Arizona resident; he registered to vote as an independent in Santa Cruz County, near the Mexican border, where he owned a vineyard that has produced small quantities of sauvignon blanc, pinot noir and cabernet sauvignon. In October 2001 the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission announced the new congressional map; shortly afterward, Renzi bought a $216,000 house in Flagstaff, where he owned a real estate investment firm, and registered to vote there, this time as a Republican.

This new open seat attracted plenty of candidates--six Republicans, seven Democrats and two Libertarians--some, like Renzi, with only weak links to the district. Renzi quickly established himself as the frontrunner among Republicans by spending more than $500,000 of his own money for an early advertising blitz, which the Arizona Daily Sun described as "light on issues, heavy on pretty images." He claimed to have worked on legislation for Congressman Jim Kolbe and Senator Jon Kyl; he was an unpaid intern for two months in his office in 1999, an annoyed Kyl said; a Kolbe staffer said that as an intern he did research on the Las Cienegas conservation area bill. The father of 12 children (each of whose names begin with "R"), Renzi opposed abortion and supported gun rights and a flat tax. But these were not the main issues during his campaign; he spent much time discussing local issues such as preserving the Colorado River water supply. Renzi won the Republican primary with 24% of the vote, carrying Yavapai and Coconino Counties--Prescott, Sedona, Flagstaff--plus Pinal County in the south. Next were former Navajo County supervisor Lewis Tenney and talk show host Sydney Hay, with 20% each; former Sedona Mayor Alan Everett won 16% and Payson attorney Bruce Whiting 15%.

Two of the Democratic primary candidates were familiar in Washington. Stephen Udall, a former Apache County Attorney, is a cousin of Congressmen Mark Udall of Colorado and Tom Udall of New Mexico and of Senator Gordon Smith of Oregon. Fred Duval was a longtime aide to Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt when he was Governor of Arizona (1978-87) and during his 1988 presidential campaign; he was a State Department official in the Clinton administration. But the Democratic nominee was George Cordova, a venture capitalist and political neophyte who did grass roots campaigning on the Indian reservations. He won the primary with 22% of the vote, carrying Navajo County where he had family ties, plus Gila and Pinal Counties to the south. Udall was second with 20%, carrying Greenlee County, an area with little growth once represented by his cousins' fathers Stewart and Morris Udall. Diane Prescott was third with 18%; she carried Prescott and Yavapai County. Duval finished fourth with 16%; he carried Flagstaff, Babbitt's hometown and Coconino County. Derrick Watchman, a Navajo, carried Apache County and was competitive in Navajo and Coconino Counties but won few votes anywhere else and finished fifth with 14%. So in this district with 641,000 people, 100,000 voted in the primaries, and the winners each won 11,000 votes.

Cordova supported abortion rights, a prescription drug benefit, and environmental protection; Renzi was a stronger supporter of using force against Iraq. But the key to the outcome was skillful opposition research by the NRCC. After the September primary, the NRCC quickly launched an intensive attack on Cordova for four failed ventures in the 1980s that left behind a trail of lawsuits, tax liens and court-adjudicated debts. "I've been involved in over 200 companies and three have had problems," he responded. But more than $2 million of Republican ads and a total of $4 million spent on Renzi's behalf clearly weakened Cordova, on whose behalf national Democrats spent about $1 million. Renzi won 49%-46%. Cordova carried the three counties with large Navajo populations, but Renzi led 61%-33% in Yavapai, which cast one-third of the votes, and led in the southern part of the district. The day after the election, Renzi called for the replacement of NRCC chairman Tom Davis because of the "negative campaign" that it ran on his behalf--ingratitude, to say the least. This seat is likely to be seriously contested again in 2004, if not in the Republican primary, then certainly in the general election.

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DC Office
418 CHOB 20515, ; Fax: 202-226-9739; Web site: www.house.gov/renzi

State Offices
Casa Grande, 520-705-2181; Flagstaff, 928-213-3434; Prescott, 928-708-9120; Show Low, 928-537-2800.

Committees

• Financial Services (37th of 37 R): Capital Markets, Insurance & Government Sponsored Enterprises; Financial Institutions & Consumer Credit; Housing & Community Opportunity.
• Resources (23d of 28 R): Forests & Forest Health; Water & Power.
• Veterans' Affairs (16th of 17 R): Health.

Election Results (More Info)
	Candidate	Total Votes	Percent	Expenditures
2002 general	Rick Renzi (R)	85,967	49%	$1,557,104
	George Cordova (D)	79,730	46%	$606,443
	Edwin Porr (Lib)	8,990	5%
2002 primary	Rick Renzi (R)	11,379	24%
	Lewis Noble Tenney (R)	9,569	20%
	Sydney Hay (R)	9,550	20%
	Alan Everett (R)	7,321	16%
	Bruce Whiting (R)	6,872	15%
	David Stafford (R)	1,894	4%

2000 presidential
	Bush (R)	102,068	51%
	Gore (D)	91,920	46%
	Other	7,931	4%
For 1992 and 1996 presidential results in the First District, please see the Almanac 2000 online. Please note that these older returns reflect district lines as they existed prior to 2002 redistricting.

• Cook Partisan Voting Index: R + 3
• District Size: 58,714 square miles
• Population in 2000: 641,329; 55.5% urban; 44.5% rural
• Median Household Income: $32,979; 20.3% are below the poverty line
• Occupation: 25.6% blue collar; 53.5% white collar; 20.9% gray collar; 15.7% military veterans
• Race/Ethnic Origin: 58.4% White, 1.2% Black, 0.5% Asian, 22.1% Amer. Indian, 0.1% Hawaiian, 1.2% Two+ races, 0.1% Other, 16.4% Hispanic origin
• Ancestry: 10.3% German, 8.7% English, 7.1% Irish
• Click here for statewide demographic data.