Rep. Susan Davis (D) Elected 2000, 2d term
Born:	Apr. 13, 1944, Cambridge, MA
Home:	San Diego
Education:	U.of CA at Berkeley, B.A. 1964, U. of NC, M.A. 1968
Religion:	Jewish
Marital Status:	married (Steven)
Elected  Office:	San Diego School Bd., 1983-92; CA Assembly, 1994-00.
Professional Career:	Devel. Assoc., KPBS Radio, 1980-82.; Exec. Dir., Aaron Price Fellows, 1990-94.
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When the United States was dictating the terms of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, after its successful war with Mexico, it made sure the southern boundary of its new California territory was just south of the port of San Diego. This is one of three splendid natural harbors on the Pacific Coast and the major West Coast U.S. Navy base for more than 50 years. The port and Navy base in the sheltered harbor remain the central focus of a metropolis that has grown tenfold over that time and now stretches far inland and to the north. On one side is downtown, booming with post-modern buildings like the Horton Plaza amid a few well-preserved early 20th century relics like the Spreckels Theatre. Across the harbor, on the sand spit that guards it against the ocean, is the white frame castle of the Hotel Del Coronado, with its surprisingly dark wooden interior--the U.S.'s largest wooden structure and a favored resort of past American presidents; the town of Coronado has long been a favorite retirement place for Navy admirals and captains. But San Diego is not all harbor and Navy. To the north, the Pacific waves pound against the beach beneath erose cliffs of unique rock formations that stride up and down the coast on which stand some of San Diego's great cultural institutions: the Scripps Institute of Oceanography, the University of California San Diego campus, the Salk Institute and the Torrey Pines reserve, home of this unique, wide-spreading pine tree. To the south are raffish Mission Beach, Ocean Beach, with its strong rip currents, and Point Loma, overlooking the entrance to the harbor. The weather--a sunny 70 degrees most of the time--has lured tourists and new residents to San Diego. But this is a working town as well, a sophisticated high-tech center with around 200,000 full and part-time students at its colleges and universities and growing biotech, electronics, software and telecommunications industries. It is a manufacturing center as well, with maquiladora factories clustering near the Mexican border.

The 53d Congressional District--the first 53d District in American history--consists of the center of San Diego, the San Diego beaches from Blacks Beach to Ocean Beach, La Jolla beach (but not its interior) and Balboa Park. It includes the heavily Latino neighborhoods south and east of downtown, the Gaslamp District, the older neighborhoods of University Heights and East San Diego. Altogether, 85% of the district population is inside the San Diego city limits. It also includes Coronado and Imperial Beach, just north of the Mexican border, and the inland suburbs of Lemon Grove and La Presa. The 2001 redistricting increased the district's Hispanic percentage from 17% to 29% and reduced its Bush 2000 percentage from 42% to 37%. Historically, this was a Republican district, but after Coastal California's trend toward cultural liberalism in the 1990s and the 2001 redistricting, it is now a solidly Democratic district.

The congresswoman from the 53d District is Susan Davis, a Democrat first elected in 2000. She grew up in Richmond, California, graduated from the University of California at Berkeley and got a degree in social work at the University of North Carolina. Her father and husband have both been physicians. She moved to San Diego in 1973 and became president of the local League of Women Voters and a community producer for the local public television station. In 1983 she was elected to the San Diego school board. In 1990, she became the executive director of the Aaron Price Fellows Program, which helps teach leadership and citizen skills to high school students. She returned to politics in 1994, winning the first of three terms in the California Assembly.

In 2000 term limits prevented Davis from running for the Assembly again, and she ran against Republican Congressman Brian Bilbray, who had won three close elections. She portrayed him as a conservative, even though he took liberal positions on abortion and the environment and made a point of not attending the Republican convention in Philadelphia. He supported John McCain's campaign finance regulation bill and said that he was comfortable with votes for impeachment for a president he called "a perpetual liar." "He talks moderate in San Diego but votes conservative in Washington," Davis said. She attacked Bilbray for supporting bills that would deny citizenship to U.S. born children of illegal immigrants and that would allow private insurers to provide prescription drug benefits to seniors; she called for coverage under Medicare. Davis also said that Bilbray had failed to deliver federal dollars to the district. The AFL-CIO ran so much advertising on her behalf that Davis requested it stop. Bilbray criticized Davis for her handling of utility deregulation but Davis won 50%-46%.

In the House, she has a moderate-to-liberal voting record. As a freshman, she won plum assignments to the Armed Services and Education and the Workforce committees; her priorities included higher military pay, increased aid for school districts with a large military presence and incentives for better teachers. She angered organized labor and some Democratic activists by voting for trade promotion authority, one of only 21 House Democrats to do so. She called the vote "agonizing," but in the interests of a city that has been built on trade; organized labor rescinded its endorsement. But she was in no trouble in the redrawn district and was reelected 62%-38%.

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DC Office
1224 LHOB 20515, 202-225-2040; Fax: 202-225-2948; Web site: www.house.gov/susandavis

State Offices
San Diego, 619-280-5353.

Committees

• Armed Services (19th of 29 D): Readiness; Terrorism, Unconventional Threats & Capabilities.
• Education & the Workforce (14th of 22 D): Education Reform; Select Education.
• Veterans' Affairs (13th of 14 D): Benefits.

Group Ratings (More Info)
	ADA	ACLU	AFS	LCV	CON	ITIC	NTU	COC	ACU	NTLC	CHC
2002	90	87	89	88	70	75	24	50	8	9	17
2001	90	--	90	93	--	--	18	48	12	--	--

National Journal Ratings (More Info)
	2001 LIB	--	2001 CONS		2002 LIB	--	2002 CONS
Economic	67%	--	33%		70%	--	29%
Social	83%	--	11%		74%	--	19%
Foreign	56%	--	41%		71%	--	29%
For National Journal's complete 2002 Vote Ratings, as well as previous ratings dating back to 1995, please click here.

Key Votes Of The 107th Congress (More Info)
1. Approve Bush Tax Cuts N 2. Limit Patients' Bill of Rights N 3. Campaign Finance Reform Y 4. Ban ANWR Development Y 5. Faith-Based Charities N 6. Bar Gays in the Boy Scouts N		7. Ban Partial-Birth Abortion N  8. Arm Commercial Pilots N  9. Trade Promotion Authority Y 10. Bar Funds for Intl. Court N 11. Authorize Force in Iraq N 12. Deny Home. Sec. Dept. Union N

Election Results (More Info)
	Candidate	Total Votes	Percent	Expenditures
2002 general	Susan Davis (D)	72,252	62%	$582,445
	Bill VanDeWeghe (R)	43,891	38%	$742,535
2002 primary	Susan Davis (D)	unopposed
2000 general	Susan Davis (D)	113,400	50%	$1,926,497
	Brian P. Bilbray (R)	105,515	46%	$1,846,574
	Other	9,574	4%

2000 presidential
	Gore (D)	114,435	58%
	Bush (R)	74,526	37%
	Other	9,944	5%
For 1992 and 1996 presidential results in the Fifty-Third 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: D +10
• District Size: 251 square miles
• Population in 2000: 639,087; 99.9% urban; 0.1% rural
• Median Household Income: $36,637; 20.2% are below the poverty line
• Occupation: 16.3% blue collar; 64.6% white collar; 19.1% gray collar; 12.1% military veterans
• Race/Ethnic Origin: 51.0% White, 7.2% Black, 8.3% Asian, 0.5% Amer. Indian, 0.4% Hawaiian, 3.1% Two+ races, 0.3% Other, 29.4% Hispanic origin
• Ancestry: 8.8% German, 7.4% Irish, 6.3% English
• Click here for statewide demographic data.