Sen. Bill Nelson (D) Elected 2000, 1st term up 2006
Born:	Sept. 29, 1942, Miami
Home:	Melbourne
Education:	Yale U., B.A. 1965; U. of VA, J.D. 1968
Religion:	Protestant
Marital Status:	married (Grace Cavert)
Elected  Office:	FL House of Reps., 1972-78; U.S. House of Reps., 1978-90; FL Treasurer, Insurance Comm. & Fire Marshal, 1994-2000.
Military Career:	U.S. Army, 1968-70; U.S. Army Reserves, 1965-71.
Professional Career:	Practicing atty., 1970-79, 1991-94; Legis. asst., FL Gov. Reubin Askew, 1971; Crew member, Space Shuttle Columbia, 1986.
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Bill Nelson was elected Florida's junior senator in 2000, after nearly 30 years in politics. He grew up in Melbourne, on what is now the Space Coast, the son of a developer and real estate investor who died when he was 14; Nelson likes to recall that his great-grandfather arrived in Florida on boat as a stowaway. From his family home, Rock Point, he could see rockets blast off from what is now the Kennedy Space Center in the 1950s and 1960s. Nelson was active in student government and has always been something of a straight arrow; he doesn't drink, smoke or swear. He went to the University of Florida for two years, then graduated from Yale and the University of Virginia Law School. He served two years in the Army, then returned to Melbourne and briefly practiced law and worked on the staff of Governor Reubin Askew. In 1972, at 30, he was elected to the state House of Representatives.

In 1978, when Republican Congressmen Louis Frey retired, Nelson ran for Congress, from a seat that then included the Space Coast's Brevard County and most of Orlando's Orange County. His religious faith and traditional values, his indefatigable campaigning and folksy manner helped make him popular in an area that was trending heavily Republican. He won the seat 61%-39% and in five succeeding elections won between 61% and 73% of the vote, in a district that voted 29% for Michael Dukakis in 1988. In Congress, he was not entirely sure-footed. He got a seat on the Budget Committee in his freshman year, where he wobbled on the Reagan budget and tax cuts. But on the Science Committee he got his fellow Democrats to vote him rather than the more liberal George Brown chairman of the Space Subcommittee--obviously of prime importance to the district. Nelson not only boosted the space program in every possible way, he also rode the space shuttle Columbia himself, in early January 1986. Less than two weeks later the Challenger exploded. Nelson pressed successfully for funding of the space shuttle and space station, institutionalizing, he said, the manned space program for some time to come. After the Columbia was lost in February 2003, he called for continued manned space flight despite the risks. "Americans are explorers and adventurers by nature," he said. "We never want to give that up."

In 1989, with the support of leading Florida Democrats, Nelson set out to run against Republican Governor Bob Martinez, who was not faring well in polls. But in early 1990, some Democrats became antsy about Nelson's prospects, and persuaded Lawton Chiles, who had retired from the Senate in 1988 after three terms, to run. Nelson stayed in the race and attacked Chiles for land deals and his use of Prozac. Chiles charged that Nelson's votes on the Banking Committee may have worsened the savings and loan crisis. Chiles was always far ahead, and won the September primary 69%-31%. Nelson returned to his 77-acre oceanfront home in Melbourne, his political career seemingly over. But in 1994 he found an opening when state Insurance Commissioner Tom Gallagher, a Republican, ran for governor. Nelson was elected in November to an office whose full title was Treasurer, Insurance Commissioner and State Fire Marshal, and proceeded to make a highly publicized activist record. He helped to rebuild the homeowners insurance market, devastated since Hurricane Andrew in 1992. He ordered auto insurers to decrease rates for good drivers, fined big insurers for "churning" life insurance policies on the elderly, investigated insurers who targeted blacks with "junk burial" policies, cracked down on insurance fraud (staged auto accidents, padded medical bills) enough to allow rates to be lowered, and helped get European insurers to honor unpaid Holocaust-related claims.

Nelson was obviously setting himself up to run for higher statewide office, and his opening came in March 1999, when Republican Senator Connie Mack said he would not run for reelection in 2000. His retirement left a seat up for grabs in a state that, as election night viewers learned in November 2000, was very closely divided between the parties. And Republicans had a rough primary contest--always a problem in a state with a late September primary and an even later October runoff if no candidate gets a majority. The contestants were 20-year, Orlando-based Congressman Bill McCollum, one of the House's impeachment managers, and Tom Gallagher, then Florida Education Commissioner. Not until June 2000, after a meeting with Governor Jeb Bush and state Republican Chairman Al Cardenas, did Gallagher take himself out of the race, to run for Insurance Commissioner, the office he had relinquished to Nelson in 1994. A possible problem for Nelson was the independent candidacy of Willie Logan, a veteran African-American legislator whom Democrats had ousted as Speaker-designate in January 1998 on the grounds that he wasn't raising enough money. But Logan, who was getting 5% in many polls, ended up winning just 1.4% in November.

Washington observers considered the race a contest over the wisdom of impeachment but mostly it was a battle of competing styles. Nelson, running his fourth statewide race in 10 years, always led in polls. His easygoing, folksy manner contrasted favorably with McCollum's stiff, often aggressive manner. McCollum, with a long conservative record on abortion and gun control, attempted to modulate his positions, but only succeeded in antagonizing his base; his charge that Nelson was a "liberal" and a proponent of "class warfare" proved unconvincing.

This was the most expensive Senate race in Florida history, with the two candidates spending over $15 million between them; Nelson won 51%-46%. Nelson won 60%-37% in the Gold Coast, almost exactly the same margin as in the presidential race. In the I-4 corridor, which included McCollum's district and most of the district Nelson had represented in the House, Nelson won 51%-46%; superior name identification was not Nelson's only advantage. In the rest of the state Nelson lost by only 52%-46%, compared to the 55%-42% margin by which Al Gore lost there. Folksiness and Florida roots counted.

In the Senate, Nelson voted on the Budget Committee to limit the Bush tax cut, then voted against it on the floor in May 2001. After heavy publicity for a Boca Raton medical practice that charged seniors a $1,500 access fee, he sponsored in 2001 a bill to ban doctors from charging seniors more than Medicare pays. His amendment to delay the sale of land for offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico was defeated 67-33 in July 2001. He called for investigations of chemical and biological weapons tests conducted on Navy sailors in the Shipboard Hazard and Defense program in the 1960s and tests of wheat disease weapons at the now closed Boca Raton Army Air Field in the 1950s after the Veterans Affairs Department sent notices to some 4,000 affected veterans. In 2001 and 2002 he tried to amend the terrorism insurance bill to put limits on insurance rate increase and to guarantee continued coverage; in June 2002 he was defeated 70-24. He lamented that his experience as an insurance regulator was unappreciated. "Nobody understands anything about insurance here at the federal level, so there's a big education effort that has got to be made." Meanwhile, he was criticized in a lawsuit against viatical insurance companies which turned out to be Ponzi schemes run by Nelson campaign contributors; the office, now headed by a Republican, said that it had pursued the case as hard as it could.

On the Foreign Relations and Armed Services committees, Nelson traveled to Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia in January 2002. He and Pat Roberts kept pushing to get Iraq to provide information about Scott Speicher, the Navy pilot shot down in 1991 who was classified as Missing In Action; Speicher's family lives in Orange Park, near Jacksonville. With other Florida politicians, he protested the detention of 200 Haitians at the Turner Guilford Knight Stockade near Miami and got INS Commissioner Jim Ziglar to visit. "We cannot have a double standard as a policy that treats Haitians one way and other groups another way."

In 2001 Nelson was named vice-chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. He was widely regarded as the likely successor to Chairman Patty Murray, but in September 2002 said he didn't want the job. The strongest opponent he could face in 2006 is probably Jeb Bush, who will be ineligible to run for a third term as governor. It is not clear that Bush wants the job, but Florida has plenty of other ambitious Republican politicians.

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DC Office
716 HSOB 20510, 202-224-5274; Fax: 202-228-2183; Web site: billnelson.senate.gov

State Offices
Ft. Lauderdale, 954-693-4851; Jacksonville,904-346-4500; Miami,305-536-5999; Orlando,407-872-7161; Tallahassee,850-942-8415; Tampa,813-225-7040; W. Palm Beach,561-514-0189.

Committees

• Armed Services: Emerging Threats & Capabilities; Readiness & Management Support; Strategic Forces (RMM).
• Budget.
• Commerce, Science & Transportation: Aviation; Communications; Competition, Foreign Commerce & Infrastructure; Science, Technology & Space.
• Foreign Relations: African Affairs; International Operations & Terrorism (RMM); Western Hemisphere, Peace Corps & Narcotics Affairs.

Group Ratings (More Info)
	ADA	ACLU	AFS	LCV	CON	ITIC	NTU	COC	ACU	NTLC	CHC
2002	70	60	75	59	92	88	24	70	30	40	--
2001	95	--	100	88	--	--	10	43	16	--	0

National Journal Ratings (More Info)
	2001 LIB	--	2001 CONS		2002 LIB	--	2002 CONS
Economic	71%	--	27%		59%	--	36%
Social	70%	--	20%		56%	--	38%
Foreign	61%	--	27%		56%	--	42%
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. Expand Patients' Rights Y 3. Campaign Finance Reform Y 4. Permit ANWR Development N 5. Confirm Ashcroft as AG N 6. Bar Gays in the Boy Scouts N		7. $ for Hate Crime Prosecution Y  8. Overseas Military Abortions Y  9. Bar Coop. with Intl. Court Y 10. Trade Promotion Authority Y 11. Authorize Force in Iraq Y 12. Homeland Sec. Dept. Union Y

Election Results (More Info)
	Candidate	Total Votes	Percent	Expenditures
2000 general	Bill Nelson (D)	2,989,487	51%	$6,535,832
	Bill McCollum (R)	2,705,348	46%	$8,664,112
	Other	161,896	3%
2000 primary	Bill Nelson (D)	692,147	78%
	Newall J. Daughtrey (D)	105,650	12%
	David B. Higginbottom (D)	95,492	11%
Prior winning percentages: 1988 House (61%); 1986 House (73%); 1984 House (61%); 1982 House (71%); 1980 House (70%); 1978 House (61%)