Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R) Elected 1992, 6th term
Born:	June 3, 1926, Moreland, KY
Home:	Frederick
Education:	Columbia Union Col., B.A. 1947, U. of MD, M.S. 1949, Ph.D. 1952
Religion:	Seventh Day Adventist
Marital Status:	married (Ellen)
Professional Career:	Farmer; Prof., U. of MD, 1948-52; Asst. Prof., Loma Linda Schl. of Medicine, 1952-54; Asst. Prof., Howard U. Medical Schl., 1954-56; Research scientist, N.I.H., 1956-58; Research scientist, U.S. Naval Aerospace Medical Inst., 1958-62; Research scientist, Johns Hopkins U., 1962-67; Research Mgr., IBM, 1967-74; Pres., Roscoe Bartlett & Assoc., 1974-86.
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America's first frontier was in western Maryland, where the Appalachian ridges that cross the state diagonally from northeast to southwest cut through the long green sloping fields. These wheat fields were settled first by Pennsylvania Dutch and Scots-Irish hill people, not Chesapeake Bay tobacco growers. Maryland is where the fall line comes closest to an ocean port, where the 19th century's great paths to the interior were staked out: The National Road, and then the nation's first railroad, the Baltimore & Ohio, crossed the wide valleys of bounteous farms and climbed over the Catoctin Mountains. Towns grew up on narrow streets lined with rowhouses that today are overhung with telephone and streetcar wires, overlooking long vistas of cornfields, pastureland and mountains of ancient stone rising above the plains. Across this placid land moved vast armies during the Civil War. In Frederick, city officials paid Confederates $200,000 not to burn down the town, and near Sharpsburg, blue and gray-clad soldiers fought the Battle of Antietam, on the bloodiest day in American military history. Today, there is a new rush of settlement into Carroll County, long part of metro Baltimore, and Frederick County, which is classified as part of metro Washington, both of which grew rapidly in the 1990s.

The 6th Congressional District includes all of western Maryland, runs east through all of Carroll County, takes in a small part of northern Montgomery County and cuts across the northern farmlands and hunt country of Baltimore and Harford Counties all the way to the Susquehanna River. The political tradition in most of this area, unlike the rest of Maryland, is Republican. This was Union country in the Civil War and has been mostly Republican ever since. The new rush of settlement--which made this the fastest growing district in Maryland in the 1990s--is mostly made up of young families of modest incomes seeking respite from metropolitan life, strengthening the area's already conservative leanings. Only 7 of 24 counties in Maryland have more registered Republican voters than Democrats--5 of them are in this district.

The congressman from the 6th District is Roscoe Bartlett, a Republican who matches its current mood. He is an interesting character, a descendant of a signer of the Declaration of Independence and a Seventh Day Adventist with 10 children; he grew up in poverty in Pennsylvania, but his family would not take welfare. He earned a Ph.D. in physiology at the University of Maryland, where he also taught, and he has operated his 145-acre dairy farm. He invented life-support equipment for pilots, astronauts and fire fighters, ran his own business and taught at Frederick Community College. When Bartlett first ran for Congress in 1992, he was a 65-year-old retired University of Maryland physiology professor who seemed to have no chance of winning. Democrat Beverly Byron had represented the district for 14 years and had a conservative voting record. But she was upset in the primary by a liberal who favored national health insurance and abortion rights. Bartlett's conservative views and his attacks on his opponent's legislative perks won him a 54%-46% victory. That unlikely background explains why a colleague once said that Bartlett views his job as "almost like a retirement thing."

Bartlett has proved a surprisingly durable, though iconoclastic, politician. He is the most conservative member of the state's congressional delegation; he has a consistently conservative voting record and was the only Marylander to vote for all 10 provisions of the Contract With America. He carries a copy of the Constitution and consults it frequently. He voted against PNTR with China and he was one of 27 House Republicans to vote against trade promotion authority in 2002. He has voted no on various big-spending budget bills, including George W. Bush's education-reform proposal. But the terrorism threat led him to request $31 million for projects in his districts, including protection of Camp David and Fort Detrick, which is the Army's biological weapons lab.

Bartlett was gratified by the November 2000 passage of his bill to end the Pentagon's practice of euthanizing military working dogs at the end of their useful career. "These military dogs deserve a dignified retirement in loving homes in return for their unique and irreplaceable service to our country," he said. He has been less successful in pushing the recommendation of a commission headed by former Senator Nancy Kassebaum-Baker that men and women should be separated for basic training; he could not even get a roll call on this politically incorrect proposal. His fiscal prudence was reflected in his opposition to expanded federal funds for the local Interstate highway. But he had serious domestic problems resulting from a bad stench caused by wastewater on his property in March 2002; one of the complainants, the Baltimore Sun reported, was his stepson.

Bartlett has been re-elected by solid margins. In 2002, he faced a rematch against Donald DeArmon, a veteran House Democratic staffer, who spent only $83,000 after collecting nearly $400,000 in 2000. He campaigned against Bartlett as "a mismatch for the district from the beginning." But Bartlett's share of the vote rose from 61% to 66%.

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DC Office
2412 RHOB 20515, 202-225-2721; Fax: 202-225-2193; Web site: www.house.gov/bartlett

State Offices
Cumberland, 301-724-3105; Frederick, 301-694-3030; Hagerstown, 301-797-6043; Westminster, 410-857-1115.

Committees

• Armed Services (7th of 33 R): Projection Forces (Chmn.); Terrorism, Unconventional Threats & Capabilities.
• Science (8th of 25 R): Energy; Space & Aeronautics.
• Small Business (2d of 18 R): Regulatory Reform & Oversight.

Group Ratings (More Info)
	ADA	ACLU	AFS	LCV	CON	ITIC	NTU	COC	ACU	NTLC	CHC
2002	10	7	11	38	50	50	57	80	96	97	100
2001	15	--	10	36	--	--	70	78	88	--	--

National Journal Ratings (More Info)
	2001 LIB	--	2001 CONS		2002 LIB	--	2002 CONS
Economic	28%	--	69%		36%	--	61%
Social	0%	--	81%		0%	--	75%
Foreign	29%	--	69%		46%	--	53%
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 Y 2. Limit Patients' Bill of Rights Y 3. Campaign Finance Reform N 4. Ban ANWR Development Y 5. Faith-Based Charities Y 6. Bar Gays in the Boy Scouts Y		7. Ban Partial-Birth Abortion Y  8. Arm Commercial Pilots Y  9. Trade Promotion Authority N 10. Bar Funds for Intl. Court Y 11. Authorize Force in Iraq Y 12. Deny Home. Sec. Dept. Union Y

Election Results (More Info)
	Candidate	Total Votes	Percent	Expenditures
2002 general	Roscoe Bartlett (R)	147,825	66%	$237,991
	Donald DeArmon (D)	75,575	34%	$82,515
2002 primary	Roscoe Bartlett (R)	unopposed
2000 general	Roscoe Bartlett (R)	168,624	61%	$225,919
	Donald DeArmon (D)	109,136	39%	$397,509
Prior winning percentages: 1998 (63%); 1996 (57%); 1994 (66%); 1992 (54%)

2000 presidential
	Bush (R)	160,263	61%
	Gore (D)	95,282	36%
	Other	8,029	3%
For 1992 and 1996 presidential results in the Sixth 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 +13
• District Size: 3,094 square miles
• Population in 2000: 662,060; 60.5% urban; 39.5% rural
• Median Household Income: $50,957; 6.7% are below the poverty line
• Occupation: 23.9% blue collar; 61.5% white collar; 14.6% gray collar; 14.0% military veterans
• Race/Ethnic Origin: 91.5% White, 4.8% Black, 1.0% Asian, 0.2% Amer. Indian, 0.0% Hawaiian, 0.9% Two+ races, 0.1% Other, 1.4% Hispanic origin
• Ancestry: 20.1% German, 10.6% Irish, 8.4% English
• Click here for statewide demographic data.