Rep. Doug Bereuter (R) Elected 1978, 13th term
Born:	Oct. 6, 1939, York
Home:	Cedar Bluffs
Education:	U. of NE, B.A. 1961, Harvard U., M.C.P. 1966, M.P.A. 1973
Religion:	Lutheran
Marital Status:	married (Louise)
Elected  Office:	NE Legislature, 1974-78.
Military Career:	Army, 1963-65.
Professional Career:	Urban planner, U.S. Dept. of HUD, 1965-66; Div. Dir., NE Econ. Devel. Dept., 1967-68; Dir., NE Office of Planning, 1968-70.
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The eastern half of Nebraska, between the Missouri River and the 98th parallel, was laid out in relentless Midwestern mile-square grids and became some of America's prime farmland in the single decade of the 1880s. The land here has contours just regular enough and weather just favorable enough to make farming economically viable. The plains here have completed most of their gentle decline from the Rockies to sea level; above the river bottoms the land is open to the winds. This land was settled by Yankee-descended Midwestern farmers and immigrants from Germany and other countries. The immigrant heritage is not often remembered now, but traces of it can still be found. Many immigrants from Luxembourg, for example, settled along the Platte River in Butler County, where St. Mary's Presentation Parish still has a statue of Our Lady of Luxembourg. Not far away are villages with names that recall other immigrants' heritage--Prague (Czechs), Malmo (Swedes), Aloys (Germans). Now a new wave of immigrants is coming to eastern Nebraska, Latinos from Mexico and the southwest United States, to work in the meatpacking factories in the area. Wakefield (Dixon County) had the highest percentage increase in Hispanic population in the country in the 1990s, 8,700%--though that's a little less impressive when you realize that the Hispanic population went from 4 to 348. But there are larger numbers in other towns, and Nebraska's face is changing.

The 1st Congressional District is made up of 22 counties and parts of two others in the eastern part of the state. Omaha and most of its suburbs are separate, in the 2d District; the 1st District's large city is Lincoln, the state capital and home of the University of Nebraska Cornhuskers. Lincoln, with the state government, the university and telemarketing, has been growing rapidly; it is affluent, with above-national-average incomes and unemployment that is among the lowest in the United States. In smaller towns there are significant farm equipment and meatpacking factories; population growth here was robust in the 1990s. Politically, Lincoln is fond of moderate Democrats but is still on balance Republican in national contests; the district voted 59% for George W. Bush in 2000.

The congressman from the 1st District is Douglas Bereuter (pronounced BEEwriter), a Republican first elected in 1978. He grew up in Utica, in Seward County, graduated from the University of Nebraska, served in the Army, then got degrees in planning and public policy from Harvard. He was an aide to Governor Norbert Tiemann in the late 1960s and worked as a planning consultant and part-time professor in Lincoln in the 1970s. He was elected to the Nebraska Senate in 1974, and when Congressman Charles Thone was elected governor in 1978, Bereuter ran for the House, winning the primary 52%-48% and the general 58%-42% in what was then an expensive campaign ($167,000). He is cautious, well-prepared, with a stately manner more typical of House members when he arrived than today.

Bereuter has been a hard-working member of the International Relations Committee. He was one of the leaders in the annual fight to maintain most favored nation status for China, and for renaming the designation to the more accurate normal trade relations. In 1997 he proposed granting PNTR to China as soon as it is admitted to the World Trade Organization: That proposal became permanent normal trade relations, and Bereuter played a key role in getting it through the House in May 2000. Weeks before, PNTR was far short of the votes needed for passage; it was opposed by labor unions, by critics of China's human rights record, by advocates of a harder line policy against China's menacing military buildup. Bereuter, then chairman of the Asia and Pacific Subcommittee of International Relations, had traveled widely in China and East Asia and had been in top-level discussions with its leaders; in April 1999 Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji, evidently convinced that he could play a key role on PNTR, requested a private meeting with Bereuter in Washington. In fall 1999 Bereuter began working on amendments to address PNTR opponents' concerns while still passing the measure. Also working in that direction was Sander Levin, the ranking Democrat on the Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee; he and Bereuter had met on a congressional trip to Eastern Europe in 1984, and in early 2000 they began working together. They wrote an amendment that would create a congressional-executive commission to evaluate human rights in China, impose tough protections against import surges, create task forces on prison labor exports and rule of law and provide for the entry of Taiwan into the WTO after China entered. Bereuter and Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier convinced the Republican leadership to support the Bereuter-Levin amendment and it was combined with the PNTR bill, which passed 294-136 in May 2000. Without it, PNTR would probably not have passed, as it did a few days later. Bereuter has long wanted to exclude agricultural products from economic sanctions, and he supported the June 2000 measure to allow sale of food and medicine to Cuba.

Bereuter has been one of the most assiduous of American legislators in paying attention to NATO. He has served on the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, made up of legislators from member countries, since 1986. He was its vice president from 1993 to 1994 and in November 2002 was chosen president for a two-year term. In 2001 he sponsored a NATO expansion bill which provided for military financing for new members and named as likely candidates seven former Soviet Bloc countries, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Romania and Bulgaria. The bill passed the House 372-46 in November 2001 and was signed in June 2002. Bereuter spoke at the November 2002 NATO meeting in Prague where the seven countries were offered membership in NATO. It was an historic occasion, and not only that: Nearly all publicly stated their support in 2003 for the United States in its efforts to disarm Saddam Hussein. But for all his work with NATO allies, he has little patience for the European Union's ban on genetically modified organisms, which excludes increasing percentages of U.S. farm products from Europe and, thanks to the EU's pressure on African countries, from Africa where people may actually starve in the absence of GMO produce. Bereuter points out that there is no scientific evidence of harm. In January 2003 he called the EU stand ridiculous and urged Special Trade Representative Robert Zoellick to bring a case against the EU in the WTO.

On foreign military issues, Bereuter was a strong critic of stationing ground forces in the former Yugoslavia, expressed deep skepticism on the 1998 air strikes against Iraq and was opposed to the bombing campaign against Serbia. He voted for the Iraq war resolution, but did not take a lead role in the debate. In December 2002 the Irish singer Bono made Lincoln the first stop on his Heart of America Tour to persuade Americans to support debt relief for poor countries and aid to AIDS sufferers in Africa. He clearly wanted to aim his message at Bereuter, who said in 2002 that debt relief was going nowhere because it was opposed by the Bush administration and that AIDS/Africa relief was stymied by differences between the House and the Senate; George W. Bush's proposal the next month for $10 billion in AIDS/Africa relief seemed likely to change the posture of the issue.

Though not on the Agriculture Committee, Bereuter has come up with proposals to aid farmers. In October 2001 he got some provisions added to the farm bill--making land eligible for the Conservation Reserve Program only if it has been farmed for four years, putting a litigation division in the unit inspecting grain elevators, meatpackers and stockyards, amending his Flexible Fallow plan to allow use of up to 30% of crop acreage. He is one of the few Republicans to vote with Democrats to retain the estate tax on estates over $2 million, but when that failed voted for estate tax repeal. To avoid the problems with MTBE in gasoline, he sponsored a bill to limit gasoline within four years to four standard blends, conventional gasoline, oxygenated reformulated gasoline and California reformulated gasoline. He has been the chief promoter of National Historic Trails, including the 6,357-mile American Discovery Trail from Cape Henlopen, Delaware, to Point Reyes, California. He got such designation for the California and Pony Express Trails in the 1990s. In June 2001 he called for an update of the Oregon, California, Mormon and Pony Express Trails and their offshoots; all these trails pass through Nebraska. In 2002 he got $400,000 for an expansion of the Homestead National Monument of America outside Beatrice, to be built above a 100-year floodplain.

Bereuter has been re-elected easily. In 2002 his only opponent was a Libertarian who raised no money because "I don't want to waste anybody's money." He was reelected with 85% of the vote. Bereuter is the longest-serving Nebraska House member in history, and it may seem something of a mystery why he has never sought statewide office. But he has decided four times not to run for the Senate, most recently in January 2000, when Bob Kerrey announced his retirement. One reason was that he hoped then to become chairman of the International Relations Committee; Ben Gilman, chairman since 1995, had to step down in 2001 because of House Republicans' six-year term-limit on chairmen. When he was pondering running for Kerrey's seat in 2000, Speaker Dennis Hastert gave him "every assurance that he possibly could that he wanted me to be the next chairman." Then it seemed he would have competition from Jim Leach, term-limited as Banking chairman; Leach and Bereuter, unlike competitors for other chairmanships refused to start leadership PACs to raise money to give to Republican colleagues or campaign committees. But Bereuter was foiled in his ambition. In December 2000 Henry Hyde, chairman of Judiciary and senior to Bereuter on International Relations, made a heartfelt plea for an exemption; he had lost two years of legislating, he said, for the distasteful responsibility of handling impeachment. Many strong conservatives backed Hyde, but Hastert turned him down. At the Steering Committee's closed meeting there was feeling that Hyde would prevail in a full Conference vote, and the Steering Committee gave the International Relations chairmanship to Hyde. Bereuter, deeply disappointed, announced that he would take a subcommittee chairmanship on Financial Services, even though he had probably been the hardest working International Relations subcommittee chairman. In late January 2001 Hastert found a consolation prize. Bereuter was appointed to the Intelligence Committee, on which he had served before. The rule allowing only one tour of duty on that committee was waived, and Bereuter was named vice chairman. Chairman Porter Goss had already announced he would retire from Congress in 2002; it was assumed that Bereuter was promised he would become chairman in January 2003. But after September 11, Goss, a former CIA agent, announced he would run again in 2002, and kept the chairmanship. So Bereuter has been frustrated twice. In 2002 he said that he didn't expect to serve more than six years more in the House; that would give him a chance of becoming chairman of Intelligence after the 2004 election or of International Relations after the 2006 elections--provided that Republicans maintain their majority in the House.

Update: March 10, 2004
On December 16, 2003, Bereuter announced he would not seek reelection to a 14th term in 2004. He later said he would resign his seat August 31 to become president of the Asia Foundation.

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DC Office
2184 RHOB 20515, 202-225-4806; Fax: 202-225-5686; Web site: www.house.gov/bereuter

State Offices
Fremont, 402-727-0888; Lincoln, 402-438-1598.

Committees

• Financial Services (3d of 37 R): Financial Institutions & Consumer Credit; Housing & Community Opportunity.
• International Relations (3d of 26 R): Asia & the Pacific; Europe (Chmn.).
• Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (Vice Chmn. of 11 R): Intelligence Policy & National Security (Chmn.); Terrorism & Homeland Security (Vice Chmn.).
• Transportation & Infrastructure (20th of 41 R): Highways, Transit & Pipelines.

Group Ratings (More Info)
	ADA	ACLU	AFS	LCV	CON	ITIC	NTU	COC	ACU	NTLC	CHC
2002	10	13	11	25	54	100	46	90	72	60	75
2001	10	--	10	14	--	--	50	91	72	--	--

National Journal Ratings (More Info)
	2001 LIB	--	2001 CONS		2002 LIB	--	2002 CONS
Economic	43%	--	56%		50%	--	50%
Social	35%	--	63%		48%	--	52%
Foreign	43%	--	53%		24%	--	72%
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 Y 4. Ban ANWR Development N 5. Faith-Based Charities Y 6. Bar Gays in the Boy Scouts Y		7. Ban Partial-Birth Abortion Y  8. Arm Commercial Pilots N  9. Trade Promotion Authority Y 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	Doug Bereuter (R)	133,013	85%	$191,344
	Robert Eckerson (Lib)	22,831	15%
2002 primary	Doug Bereuter (R)	unopposed
2000 general	Doug Bereuter (R)	155,485	66%	$380,036
	Alan Jacobsen (D)	72,859	31%	$107,256
	Other	6,354	3%
Prior winning percentages: 1998 (73%); 1996 (70%); 1994 (63%); 1992 (60%); 1990 (65%); 1988 (67%); 1986 (64%); 1984 (74%); 1982 (75%); 1980 (79%); 1978 (58%)

2000 presidential
	Bush (R)	138,799	59%
	Gore (D)	85,634	36%
	Other	12,242	5%
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 +12
• District Size: 12,034 square miles
• Population in 2000: 570,325; 65.1% urban; 34.9% rural
• Median Household Income: $40,021; 9.2% are below the poverty line
• Occupation: 26.2% blue collar; 57.7% white collar; 16.1% gray collar; 12.9% military veterans
• Race/Ethnic Origin: 90.5% White, 1.4% Black, 1.5% Asian, 1.2% Amer. Indian, 0.0% Hawaiian, 1.1% Two+ races, 0.1% Other, 4.2% Hispanic origin
• Ancestry: 30.8% German, 8.7% Irish, 6.8% English
• Click here for statewide demographic data.