Rep. Robert Andrews (D) Elected 1990, 7th term
Born:	Aug. 4, 1957, Camden
Home:	Haddon Heights
Education:	Bucknell U., B.A. 1979, Cornell U., J.D. 1982
Religion:	Episcopalian
Marital Status:	married (Camille)
Elected  Office:	Camden Cnty. Bd. of Chosen Freeholders, 1987-90.
Professional Career:	Practicing atty., 1982-90; Adjunct Prof., Rutgers Law Schl., 1985-86, 1989-90.
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The closely built streets of the little city of Camden, New Jersey, across the Delaware River from Philadelphia's skyline, have seen a fair amount of history. This was where the poet Walt Whitman lived when he wrote some of the versions of his Leaves of Grass. It was an immigrant-jammed industrial city then, with tinkerers and inventors. In 1894, a Camden machinist named Eldridge Johnson produced the Victor Talking Machine--the birth of the company that became RCA Victor in 1929 and the beginning of the recorded music industry. In 1897, Camden was the site of the invention of condensed soup, and the Campbell Soup Company was founded soon afterwards. Camden remained for years afterward a major industrial locus on the Jersey side of the Delaware River, not the broadest and certainly not the most picturesque of our Atlantic estuaries, but probably the East Coast's premier industrial waterway, with a concentration of steel factories, chemical plants and oil tank farms equal to any in the country. The flat lands of South Jersey all around, mostly ignored in the 19th century, had easy access to cheap water transport and plenty of skilled labor from the Philadelphia area. For a quarter-century starting in the 1940s, they became one of the country's fastest-growing industrial areas.

Now, Camden has tended to empty out, many of its factories closed, its neighborhoods beset by crime, its mostly minority residents heavily dependent on public assistance, its local government so incompetent that its mayor was convicted for doing favors for Philadelphia's organized crime leaders. The state has been paying for two-thirds of the nearly-bankrupt city's budget. But the city, the second-poorest in America, offers a few attractions: A newly-developed riverfront park, the New Jersey Aquarium and the Sony Music/Pace amphitheater; an aerospace complex and a Campbell Soup office tower have gone up; a light-rail transit system is scheduled to connect Camden and Trenton in the summer of 2003, though critics call it pork.

The 1st Congressional District is, more or less, greater Camden, the Delaware riverfront from Riverton south to a point across from the Delaware state line, and suburbs running southeast to the flat vegetable fields of South Jersey. It is traversed by Black Horse Pike and White Horse Pike, two of the most heavily traveled roads in this densely populated part of South Jersey. Both routes dates back two centuries; today, they connect Philadelphia and its middle class South Jersey suburbs. Many of these boroughs and townships developed over the past half-century as a result of flight from Camden; a few, like Gloucester City, emerged on their own rather than as an outgrowth of the city. The PATCO High-Speed Line to Philadelphia is just a quick trip over the Delaware River from here, making for an easy commute from places such as prosperous Haddonfield. The district includes a growing number of Hispanics, primarily Puerto Ricans in Camden, though Mexicans from Puebla, in central Mexico, have been arriving in the region for the past decade. Politically, this is an area with a Democratic heritage.

The 1st District is represented by Rob Andrews, first elected in 1990. Andrews grew up in Bellmawr, the son of a shipyard worker, made a splendid record in college and law school, returned home and with then-Congressman Jim Florio's support was elected to the Camden County Board of Chosen Freeholders before he was 30. When Florio left Congress to become governor in January 1990, he postponed the special election to replace him until November; he supported Andrews, though Andrews was silent on Florio's controversial state tax increase. Andrews had other help. He spent $541,000 on his campaign, and he had a Republican opponent who switched positions on abortion and claimed to have attended a college he hadn't. Even so, in the anti-Florio climate, Andrews won by only 54%-43%.

He has a rather conservative record on economics and foreign policy but is more liberal on cultural issues. He voted against tax increases, including the Clinton budget package of 1993 and announced early opposition to the Clinton health care program. To some of Andrews's Democratic critics, he is a grandstander who would cut needed government programs. But he argues that he supports government that is vigorous and serves real needs--but insists on pruning government that isn't working and on not forcing voters to pay more in taxes for the same low level of services they've been getting.

In the Republican House, Andrews has had less opportunity for such initiatives but he has remained active, often by working with Republicans. As the ranking Democrat on the Employer-Employee Relations Subcommittee, he worked with committee chairman John Boehner to expand its focus on pension and retirement issues. Unlike most Democrats, he advocates the national missile defense system. As an ardent supporter of the use of force in Iraq, Andrews joined other House Democratic supporters in several meetings with George W. Bush. On the Armed Services Committee since 1999, he has worked to protect the nation's public and private-sector computers from terrorist attacks. Andrews has been a leader among regular Democrats on several key party initiatives, including expanded health insurance, HMO reform, and education funding. Back home, he joined the three South Jersey Republicans in seeking to split the state into two federal judicial districts. He opposed the Army Corps of Engineers plan to dredge the Delaware River to permit ships to carry more freight to Philadelphia and Camden.

After the 1996 election, he announced he was running for governor; he managed to get the endorsements of Florio and Hudson County Executive Bob Janiszewski, who were both mentioned as candidates themselves. Andrews was initially favored to win the primary in June 1997, but he ran into stiff competition from then-state Senator James McGreevey, who had the backing of more Democratic county organizations in North Jersey plus key elements of organized labor. Andrews swept South Jersey and took Hudson County, but McGreevey's big margins in Middlesex, Essex and Union Counties gave him a tight 39%-37% win.

Andrews has been re-elected to the House by overwhelming margins--without Republican opposition in 2002--and he has continued to live in Haddon Heights, commuting by train to the Capitol and occasionally sleeping overnight in his office. Despite his split with the Camden County Democratic organization, his House seat seems safe as long as he wants it. His close loss in the gubernatorial primary and his $1.2 million campaign surplus suggest he may be thinking of another statewide race. But he did not challenge McGreevey in the 2001 primary, and while he made clear his interest in replacing Bob Torricelli in September 2000, McGreevey, now governor, certainly did not back him. The next statewide opportunities will be in 2008, when Senator Frank Lautenberg will probably not seek another term at 84, and 2009, when McGreevey will be barred from running by term limits if he is reelected in 2005 and will not likely be a viable candidate if he isn't. That's a long time, but Andrews will be only in his early 50s.

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DC Office
2439 RHOB 20515, 202-225-6501; Fax: 202-225-6583; Web site: www.house.gov/andrews

State Offices
Haddon Heights, 856-546-5100; Woodbury, 856-848-3900.

Committees

• Education & the Workforce (5th of 22 D): 21st Century Competitiveness; Employer-Employee Relations (RMM).
• Select Committee on Homeland Security (12th of 23 D): Cybersecurity, Science and Research & Development; Intelligence & Counterterrorism.

Group Ratings (More Info)
	ADA	ACLU	AFS	LCV	CON	ITIC	NTU	COC	ACU	NTLC	CHC
2002	90	73	89	88	92	50	23	32	8	22	8
2001	90	--	100	100	--	--	19	41	20	--	--

National Journal Ratings (More Info)
	2001 LIB	--	2001 CONS		2002 LIB	--	2002 CONS
Economic	60%	--	40%		64%	--	35%
Social	74%	--	23%		74%	--	26%
Foreign	56%	--	41%		62%	--	36%
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 *  9. Trade Promotion Authority N 10. Bar Funds for Intl. Court N 11. Authorize Force in Iraq Y 12. Deny Home. Sec. Dept. Union N

Election Results (More Info)
	Candidate	Total Votes	Percent	Expenditures
2002 general	Robert Andrews (D)	121,846	93%	$643,964
	Timothy Haas (I)	9,543	7%
2002 primary	Robert Andrews (D)	unopposed
2000 general	Robert Andrews (D)	167,327	76%	$405,723
	Charlene Cathcart (R)	46,455	21%	$7,162
	Other	5,830	3%
Prior winning percentages: 1998 (73%); 1996 (76%); 1994 (72%); 1992 (67%); 1990 (54%); 1990 (55%)

2000 presidential
	Gore (D)	144,226	63%
	Bush (R)	77,367	34%
	Other	7,261	3%
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: D +15
• District Size: 352 square miles
• Population in 2000: 647,258; 98.6% urban; 1.4% rural
• Median Household Income: $47,473; 9.9% are below the poverty line
• Occupation: 22.8% blue collar; 62.4% white collar; 14.8% gray collar; 12.4% military veterans
• Race/Ethnic Origin: 71.2% White, 16.3% Black, 2.6% Asian, 0.2% Amer. Indian, 0.0% Hawaiian, 1.3% Two+ races, 0.1% Other, 8.2% Hispanic origin
• Ancestry: 16.8% Irish, 14.8% Italian, 13.0% German
• Click here for statewide demographic data.