Sen. Pete Domenici (R) Elected 1972, 6th term up 2008
Born:	May 7, 1932, Albuquerque
Home:	Albuquerque
Education:	U. of NM, B.S. 1954, Denver U., LL.B. 1958
Religion:	Catholic
Marital Status:	married (Nancy)
Elected  Office:	Albuquerque City Comm., 1966-70, Mayor Ex-Officio, 1967-70.
Professional Career:	Practicing atty., 1958-72.
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Pete Domenici, New Mexico's senior Senator, was elected to his sixth term in 2002. He grew up in Albuquerque, the son of Italian immigrants who ran a grocery wholesale business. He played baseball for the Albuquerque Dukes, practiced law, was elected to the city commission in 1966; he ran for governor in 1970, and lost 51%-46% to Bruce King. In 1972, when a Senate seat opened up in a Republican year, he ran and won 54%-46%, beating a Democrat named Jack Daniels. Ever since he has been reelected by wide margins.

Domenici is now chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, but for 22 years he was chairman or ranking minority member of the Budget Committee. He has also been a member of the Appropriations Committee and brought an appropriator's mindset to his work on the budget. He got a seat on the Budget Committee in 1973, his first year in the Senate, and after Republicans gained a majority in 1980 he became chairman in January 1981; he became ranking minority member in January 1987, chairman again in January 1995 and ranking minority member in June 2001. In 1990 he turned down the ranking minority position on Energy and Natural Resources, an important committee for New Mexico, to stay on the Budget. After supporting the 1981 Reagan tax cuts, Domenici was appalled at budget deficits and pushed for entitlement cuts and tax increases, but Democrats fought the first and Republicans the second. In May 1985, Domenici and Bob Dole got Republican senators to pass a freeze on Social Security cost-of-living adjustments; then Ronald Reagan dropped the COLA freeze in a compromise with House Speaker Tip O'Neill, and Senate Republicans, left exposed, lost their majority in 1986. After Republicans became the majority party Domenici's ideas--a consumption tax, more in spending than tax cuts--were initially overruled by Speaker Newt Gingrich, but the tax increase he opposed in 1993 and the spending standstill in the budget eventually passed in early 1996 put the deficit on a downward trajectory. Domenici was the impresario in the negotiations that produced the May 1997 balanced budget agreement. He helped to shape the budget resolutions in 1999 and 2000, but as an appropriator helped work out the arrangements that resulted in exceeding the budget caps. In February 2001 he worked to pass the $1.6 trillion Bush tax cut and charged that Democrats had "anti-tax cut fever." Shy one vote in the Senate, Republicans did not end up reaching Bush's goals on the budget resolution. But they came close, and would have ended up much further away if Domenici had been lukewarm about the Bush plan. In June 2001 Domenici lost the chairmanship, but the budget resolution had already passed and in 2002 the Democrats were not able to pass one. In November 2001 he proposed a one-month $38 billion holiday from the payroll tax. In November 2002 he decided, after finding new spots for some longtime staffers, to move to the chairmanship of the Energy Committee; under Senate Republican rules he was eligible for only two more years as Budget Chairman. In early 2003 he seemed less upset with deficits than he had in the 1980s. "Obviously, deficits over long periods of time, especially when you have a good economy and are not at war, bother me very much. But I have carefully researched the projected deficits for the next few years and I am not worried about them having a negative effect on the economy. The accumulation of debt does not bother me yet. It will bother me if we keep running those kinds of deficits for seven, eight or nine more years."

Domenici took over the Energy chairmanship from his Democratic New Mexico colleague, Jeff Bingaman, who became ranking minority member; this was the first time in history senators from the same state held the top two positions on a committee. Among the reasons he did so were his continuing interest in New Mexico's Los Alamos and Sandia National Laboratories and in promoting the expansion of nuclear power. After the controversy over security lapses at Los Alamos, he sponsored the creation of a new Undersecretary of Energy for Nuclear Stewardship; this was approved 96-1. In 2001 he got the appropriation for the labs up to $5.8 billion, the highest ever and $500 million above the administration request. His knowledge of the labs' work made him interested in other programs. Since 1996 he has been a major supporter of the Nunn-Lugar program for helping Russia secure and eliminate its nuclear stockpile, and he has steadily pushed for increased funding. The labs also made him aware of homeland security problems before September 11; the Sandia Lab has one of the world's most comprehensive anthrax databases. In 1997 at Harvard he called for a national dialogue on nuclear power, which he points out produces zero pollution; in January 2002 he pointed with pride to the relicensing of six plants and the pending relicensing applications for 14 more and predicted that power companies would apply to build new nuclear plants. In 2001 he called for bringing back the Price-Anderson Act, which protected the nuclear power industry from liability for catastrophic accidents. Domenici supported the Bush energy proposals, including oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge; in March 2002 he criticized Tom Daschle for, with Bingaman's apparent cooperation, yanking the bill from the committee because the votes were there for ANWR drilling. But in February 2003 he admitted that he didn't have the votes on the floor for ANWR drilling. He promised to try to advance Bush's energy bill, but said that electricity deregulation would be the most contentious issue. He said that he might be open to increasing CAFE auto mileage standards and opposed putting the nuclear waste depository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada off-budget.

Domenici has been one of the leaders in the Senate to extend health insurance coverage for mental illness. He became interested in the issue after his daughter Clare, the fourth of his eight children, was diagnosed with atypical schizophrenia. Working with Paul Wellstone, and with the encouragement of Tipper Gore, he got a provision in the 1996 health care bill providing for equal dollar limits for physical and mental health coverage but allowing insurers to shift costs by raising co-payments or deductibles; it does not mandate coverage for mental illness, and some call it "mental illness coverage lite." Domenici and Wellstone pressed for broader coverage and got the Senate to agree in October 2001; the House reauthorized the 1996 version, and but it was dropped in the conference committee. Domenici was distraught when Wellstone died in a plane crash in October 2002, and cancelled many campaign events and the one debate he agreed to, which was scheduled later that day.

Domenici uses his Appropriations seat to help New Mexico projects. He opposed the Clinton administration arsenic standard in drinking water which, he said, would require New Mexico communities to spend $424 million to meet a standard "lacking a foundation of sound science" and when the Bush administration accepted it, he sought $5 billion to help communities across the nation reduce arsenic levels; he made sure fast-growing places like Rio Rancho north of Albuquerque were eligible. He has negotiated with the Sandia Pueblo on its land claim in the Sandia Mountains, got $75 million to clean up bosque in the Albuquerque corridor of the Rio Grande and proposed spending $2.5 million to improve the border crossing at Columbus, which Pancho Villa's band of soldiers attacked in 1916. He pushed through $1.5 billion in the Pentagon budget for the IOSTAR space tug, with a nuclear propulsion system developed by the Sandia Laboratory.

Domenici has not been successful in seeking Senate leadership positions. He lost the majority leadership to Bob Dole in 1984 and the post of Republican Policy Committee chairman to Don Nickles by 23-20 in November 1990. In December 2000 he made a last-minute race against Policy Committee Chairman Larry Craig; this was taken as a criticism of Majority Leader Trent Lott, although Domenici said it wasn't; in any case he lost 26-24.

Domenici has remained highly popular in New Mexico and has won reelection easily. His Pete's Political Action Committee contributed more than $80,000 to Hispanic congressional and state candidates in New Mexico, Texas and California in 2000. In 2002 he was opposed by Gloria Tristani, granddaughter of longtime (1935-62) Senator Dennis Chavez and former state Corporation Commissioner and member of the Federal Communications Commission. He campaigned heavily across the state and was endorsed by 74 mayors, including dozens of Democrats. Some raised questions about his health; he has been stricken with acute pain in two fingers in his right hand since a touch football accident in 1999, but has reportedly reduced the pain by physical therapy and medication. On Election Day Domenici won 65%-35%; he lost only three counties, and those narrowly. He reached out immediately to Governor-elect Bill Richardson, of whom he had been critical in the past, and in early 2003 the two seemed to be working together actively.

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DC Office
328 HSOB 20510, 202-224-6621; Fax: 202-228-0900; Web site: domenici.senate.gov

State Offices
Albuquerque, 505-346-6791; Las Cruces,505-526-5475; Roswell,505-623-6170; Santa Fe,505-988-6511.

Committees

• Appropriations: Commerce, Justice, State & Judiciary; Defense; Energy & Water Development (Chmn.); Homeland Security; Interior; VA, HUD & Independent Agencies.
• Budget.
• Energy & Natural Resources (Chmn.).
• Indian Affairs.

Group Ratings (More Info)
	ADA	ACLU	AFS	LCV	CON	ITIC	NTU	COC	ACU	NTLC	CHC
2002	15	0	14	6	65	88	56	100	88	76	--
2001	10	--	0	13	--	--	78	100	90	--	80

National Journal Ratings (More Info)
	2001 LIB	--	2001 CONS		2002 LIB	--	2002 CONS
Economic	41%	--	59%		29%	--	70%
Social	42%	--	58%		0%	--	62%
Foreign	7%	--	72%		0%	--	76%
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. Expand Patients' Rights * 3. Campaign Finance Reform Y 4. Permit ANWR Development Y 5. Confirm Ashcroft as AG Y 6. Bar Gays in the Boy Scouts Y		7. $ for Hate Crime Prosecution N  8. Overseas Military Abortions N  9. Bar Coop. with Intl. Court Y 10. Trade Promotion Authority Y 11. Authorize Force in Iraq Y 12. Homeland Sec. Dept. Union N

Election Results (More Info)
	Candidate	Total Votes	Percent	Expenditures
2002 general	Pete Domenici (R)	314,193	65%	$4,144,286
	Gloria Tristani (D)	168,863	35%	$836,604
2002 primary	Pete Domenici (R)	unopposed
1996 general	Pete Domenici (R)	357,171	65%	$3,435,164
	Art Trujillo (D)	164,356	30%	$155,213
	Abraham J. Gutmann (Green)	24,230	4%	$12,025
Prior winning percentages: 1990 (73%); 1984 (72%); 1978 (53%); 1972 (54%)