Rep. Pat Toomey (R) Elected 1998, 3d term
Born:	Nov. 17, 1961, Providence, RI
Home:	Allentown
Education:	Harvard U., B.S. 1984
Religion:	Catholic
Marital Status:	married (Kris)
Elected  Office:	Allentown Govt. Study Comm., 1994.
Professional Career:	Investment Banker, 1984-89; Financial Consultant, 1990; Restaurateur, 1990-present.
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Allentown, Pennsylvania, has long been derided by show-biz songwriters, from "42nd Street" back in 1933, in which it was scorned as nowhere, the polar opposite of Broadway, to Billy Joel's "Allentown" in 1982, with its grim picture of closed factories and unemployment. Though both contain nuggets of truth, neither is an entirely fair portrait of Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley today: Allentown and next-door Bethlehem did suffer when big employers--Mack Truck in Allentown and Bethlehem Steel in Bethlehem--closed down big plants in the 1980s. But the Lehigh Valley around Allentown and Bethlehem had solid growth and low unemployment rates in the late 1990s, thanks to a mix of regional health care networks, telephone call-centers for insurance companies (Aetna) and banks (Wachovia), long-surviving industries (such as Air Products and Chemicals, energy utility PPL and the remnants of Mack Truck's local operations), and small startups that don't earn the visibility of the big closedowns but which together have created more new jobs than have been lost. In the Lehigh Valley, 43% of employees now work for companies with 100 or fewer workers, and 10% for companies with 10 or fewer. Some 8% of the population here is Hispanic, higher than in any other Pennsylvania metropolitan area--a sure sign that the area is generating new jobs. The redevelopment of Bethlehem includes a convention center, hotel complex and National Museum of Industrial History housed in part of the old steel plant. If the Lehigh Valley is off the main lines of traffic, it does at least have several features that make it attractive to people from the big city. It is connected by I-78 to New York and by the Turnpike Extension to Philadelphia; it has lower taxes and living costs; it has a cluster of colleges (Lehigh, Muhlenberg, Moravian) and a strong regional newspaper (the Allentown Morning Call); and it has both Dorney Park, one of the nation's oldest amusement parks, and the Crayola Crayon factory in Easton. Easton's old industrial buildings, just across the Delaware River from New Jersey, have become something of a magnet for artists seeking inexpensive loft and warehouse space.

The 15th Congressional District consists of the Lehigh Valley plus a small adjoining slice of northern Montgomery County. Politically, this has long been a classic swing area, located at the intersection of heavily Democratic industrial precincts and the Republican farmlands of the Pennsylvania Dutch Country. The valley backed Ronald Reagan twice, the elder George Bush in 1988 and Bill Clinton twice; in the past five governors' races, it voted twice for Democrat Robert Casey, twice for Republican Tom Ridge and, in 2002, for Democrat Ed Rendell. The only losing candidate to receive the valley's support in recent years was Al Gore.

The congressman from the 15th District is Pat Toomey, a Republican elected in 1998. Toomey grew up in a blue collar Rhode Island family, got enough scholarship aid to attend Harvard, then turned to a career in investment banking. After getting wealthy by creating an international financial services consulting firm, he moved to Allentown in 1990, where he and his brothers started Rookies' Restaurants. In 1994 he was elected to the Allentown Government Study Commission, where he authored tax limitation plans, including requiring a supermajority on the city council to raise taxes.

In November 1997, Democratic Congressman Paul McHale announced he was retiring; a year later, he became the first House Democrat to call for Bill Clinton's resignation and was one of five Democrats to vote for impeachment. Toomey was one of six candidates in the Republican primary. He called for individual investment accounts in Social Security reform and a 17% flat tax; he pledged to serve no more than six years and promised never to vote to raise taxes. He spent heavily and narrowly won the Republican primary. In the general election Toomey put the Democratic nominee, state Senator Roy Afflerbach, on the defensive early with an ad highlighting his votes for tax increases, calling him "the tax man" and attacking him for voting against repeal of a tax on toothpaste and dental floss. Afflerbach criticized Toomey's tax plan as a threat to Social Security and the budget surplus, and tried to appeal to conservative, blue-collar voters by calling Toomey an outsider. But Toomey won by the surprisingly large margin of 55%-45%. Toomey's win demonstrated the growing strength of suburbs over the declining Democratic strongholds of Allentown and Bethlehem, where Afflerbach won by only single-digit margins.

In the House, Toomey quickly went to work on national economic issues and ruffled many influential feathers. He took on the task for conservative Republicans of challenging excessive spending by the Appropriations Committee and won the leadership's support for setting aside an additional $4 billion for debt reduction. "We've got three parties in Congress--Republicans, Democrats and Appropriators," Toomey complained. He led opposition among Republicans to waiving the six-year term limits for committee chairmen. After the 2000 election, he urged a larger tax cut than George W. Bush's plan, with additional savings incentives and lower capital gains taxes. When the fiscal spigots were opened after the September 11 attacks, Toomey sought to impose some restraint and worried that terrorism would become "an opportunity for some to spend more money across the board." In 2002, his opposition helped to force Republicans to keep appropriations bills from the House floor before the election; Appropriations chairman Bill Young accused Toomey of trying to "destroy the appropriations process." He won enactment in 2001 of parts of his bill to reduce 130,000 pages of Medicare regulatory requirements on doctors and other providers. Keeping his district's political concerns in mind, Toomey inserted a provision in a House-passed bill that restricted Export-Import Bank subsidies from hurting domestic industries; this followed reports of a loan guarantee to a Chinese steel company that was undercutting domestic steel firms. In May 2002, he criticized the farm bill as a step "in the direction of Soviet-style agricultural policy." He voiced early support for removing Saddam Hussein in Iraq.

In both the 2000 and 2002 elections, Toomey was challenged by Ed O'Brien, a former blast-furnace worker at Bethlehem Steel and the number two United Steelworkers official in Pennsylvania. With strongly divergent views, the contests had elements of class warfare. Toomey backed limits on how much a patient can sue an HMO, and individual investment accounts for Social Security. O'Brien opposed each, and called for strengthening Social Security. Their initial contest was closer than expected. Toomey won 53%-47%, drawing 54% in Lehigh County but only 51% in Northampton. In 2002, after Republican redistricters made slight adjustments to the lines in Montgomery County, O'Brien tried to link Toomey to corporate scandals, calling him "Mr. Wall Street." Toomey ran an effective campaign ad with a steelworker complaining that O'Brien did a poor job for the union. This time, Toomey won 57%-43%, with 58% in Lehigh and 55% in Northampton.

After the 2002 election, Toomey kept his term limit pledge not to run for reelection in 2004. Instead, he announced in February 2003 that he would challenge Senator Arlen Specter in the 2004 primary. He took on a daunting task: Specter is a hard worker, an assiduous fundraiser, an aggressive opponent who has run six statewide campaigns and was first elected to the Senate in 1980. White House political strategist Karl Rove told Toomey that George W. Bush would support Specter in the primary; in February 2003 White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card attended a Specter fundraiser in the Lehigh Valley. But Toomey has taken on daunting odds before and prevailed; he is well liked by national conservative groups such as the anti-tax Club for Growth.

In the 15th District, Toomey's announcement opened up a competitive contest. Mentioned as likely candidates in mid-2003 were two state senators, Republican Charlie Dent and Democrat Lisa Boscola.

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DC Office
224 CHOB 20515, 202-225-6411; Fax: 202-226-0778; Web site: www.house.gov/toomey

State Offices
Allentown, 610-439-8861; Pennsburg, 215-541-1423; Wilson Borough, 610-515-1906.

Committees

• Budget (6th of 24 R).
• Financial Services (21st of 37 R): Capital Markets, Insurance & Government Sponsored Enterprises; Financial Institutions & Consumer Credit; Housing & Community Opportunity.
• Small Business (5th of 18 R): Rural Enterprises, Agriculture and Technology; Tax, Finance & Exports (Chmn.).

Group Ratings (More Info)
	ADA	ACLU	AFS	LCV	CON	ITIC	NTU	COC	ACU	NTLC	CHC
2002	0	13	0	25	94	100	66	100	100	100	100
2001	0	--	0	7	--	--	76	95	100	--	--

National Journal Ratings (More Info)
	2001 LIB	--	2001 CONS		2002 LIB	--	2002 CONS
Economic	0%	--	94%		28%	--	69%
Social	20%	--	69%		0%	--	75%
Foreign	49%	--	47%		41%	--	56%
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 N 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 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	Pat Toomey (R)	98,493	57%	$1,029,593
	Ed O'Brien (D)	73,179	43%	$824,636
2002 primary	Pat Toomey (R)	unopposed
2000 general	Pat Toomey (R)	118,307	53%	$975,795
	Ed O'Brien (D)	103,864	47%	$772,988
Prior winning percentages: 1998 (55%)

2000 presidential
	Gore (D)	119,393	49%
	Bush (R)	116,817	48%
	Other	8,865	4%
For 1992 and 1996 presidential results in the Fifteenth 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 + 0
• District Size: 817 square miles
• Population in 2000: 646,495; 87.4% urban; 12.6% rural
• Median Household Income: $45,419; 8.2% are below the poverty line
• Occupation: 26.4% blue collar; 59.5% white collar; 14.1% gray collar; 13.5% military veterans
• Race/Ethnic Origin: 86.4% White, 2.8% Black, 1.7% Asian, 0.1% Amer. Indian, 0.0% Hawaiian, 1.0% Two+ races, 0.1% Other, 7.9% Hispanic origin
• Ancestry: 21.9% German, 9.0% Irish, 8.1% Italian
• Click here for statewide demographic data.