Sen. Bill Frist (R) Elected 1994, 2d term up 2006
Born:	Feb. 22, 1952, Nashville
Home:	Nashville
Education:	Princeton U., A.B. 1974, Harvard Med. Schl., M.D. 1978
Religion:	Presbyterian
Marital Status:	married (Karyn)
Professional Career:	Practicing surgeon, 1978-94; Dir., Vanderbilt Medical Ctr. Heart-Lung Transplant Program, 1986-93.
Additional Info
Recent Articles · Offices · Committees · Ratings · Key Votes · Election Results
More On Tennessee
At A Glance · State Profile Junior Senator · Almanac Home

Bill Frist, first elected to the Senate in 1994, is now the 20th Senate majority leader (the title goes back only to 1925). Frist grew up in Nashville, in a well-known Tennessee family: His father practiced medicine for 55 years and was the physician for six Tennessee governors. Both his brothers are doctors, too. Frist graduated from Princeton and Harvard Medical School, studied at Massachusetts General Hospital, in England and at Stanford, and became a heart and lung transplant surgeon, setting up the transplant program at Vanderbilt. He performed 250 transplants and in 1989 wrote a book, Transplant, on the social and ethical issues of these surgeries; he has written more than 100 peer-reviewed articles. In 1968 his father and brother, Thomas Frist Jr., set up HCA (which through a 1994 merger became Columbia/ HCA), the world's largest hospital company; the Frists lost control of the firm in the late 1980s. After it was hit with charges of Medicare violations in 1997, Thomas Frist Jr. came back from semi-retirement to run it. He piloted his first plane at 16, and flew small planes to pick up donated organs; he runs marathons (two within 13 days in 1999). He still practices some medicine, at clinics in Washington, and on five trips to Africa, where he has tended patients in war zones in Sudan and in Uganda. He resuscitated a constituent in the Dirksen Building in September 1995, treated the wounded in the Capitol shooting in July 1998, tended Strom Thurmond when he collapsed on the Senate floor in October 2001, and treated accident victims on Florida's Alligator Alley on New Year's Day 2003.

Frist is a man of intensity and focus, and for years that focus was medicine, not politics; he never voted until he was 36, after he moved back to Nashville. He decided to switch careers and run in 1994 as a Republican against Democrat Jim Sasser. Frist seemed unlikely to win: Sasser was chairman of the Budget Committee and running for majority leader, and he had won his last race in 1988 with 65% of the vote. And Frist had tough primary opposition from east Tennessee businessman Bob Corker, who attacked him for not voting and for obtaining cats from animal shelters for experiments as a medical student (which he mentioned in Transplant). But Frist, spending liberally, carried the Nashville and Memphis media markets and beat Corker 44%-32%. In the general, Frist backed welfare reform, federal spending cuts, school prayer and term limits; he followed Howard Baker in calling for citizen-politicians and pledged to serve just two terms. Sasser emphasized school prayer, the balanced budget amendment and cracking down on illegal immigrants; he ridiculed Frist as a bored, rich surgeon. Frist outspent Sasser, spending $3.7 million of his own money. Sasser led in polls up through October, but in November Frist won 56%-42%, carrying all the large metro areas and losing only scattered traditionally Democratic rural counties.

Frist is the first practicing physician to serve in the Senate since Royal Copeland of New York died in June 1938. Naturally he got involved in health issues--the Senate ethics committee ruled that he is not prohibited from voting on any "legislation of general applicability to the health care industry." He played a key role on the 1996 health care bill on portability and pre-existing conditions, working to include Medical Savings Accounts. He worked to reauthorize the Ryan White CARE Act for the treatment and support of AIDS patients. He put on the income tax form a box to check off for information on organ donor cards. He worked to make sure Tennessee was not penalized for extending TennCare to uninsured children.

On some health issues, Frist has worked with Democrats. With Jay Rockefeller, he sponsored a law to allow physicians and hospitals to establish service provider organizations to contract directly with Medicare; they also founded a Forum on Technology and Innovation that holds frequent cram sessions for members and staffers. He backed the 1997 Clinton bill to ban discrimination by insurers by genetic traits and to assure privacy of genetic information. In 2000 he worked with Ted Kennedy to forge a compromise on organ transplants, to try to reduce regional disparities; the House, which backed the United Network of Organ Sharing, with its 62 separate geographic regions, refused to compromise. In 2000, Frist and Kennedy steered through a $919 million authorization for public health laws, including $540 million for research on bioterrorism and $180 million to refurbish Centers for Disease Control labs. He passed a law with incentives for primary care physicians in rural and inner city areas, and worked to reauthorize the bone marrow registry, with recruitment of minorities. Frist supported the partial-birth abortion ban, "because it is needlessly risky to the woman, because it is an unnecessary procedure, because it is inhumane to the fetus, and because it is medically unacceptable and offends the very basic civil sensibilities of people all across this country."

On HMO regulation and prescription drugs, Frist has taken the lead in forging Republican positions. He served on the Medicare Commission that presented its premium support plan in March 1999. In June 2000 he sponsored a Medicare reform bill with commission chairman John Breaux. Their plan would have private insurers competing to provide coverage to Medicare beneficiaries, overseen by a new government agency that would approve the content of plans; the idea is to evade the cumbersome HCFA bureaucracy in HHS. They seek to include prescription drug coverage as part of a larger reform of Medicare, with subsidies for all seniors and a progressive sliding scale of subsidies depending on income. The Breaux-Frist proposal went nowhere in 1999 because of opposition from the Clinton administration. But George W. Bush campaigned on the issue in 2000 and in early 2003 made it one of his priorities. Republicans had campaigned on the issue of prescription drugs for seniors in 2002 and House Republicans passed their version of a freestanding bill. But Frist has argued all along that it makes better sense to make a prescription drug benefit part of a larger Medicare revision, and in 2003 he gained his chance to bring it forward. Frist has also been a leader on stem-cell research. In July 2001 he set out ten "essential components" of policy, including funding adult stem-cell research, banning human cloning and using excess embryos from in vitro fertilization procedures which otherwise would be discarded. He co-sponsored with Congressman Tom Davis a bill, supported by Philip Morris, which would provide some FDA regulation of tobacco products.

Frist became a member of the Africa Subcommittee in 1997, which led to his medical trips to Africa. He criticized the Clinton administration for not supervising humanitarian relief that was being manipulated by the Sudan government and worked for a change in policy. After treating AIDS patients, he showed Jesse Helms pictures of them and got him to co-sponsor $500 million for a global AIDS fund. He backed down to the Bush administration and agreed to seek only $200 million, and was much criticized by Democrats, but he got Bush in 2003 to commit to spending $15 billion over several years.

After letters with anthrax were sent to Majority Leader Tom Daschle's office, Frist stepped forward and used his expertise to provide information and reassurance. He emphasized anthrax's sensitivity to antibiotics and encouraged anyone who might be exposed to take drugs; mistakenly, as he admitted, he underestimated the danger from anthrax in envelopes. Colleagues and citizens went to Frist for information; his website received 40,000 hits a day. In November 2001 he and Kennedy sponsored a bioterrorism preparedness bill, with $3 billion to expand the nation's supply of vaccines, expand the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, beef up state public health laboratories and provide training for response to a bioterrorism attack. It became law in June 2002. In March 2002, his book, When Every Moment Counts: What You Need to Know About Bioterrorism from the Senate's Only Doctor, was published in English and Spanish, with royalties going to the Tennessee Public Health Association. In August 2002 he argued that all Americans should have the option to get vaccinated against smallpox and to require vaccination of health care workers and military personnel likely to be exposed in a smallpox attack. In 2002 he wrote a bill restricting lawsuits against pharmaceutical companies that used the mercury-based preservative thimerosal as a preservative; his approach was that parents claiming that thimerosal caused autism in their children should go through the vaccination compensation process established by Congress in the 1980s. This provision was put into the homeland security bill by House Majority Leader Dick Armey in November 2002, and was attacked as a special interest provision to help Eli Lilly, which had contributed to Republicans. Frist continued to argue it was good public policy, but after he was elected majority leader agreed to honor Trent Lott's commitment to several Republican senators to allow the issue to be revisited in 2003, and said he would argue for the bill on its merits.

Frist got his start as a national Republican leader when he was chosen to deliver the response to Bill Clinton's State of the Union address in January 2000. In July 2000, after Paul Coverdell died, he was named to replace him as the liaison between George W. Bush's campaign and Republican senators. He chaired the Platform Committee at the Republican National Convention and spoke Thursday night just before Bush and was on an early list of possible vice presidential candidates. In December 2000, this surgeon who had no experience in politics a few years before was elected chairman of the NRSC, with the assignment of regaining a Senate majority in 2002 when 20 Republican and 14 Democratic Senate seats were up. He did it. He excelled in fundraising--the NRSC outspent its Democratic counterpart by $66 million--and in political strategy. He kept in close touch with White House political strategist Karl Rove but also made decisions on his own, as when he ran ads showing George W. Bush in March 2002 in five states where Democratic incumbents seemed vulnerable; Republicans picked up seats in two of the states. He worked with Rove and Bush to recruit candidates and clear the field for the challenger they thought had the best chance.

Overall, Republicans gained two seats. Never since popular election of senators came in had a president's party regained a Senate majority in an off-year election. Frist was suddenly a party hero and, interested in concentrating on health care issues, declined a second term at the NRSC three days after the election. Then Majority Leader Trent Lott made his now famous but then little-noticed statement at Thurmond's 100th birthday party December 5. As the furor began, Frist told a reporter December 10, "The statement was unfortunate, and it was off the cuff and casual. I know Trent Lott and he's not a racist. It's important people understand the Republican party leads on issues of equity and fairness and nondiscrimination. Any implication otherwise would be a disappointment to me." On December 15 Don Nickles called for a Republican Conference meeting January 6 to reconsider Lott's leadership. Frist, who had voted for Lott for Whip in December 1994, when Lott won by one vote, started making calls by December 19 seeking support should Lott step down. On the morning of December 20 Lott bowed out. By the end of the day it was clear that Frist would be the new majority leader. He was officially chosen in a conference call December 23.

Frist was elevated after only eight years in the Senate (Lyndon Johnson had only six years in the Senate when he was elected majority leader in 1954) and to a position that confers less power than many people assume. The majority leader can keep legislation off the schedule, but Senate rules require supermajorities and unanimous consent for many procedures; the majority leader is less often the tamer of lions than the herder of cats. He can be expected to take a particularly active part on Medicare and other health care issues, like medical malpractice awards; with a new seat on the Finance Committee he is particularly well positioned on Medicare. He can act without much concern about opinion in Tennessee. He was reelected in 2000 against weak opposition by a 65%-32% margin, with the highest number of votes cast for a senator in Tennessee history; he carried all but 5 of 95 counties. But he said in 1994 that he would only seek two terms, and in December 2002 said, "I've always said and I still say that I'm interested in serving a total of 12 years in the Senate. That means, in 2006, it will be very likely that I won't run for reelection." Already two young congressmen--Republican Zach Wamp of Chattanooga and Democrat Harold Ford of Memphis--have been making moves toward running then. But there is another office Frist could run for. Even before the 2002 elections, many Republicans and others mentioned him as a possible presidential candidate. "Bill Frist could become president," Phil Gramm said then. "Quote me on that." (He is not likely to be picked for the vice presidency should Dick Cheney not run again; Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen is a Democrat, and George W. Bush will want Frist in the Senate through 2006.) In December 2002 Frist said, "That's not my purpose in life, to be president. There are a lot of people who would like to be president, but that's not my goal."

Recent News Coverage
Search the CongressDaily, Hotline, National Journal and Technology Daily archives using the form below:

DC Office
461 DSOB 20510, 202-224-3344; Fax: 202-228-1264; Web site: frist.senate.gov

State Offices
Chattanooga, 423-756-2757; Jackson,731-424-9655; Kingsport,423-323-1252; Knoxville,865-602-7977; Memphis,901-683-1910; Nashville,615-352-9411.

Committees

• Majority Leader
.
• Finance: Health Care; International Trade; Social Security & Family Policy.
• Health, Education, Labor & Pensions.
• Rules & Administration.

Group Ratings (More Info)
	ADA	ACLU	AFS	LCV	CON	ITIC	NTU	COC	ACU	NTLC	CHC
2002	10	20	0	0	62	88	67	100	100	100	--
2001	10	--	0	0	--	--	84	100	100	--	100

National Journal Ratings (More Info)
	2001 LIB	--	2001 CONS		2002 LIB	--	2002 CONS
Economic	15%	--	84%		6%	--	90%
Social	0%	--	79%		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 N 3. Campaign Finance Reform N 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
2000 general	Bill Frist (R)	1,255,444	65%	$4,664,737
	Jeff Clark (D)	621,152	32%	$173,406
	Other	52,017	3%
2000 primary	Bill Frist (R)	unopposed
1994 general	Bill Frist (R)	834,226	56%	$7,017,424
	Jim Sasser (D)	623,164	42%	$5,020,515
	Other	23,001	2%