Rep. Jim Turner (D) Elected 1996, 4th term
Born:	Feb. 6, 1946, Ft. Lewis, WA
Home:	Crockett
Education:	U. of TX, B.B.A. 1968, M.B.A. 1971, J.D. 1971
Religion:	Baptist
Marital Status:	married (Ginny)
Elected  Office:	TX House of Reps., 1981-84; Crockett Mayor, 1989-91; TX Senate, 1991-96.
Military Career:	Army, 1970-78.
Professional Career:	Exec. Asst., Gov. Mark White, 1984-86; Practicing atty., 1986-96; Chmn., TX Comm. on Children & Youth, 1993-94.
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East Texas is thick with landmarks of Lone Star history. There's still an Indian reservation in Polk County, and the swampland of the Big Thicket National Preserve reminds you of what this area once looked like. Near Beaumont is Spindletop, where the world's first gusher spewed out in 1901 and started the Texas oil boom. Not far away is the huge oil field that wildcatter H. L. Hunt found in 1931, the foundation of a billion-dollar fortune. Much of East Texas looks little different from the wildcat days of 50 years ago: the town squares with churches and courthouses (Cherokee County's courthouse square features a 546-foot footbridge, the longest in the nation); the stands of fast-growing pine; the rough farmland. It was in the fields and woodlands of Nacogdoches County and other nearby counties that the debris, including human remains, fell when Space Shuttle Columbia was lost in February 2003.

The 2d Congressional District includes all or part of 18 East Texas counties, most of them still largely rural; it runs from Huntsville in the west to the oil port of Orange just east of Beaumont then north past Lufkin to Jacksonville. The political tradition here is Democratic and populist, devoted to traditional values but with a military posture and a certain Texas rowdiness. This is the kind of district Democrats must carry to win Texas, but lately have failed to do so: George W. Bush won 63% of the vote here in 2000.

The congressman from the 2d District is Jim Turner, a Democrat first elected in 1996. He grew up in East Texas, went to college and law school at the University of Texas in Austin, served eight years in the Army, then returned to Crockett in Houston County, practiced law and was active in church and community organizations. In 1980 he was elected to the Texas House and served four years; he was mayor of Crockett for two years; in 1990 he returned to Austin in the state Senate. His opportunity to run for the House came when Congressman Charlie Wilson decided to retire after 24 years. With Wilson's support, he won a three-candidate Democratic primary in 1996 with 59%, carrying everything but his opponents' home counties. Donna Peterson, a West Point graduate who opposed Wilson three times, lost the Republican runoff by 2-1 to Christian conservative Brian Babin. Turner outspent Babin by nearly 2-1 and won 52%-46%.

In the House, Turner joined the conservative-leaning New Democrat Coalition and Blue Dogs, and has taken a centrist posture. Like other skillful Texas Democrats over the years, he took on legislative tasks in the House, like playing a leading role to promote the Shays-Meehan campaign finance bill by filing a discharge petition. After voting to sustain Clinton's vetoes of the marriage-penalty and estate and gift tax repeals, he was among the 28 House Democrats who approved final passage of tax cuts in 2001. With Republican Kevin Brady and Democrat Lloyd Doggett, he proposed that Congress apply to the federal government the sunset review process used in Texas. As the Blue Dogs policy co-chair in 2001, he urged George W. Bush to devote half of the surplus to reducing the debt, one-fourth to tax cuts, and one-fourth to spending priorities. When the surplus disappeared, he led the Blue Dogs' efforts to control the deficit by enforcing spending caps, revising House rules to require a three-fifths vote to increase the deficit and requiring the president to submit a balanced budget each year. Working with Tom Davis and Joe Lieberman, he enacted his bill to establish a federal chief information officer within the Office of Management and Budget, and requiring Internet access to government information and services. He proposed a memorial on the National Mall to honor the victims of September 11.

In January 2003, Nancy Pelosi named him as ranking Democrat of the new Select Homeland Security Committee. Turner had been disappointed over his failure to gain a seat on the Energy and Commerce Committee, but said this was more significant. With Chairman Christopher Cox, he moved quickly to assert the committee's oversight authority within the House and to strengthen the law that created the Homeland Security Department. He has been especially interested in assuring rapid development of information technology in homeland defense.

Turner was reelected with 58% of the vote in 1998, 91% in 2000 and was reelected with 61% of the vote in 2002. If a new congressional map is passed for the 2004 election, Turner's seat could be at risk; under one proposal that circulated in May 2003, Turner and 1st District Congressman Max Sandlin were paired together in a distinctly Republican district.

Update: March 10, 2004
On January 6, 2004, Turner announced he will not seek reelection to a fifth term.

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DC Office
330 CHOB 20515, 202-225-2401; Fax: 202-225-5955; Web site: www.house.gov/turner

State Offices
Huntsville, 936-291-3097; Lufkin, 936-637-1770; Orange, 409-883-4990.

Committees

• Armed Services (10th of 29 D): Tactical Air & Land Forces; Terrorism, Unconventional Threats & Capabilities.
• Select Committee on Homeland Security (RMM of 23 D).

Group Ratings (More Info)
	ADA	ACLU	AFS	LCV	CON	ITIC	NTU	COC	ACU	NTLC	CHC
2002	75	53	100	25	31	62	17	55	32	14	33
2001	60	--	80	36	--	--	18	57	48	--	--

National Journal Ratings (More Info)
	2001 LIB	--	2001 CONS		2002 LIB	--	2002 CONS
Economic	57%	--	43%		58%	--	41%
Social	52%	--	47%		56%	--	42%
Foreign	61%	--	36%		54%	--	46%
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 N 3. Campaign Finance Reform Y 4. Ban ANWR Development N 5. Faith-Based Charities N 6. Bar Gays in the Boy Scouts Y		7. Ban Partial-Birth Abortion Y  8. Arm Commercial Pilots Y  9. Trade Promotion Authority N 10. Bar Funds for Intl. Court Y 11. Authorize Force in Iraq Y 12. Deny Home. Sec. Dept. Union N

Election Results (More Info)
	Candidate	Total Votes	Percent	Expenditures
2002 general	Jim Turner (D)	85,492	61%	$330,840
	Van Brookshire (R)	53,656	38%	$27,861
	Other	1,353	1%
2002 primary	Jim Turner (D)	unopposed
2000 general	Jim Turner (D)	162,891	91%	$138,491
	Gary Lyndon Dye (Lib)	15,939	9%
Prior winning percentages: 1998 (58%); 1996 (52%)

2000 presidential
	Bush (R)	133,641	63%
	Gore (D)	78,493	37%
For 1992 and 1996 presidential results in the Second 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 +13
• District Size: 14,214 square miles
• Population in 2000: 651,619; 38.1% urban; 61.9% rural
• Median Household Income: $32,986; 15.9% are below the poverty line
• Occupation: 33.3% blue collar; 48.2% white collar; 18.5% gray collar; 13.9% military veterans
• Race/Ethnic Origin: 75.6% White, 13.8% Black, 0.4% Asian, 0.4% Amer. Indian, 0.0% Hawaiian, 0.9% Two+ races, 0.0% Other, 8.8% Hispanic origin
• Ancestry: 12.5% USA, 7.5% Irish, 6.5% German
• Click here for statewide demographic data.