Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R) Elected 2002, 1st term
Born:	May 29, 1957, Stephenville
Home:	Dallas
Education:	TX A&M U., B.A. 1979, U. of TX, J.D. 1982
Religion:	Christian
Marital Status:	married (Melissa)
Professional Career:	Practicing atty., 1982-84; TX Dir., U.S. Sen. Phil Gramm, 1985-89; Exec. Dir., NRSC, 1991-93; Communications Exec., 1993-02.
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Not all of Dallas is glitz and postmodern marble. From each side of downtown, on one of the three street grids that run skew to each other, is an older Dallas, with neighborhoods of high-ceilinged old mansions, modest bungalows and shotgun houses running out toward the old airport at Love Field or the State Fair Grounds and the Cotton Bowl in east Dallas, or south to the desolate treeless parks along the cement-lined Trinity River. Some of this older Dallas is being renovated and rebuilt, with chic cafes and trendy stores serving those who make their livings catering to the rich farther north. Other once middle-class neighborhoods are filling up with immigrants from Mexico and other parts of Latin America, once again noisy with children as they were in the 1950s when people moved here not from Mexico or Central America but from the almost all-Anglo counties of north and central Texas. The 2000 Census showed that 30% of the population in Dallas County is Hispanic.

The 5th Congressional District includes much of east and southeast Dallas County, including many such neighborhoods in Dallas and suburban Mesquite. It also includes a more upscale slice of Dallas inside the Freeway extending to White Rock Lake and Lake Highlands. But the 5th District also contains all or part of 10 counties in central Texas, connected to the Dallas County portions by a thin strip of land in suburban Kaufman County; the 2001 court that produced the redistricting plan followed almost exactly the same lines as the 1991 partisan Democratic redistricting plan. The Democrats' original aim was to avoid including much Republican suburban territory and connecting hip inner-city neighborhoods with yellow-dog Democratic rural counties. But their strategy has not worked. The 5th District is 16% black and 18% Hispanic, but it is not very Democratic. As rural areas swung away from Bill Clinton's Democrats, the affluent Dallasites within the district stuck with Republicans and George W. Bush attracted support from Latinos. In 2000, Bush won 62% districtwide.

The congressman from the 5th District is Jeb Hensarling, a Republican elected in 2002. Pete Sessions, who had represented the 5th for the previous six years, decided to run in the new and slightly more Republican 32d District on the north side of Dallas, even though the new 5th included 74% of his old district while the 32d included only 16%; Sessions said that he wanted to spend less time traveling around his district. Hensarling grew up in Morris County in east Texas and Lubbock County in west Texas. He worked on his father's poultry farm near College Station as a teenager and decided that he did not want to be a farmer. In high school, he started a Republican club and began organizing political events. He graduated from Texas A&M and the University of Texas Law School and practiced law for two years in San Antonio. Then he got a job on the staff of Senator Phil Gramm. He managed Gramm's 1990 campaign and was executive director of the NRSC when Gramm was chairman. He returned to Texas to become vice president of communications for Green Mountain Energy, a local utility, and he was co-founder of Family Support Assurance, a firm that has tried to modernize child support collections.

After Sessions announced he would not run again in the 5th District, Hensarling announced and became the frontrunner for the Republican nomination. Like his mentor, he listed cutting taxes as his top priority. Against four opponents he got 54% of the vote in the March 2002 primary and won the nomination without a runoff. His most curious opponent was attorney Phil Sudan, who ran two years earlier in the 25th District on the south and east side of Houston, and lost to Congressman Ken Bentsen 60%-39% despite largely self-financing his $3.2 million bid; running in the 2002 primary in the Dallas-based district, he got 8% of the vote.

Democrats tried to recruit state Senator David Cain, but he declined to run. Instead, they nominated Ron Chapman, a former Dallas County appellate judge who had been on the Dallas County ballot since 1978 and shared the name of a popular Dallas radio disc jockey. Actively backed by Texas Democratic delegation leader Martin Frost, Chapman described himself as a loyal Democrat who could work with Republicans. By the fall, Hensarling referred to his opponent as "Judge Softie" for twice allowing a man charged with attempted murder to go free from his courtroom. The folksy Chapman emphasized his public service, fiscal conservatism and deep local roots. He tried to paint Hensarling as too extreme for the district, but his message failed to take hold as a parade of Republican luminaries paraded into the district on his behalf, including George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Bush adviser Karen Hughes and Phil Gramm. Perhaps the most significant endorsement came when Ron Chapman the disc jockey backed Hensarling at a press conference and sought to make clear that he was not the Democrat running for Congress. Hensarling won 58%-40%, with almost identical margins in Dallas County and the rest of the district.

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DC Office
423 CHOB 20515, ; Fax: 202-226-4888; Web site: www.house.gov/hensarling

State Offices
Athens, 903-675-8288; Dallas, 214-349-9966.

Committees

• Budget (23d of 24 R).
• Financial Services (31st of 37 R): Domestic and International Monetary Policy, Trade & Technology; Financial Institutions & Consumer Credit; Oversight & Investigations.

Election Results (More Info)
	Candidate	Total Votes	Percent	Expenditures
2002 general	Jeb Hensarling (R)	81,439	58%	$2,040,082
	Ron Chapman (D)	56,330	40%	$914,592
	Other	2,139	2%
2002 primary	Jeb Hensarling (R)	10,475	54%
	Dan Hagood (R)	3,628	19%
	Mike Armour (R)	3,247	17%
	Phil Sudan (R)	1,632	8%
	Other	574	3%

2000 presidential
	Bush (R)	118,703	62%
	Gore (D)	72,507	38%
For 1992 and 1996 presidential results in the Fifth 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 +12
• District Size: 7,455 square miles
• Population in 2000: 651,620; 76.7% urban; 23.3% rural
• Median Household Income: $39,227; 12.3% are below the poverty line
• Occupation: 26.5% blue collar; 58.1% white collar; 15.4% gray collar; 12.2% military veterans
• Race/Ethnic Origin: 63.0% White, 15.8% Black, 1.8% Asian, 0.4% Amer. Indian, 0.0% Hawaiian, 1.2% Two+ races, 0.1% Other, 17.7% Hispanic origin
• Ancestry: 9.2% USA, 7.5% German, 7.1% Irish
• Click here for statewide demographic data.