Rep. Martin Frost (D) Elected 1978, 13th term
Born:	Jan. 1, 1942, Glendale, CA
Home:	Arlington
Education:	U. of MO, B.A., B.J., 1964, Georgetown U., J.D. 1970
Religion:	Jewish
Marital Status:	married (Kathy)
Military Career:	Army Reserves, 1966-72.
Professional Career:	Staff writer, Congressional Quarterly, 1965-1967; Legal commentator, KERA-TV, Dallas, 1971-72; Practicing atty., 1972-78.
Additional Info
Recent Articles · Offices · Committees · Ratings · Key Votes · Election Results District Demographics
More On Texas
At A Glance · State Profile District Map Redistricting · Almanac Home

The geographical heart of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex was open country as late as the 1950s, when the Dallas-Fort Worth Turnpike was built over empty land to link the two downtowns. Then, over the next three decades, the bottomlands of the West Fork of the Trinity River and the barren hills overlooking them filled up. Whole new Dallases and Fort Worths, with as many people as the central cities had in the 1950s--Grand Prairie and Arlington--grew up along the highway in these once impoverished lands and became central to one of America's richest and most productive metropolitan areas. Major civic landmarks have arisen here as well, such as The Ballpark in Arlington, the new old-style baseball stadium for the Texas Rangers built by managing partner George W. Bush. It also attracted some big employers with plants here or nearby--Northrop Grumman, General Motors, Hughes Training, Bell Textron Helicopter, Lockheed Martin. Now Arlington and Grand Prairie are in their second generation, taking on the patina of age, but above them you still see the big Texas sky and, in the distance, the small bluffs that mark the Balcones Escarpment, the geological divide between flat and lush east Texas and rolling and dry west Texas. In some neighborhoods, old houses are being torn down to be replaced by bigger, gaudier ones; in others, immigrants from Latin America or East Asia are moving in in large numbers.

The 24th Congressional District contains much of this area. Its eastern and western edges touch on downtown Dallas and downtown Fort Worth. It includes part of the old Oak Cliff neighborhood of Dallas, across the Trinity River south of downtown; this was a heavily black area in the 1980s, but now is heavily Hispanic. It also includes most of the modest suburbs of Duncanville and Cedar Hill to the south. The 24th includes most of Grand Prairie and the northern part of Arlington, including Six Flags Over Texas and The Ballpark. It also includes the eastern part of Fort Worth, including most of the city's predominantly black areas. About half the population is in the central cities of Fort Worth and Dallas and half in cities that are classified as suburban but have taken on an urban character of their own. Ethnically, the district is diverse: 35% Anglo, 22% black, 38% Hispanic, 3% Asian. Politically, it is a diverse area as well. The Fort Worth portion is heavily Democratic, the Dallas portion somewhat less so; Arlington and Grand Prairie tend to vote Republican. Overall the district voted 54% for Gore in 2000. This is the closest thing to an evenly balanced district in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex.

The congressman from the 24th District is Martin Frost, a Democrat first elected in 1978. He is the only member of Congress married to a general, Major General Kathy George Frost, whom he met on a courtesy visit to the Army and Air Force Exchange Service in Oak Cliff; she is commanding officer of the Army and Air Force Exchange Service, based in Dallas. Martin Frost grew up in Fort Worth and had some political blood; his maternal grandfather was mayor of Henderson and his uncle a Rusk County judge and state senator. He graduated from the University of Missouri and Georgetown Law School. He clerked for Judge Sarah Hughes, who swore in Lyndon Johnson as president in November 1963, worked for Congressional Quarterly in Washington and for Jim Lehrer at public TV in Dallas and appeared as a commentator himself on the channel. But politics has been most of his professional life. The first Mid-Cities district was created in 1972, and Frost first ran for the seat in 1974, at 32, and lost the primary to incumbent Dale Milford. He ran again in 1978 and reversed the result. As a freshman he got a seat on the Rules Committee, thanks to Majority Leader Jim Wright of Fort Worth. Frost was a stalwart supporter of Wright to the end and has been close to the leadership, or in it, for years. He lost two leadership bids in the 1980s, backing off a bid to chair the Budget Committee in 1984 and losing the race for caucus vice chairman to Vic Fazio in 1989. But he came back to chair the IMPAC 2000 redistricting panel from 1991, coordinating Democratic redistricting efforts across the country, and was the chief architect of the Texas redistricting plan of 1991, which gave Democrats a 21-9 lead in the delegation in 1992. The federal court that drew new district lines in November 2001 followed that plan fairly closely.

After the debacle of 1994, Frost was appointed chairman of the DCCC. He led Democrats to gains of 9 seats in 1996 and, against off-year precedent, 5 in 1998, but they were left achingly short of a majority; he succeeded in holding down the number of Democratic retirees and, despite Republican Tom DeLay's efforts, maintained the flow of PAC money to Democratic incumbents and even to Democrats running in open seats. In November 1998 Frost defeated Rosa DeLauro 108-97 to replace Vic Fazio as Democratic Caucus chairman, a rare case of the moderate defeating the more liberal Democrat. Frost became the ranking Democrat on the Rules Committee after Joe Moakley died in May 2001.

Frost has worked on local causes, including funding the V-22 Osprey at Bell Helicopter Textron in Fort Worth; in October 2002 he helped secure $1.6 billion for 11 Ospreys in the defense appropriations bill. He is proud of having sponsored the Amber Hagerman Child Protection Act, tacked onto an appropriation bill in October 1996 and named for an Arlington 9-year-old who was kidnapped and murdered; it mandates life in prison for anyone twice convicted of a sex offense against a child. In 2002 he co-sponsored a national AMBER Alert, to complement state and local programs; the bill was enacted in April 2003.

Frost continued to work hard on nationwide redistricting as head of IMPAC 2000 after the 2000 Census. In 2001 he said that Republicans were overreaching in partisan plans in Pennsylvania and Michigan and predicted that court challenges would help Democrats. He argued that Republicans made no net gains in redistricting; Republicans claimed a net gain of between five and 10 seats. Judgment on this is subjective, and the truth may be somewhere in between. In Texas Frost stayed in touch with Speaker Pete Laney, who had a 78-72 Democratic majority, and contributed generously to Democratic candidates for the legislature in 1998 and 2000. He kept Democrats together while Republicans submitted several plans. Democrats' deftness at filing lawsuits found them in favorable state and federal courts. The federal court plan adopted in November 2001 explicitly set out to protect incumbents, which meant that many features of Frost's 1991 plan stayed in place and Democrats eked out a 17-15 majority in the delegation.

In 2001 and 2002 Frost was serving his final term as Caucus chairman under House Democrats' rules and after all his work on redistricting and in the leadership, he announced in February 2002 that he was seeking to move up. If Democrats were to win a majority, Dick Gephardt would become speaker and Frost would run for majority leader. If they stayed in the minority, it was widely assumed that Gephardt would step down as minority leader to run for president, and Frost would run for minority leader. In either case his likely opponent would be Nancy Pelosi, elected as minority whip by a 118-95 vote over Steny Hoyer in October 2001. As he had in past cycles, Frost had been raising money for other Democrats. Altogether he raised or contributed $7.5 million in 2001 and 2002, including $4.5 million to the DCCC and $1 million through his Lone Star Fund, which accepted soft money; nearly half that money came from four of the five Texas trial lawyers who collected $3.3 billion as their fee in the Texas tobacco settlement. Frost ran as "someone who is a consensus-builder and someone who can help build toward a majority." Many Democrats said that Pelosi would beat Frost as she had beaten Hoyer, with a coalition of Californians, women, liberals and some old-timers who admired her energy and political savvy. Frost hoped to beat her, as he had beaten DeLauro, with a coalition of Texans, southerners, Jews, blacks and moderates. But this would be a different Democratic Caucus. In 1976 the Caucus had 29 Californians, 22 Texans and 80 southerners. In 2002 it would have 33 Californians, 17 Texans and 57 southerners. And Pelosi won the support of three Texans--Max Sandlin, Lloyd Doggett and Frost's Dallas neighbor Eddie Bernice Johnson.

In retrospect, the vote on the Iraq war resolution forecast the outcome of the leadership contest. Frost was one of the first Democrats to openly support the use of military force in Iraq. Pelosi adamantly opposed it. During the debate on the Iraq war resolution, she busily counted votes and, some said, lobbied for Democrats to vote no. Frost, like Dick Gephardt, supported the resolution but did not lobby. To the surprise of many, House Democrats voted against the resolution by a margin of 126-81.

Two days after the election, Gephardt announced he would not run for minority leader again and Frost immediately announced he would. He posed the issue squarely. "I think that her politics are to the left, and I think that the party, to be successful, must speak to the broad center of the country." But a day after his announcement, Frost sent out a letter withdrawing from the race. "It is clear to me that Nancy Pelosi has the votes of a majority of the caucusNancy Pelosi is a talented and capable party leader. I intend to support her for Democratic leader in next week's election, and I will work with her to do everything I can to return Democrats to control of the House of Representatives."

In December 2002 there was speculation that Pelosi would appoint him chairman of the DCCC. His qualifications were strong: House Democrats had gained more seats during his chairmanship than in any cycle since 1982; he had good contacts among contributors, he had top-notch political staffers and an in-depth knowledge of the political situation across the country. But Pelosi decided instead to nominate fellow Californian Robert Matsui, who has had little experience in electoral politics outside his safe Democratic district.

Interestingly, Frost got a more favorable 24th District from the federal court redistricting plan of 2001 than from his own plan of 1991. But neither district is overwhelmingly Democratic. Frost's active constituency service probably helped him get through the Republican year of 1994 when he beat homebuilder Ed Harrison by only 53%-47%. His margin came from black precincts in Fort Worth. In a 1996 rematch he won 56%-39%. In 2000 and 2002 against poorly financed Republicans he won 62%-37% and 65%-34%. Redistricting remains a perilous proposition for Frost, however. If a new congressional map is passed for the 2004 election, he is almost certain to be put in jeopardy; Republicans have made clear he is a prime target.

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

DC Office
2256 RHOB 20515, 202-225-3605; Fax: 202-225-4951; Web site: www.house.gov/frost

State Offices
Arlington, 817-303-1530; Dallas, 214-948-3401; Ft. Worth, 817-293-9231.

Committees

• Rules (RMM of 4 D): The Legislative & Budget Process.

Group Ratings (More Info)
	ADA	ACLU	AFS	LCV	CON	ITIC	NTU	COC	ACU	NTLC	CHC
2002	95	73	100	75	48	50	13	50	4	0	0
2001	85	--	100	64	--	--	9	50	25	--	--

National Journal Ratings (More Info)
	2001 LIB	--	2001 CONS		2002 LIB	--	2002 CONS
Economic	74%	--	27%		77%	--	20%
Social	70%	--	30%		74%	--	19%
Foreign	43%	--	53%		69%	--	30%
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 N 2. Limit Patients' Bill of Rights N 3. Campaign Finance Reform Y 4. Ban ANWR Development Y 5. Faith-Based Charities N 6. Bar Gays in the Boy Scouts N		7. Ban Partial-Birth Abortion N  8. Arm Commercial Pilots N  9. Trade Promotion Authority N 10. Bar Funds for Intl. Court N 11. Authorize Force in Iraq Y 12. Deny Home. Sec. Dept. Union N

Election Results (More Info)
	Candidate	Total Votes	Percent	Expenditures
2002 general	Martin Frost (D)	73,002	65%	$1,566,087
	Mike Rivera Ortega (R)	38,332	34%	$39,910
	Other	1,560	1%
2002 primary	Martin Frost (D)	unopposed
2000 general	Martin Frost (D)	103,152	62%	$1,983,181
	James (Bryndan) Wright (R)	61,235	37%	$205,245
	Other	2,561	2%
Prior winning percentages: 1998 (57%); 1996 (56%); 1994 (53%); 1992 (60%); 1990 (100%); 1988 (93%); 1986 (67%); 1984 (59%); 1982 (73%); 1980 (61%); 1978 (54%)

2000 presidential
	Gore (D)	83,806	54%
	Bush (R)	70,665	46%
For 1992 and 1996 presidential results in the Twenty-Fourth 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 + 4
• District Size: 261 square miles
• Population in 2000: 651,619; 99.5% urban; 0.5% rural
• Median Household Income: $36,962; 17.2% are below the poverty line
• Occupation: 30.4% blue collar; 55.0% white collar; 14.6% gray collar; 9.7% military veterans
• Race/Ethnic Origin: 35.3% White, 21.7% Black, 3.1% Asian, 0.4% Amer. Indian, 0.1% Hawaiian, 1.3% Two+ races, 0.1% Other, 38.0% Hispanic origin
• Ancestry: 5.3% German, 4.8% USA, 4.5% English
• Click here for statewide demographic data.