Rep. Pete Sessions (R) Elected 1996, 4th term
Born:	Mar. 22, 1955, Waco
Home:	Dallas
Education:	SW U., B.A. 1978
Religion:	Methodist
Marital Status:	married (Juanita)
Professional Career:	District Mgr., SW Bell Telephone Co., 1978-93; V.P., Public Policy, Natl. Center for Policy Analysis, 1994-95.
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North Dallas has long been the home of the city's elite--indeed, of a good portion of the nation's elite. Early in the 20th century, Dallas's richest citizens started moving away from old neighborhoods next to downtown and out past Turtle Creek to the area around the suburbs of Highland Park and University Park--the Park Cities. Dallas grew lustily from midcentury on, and beyond the Park Cities miles of affluent neighborhoods were built, especially between the Central Expressway and the Dallas North Tollway. Gallerias and office complexes followed; increasingly North Dallasites were working near where they lived. Not all of North Dallas is like that; there is an entertainment and singles apartment corridor along Greenville Avenue, working class black neighborhoods here and there, pockets of Latino neighborhoods near the freeways. But overall the tone has been set by the Dallas elite. In the 1960s and 1970s this was one of the politically most conservative parts of the country: people believed firmly in free markets, personal responsibility and the Republican party. In the 1990s North Dallas moved, like elite areas in other big metropolitan areas, toward Democrats--but here only just a little bit. Gun control is not much more popular here than in rural Texas, and the number of affluent women willing to vote Democratic on the abortion issue is very much less than in similarly affluent quadrants of New York or Los Angeles. A decade ago, both George W. Bush and Dick Cheney lived in North Dallas, in or near the Park Cities; Bush moved to Austin in January 1995 when he became governor and Cheney changed his residence to Wyoming in July 2000 so that he could be nominated vice president.

The 32d Congressional District includes all of the area commonly thought of as North Dallas. This was a new district created by a federal court in November 2001; the districts that had recently included much of North Dallas, the 3d and the 26th, were moved farther north into the suburbs. The 32d includes the Park Cities, the Turtle Creek area, and affluent North Dallas north to the Dallas County line. It also includes all or part of affluent suburbs in Dallas County: parts of Richardson and Garland northeast of the city and Farmers Branch, Coppell and parts of Irving and Carrollton to the northwest. Politically this is a solidly Republican area, but not so Republican as some of the fast-growing suburban counties in the state. It voted 65% for George W. Bush in 2000.

The congressman from the 32d District is Pete Sessions, a Republican first elected in 1996. Sessions grew up in Waco, graduated from Southwestern University, then worked at Southwestern Bell in Dallas for 16 years; his father William Sessions, a federal judge, served as FBI director from 1987 to 1993. Sessions has shown he is willing to move around to different House districts. In 1991 he ran and finished sixth in the special election in the 3d District, which then included much of North Dallas. In 1993 he resigned from the phone company to run against Democratic incumbent John Bryant in the 5th District, which included much of the east side of Dallas and several rural counties to the south. The district had been designed to reelect Bryant, a liberal and active legislator. But Sessions ran a vigorous campaign, making a two-day, 12-city tour of the district's rural portions with a livestock trailer full of horse manure and a sign saying "the Clinton health care plan stinks worse than this trailer." "A vulgar thing," Bryant sniffed. This was a heavily Republican year and, although he outspent Sessions 2-1, Bryant won by just 50%-47%. In 1996 Bryant ran unsuccessfully for the Senate; Sessions ran again and won the March primary. The district lines were changed by a federal court in the summer, and in the fall he faced Democrat John Pouland, a former regional GSA administrator, in November. Sessions charged that Pouland was a big government liberal and would abandon U.S. military bases overseas; Pouland criticized subsidizing the foreign bases while pursuing Medicare "cuts." Pouland charged that Sessions had changed to an anti-abortion stance after his 1991 race. This was a seriously contested race; Sessions won 53%-47%.

In the House, Sessions has a solidly conservative voting record. In 1999 he got a seat on the Rules Committee, a sure sign that he is regarded as a leadership loyalist. He sponsored the constitutional amendment to require a two-thirds vote to raise taxes, and was a leading advocate of the Republicans proposal to put Social Security and Medicare surpluses in a lockbox. He also joined with Democrats Charles Grassley, Ted Kennedy and Henry Waxman on a bill to permit families with disabled children to keep their Medicaid coverage even if their income rises; Sessions and his wife have a son with Down's syndrome. He was an early House organizer of the bandwagon for George W. Bush's presidential candidacy.

In the 5th District, Sessions faced serious challenges. His opponent in 1998 was Victor Morales, who lost to Phil Gramm two years earlier and again ran a shoestring campaign, criticizing Sessions for taking contributions from special interests. Sessions won 56%-43%. In 2000, Democrats spoke well of his challenger Regina Montoya Coggins, who was a Clinton White House liaison to local elected officials and whose husband was Clinton's U.S. attorney in the Dallas area; she was well known for her on-air work at KERA-TV in Dallas. She attacked the "politics of selfishness" and said that the incumbent was "in the pocket of the big drug companies." Sessions termed her "at the outer edges of the liberal agenda" and said that she was a "liar" in describing how he would benefit from tax cuts. With her Clinton and feminist contacts, Coggins was competitive financially. In a strong Republican year in Texas, Sessions had a slightly smaller victory margin, 54%-44%.

When the federal court issued its redistricting map in November 2001, the new 5th District was considerably more Republican: the Bush 2000 percentage rose from 58% to 62%. The 32d district, which voted 65% for Bush, seemed only marginally more Republican. But Sessions surprised almost everyone by abandoning the 5th District and running instead in the 32d, which included only 16% of his old district. Sessions explained that he wanted to spend less time traveling around his district (the 32d covers just 166 square miles, making it the state's smallest seat; the 5th covers 7,455 square miles) and that the new district was compatible with his pro-business philosophy; certainly the 32d has a stronger fundraising base. Some Republicans criticized Sessions. But state Representative Ken Marchant abandoned his plan to run in the 32d and Sessions had only token primary opposition. In the general, Sessions won 68%-30%. After the election he urged the legislature to order a new round of congressional redistricting to replace the "current partisan interim map." Depending on the result, he could find himself in yet another district.

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DC Office
1318 LHOB 20515, 202-225-2231; Fax: 202-225-5878; Web site: www.house.gov/sessions

State Offices
Dallas, 972-392-0505.

Committees

• Rules (8th of 9 R): Technology & the House.
• Select Committee on Homeland Security (26th of 27 R): Cybersecurity, Science and Research & Development (Vice Chmn.); Emergency Preparedness & Response; Rules.

Group Ratings (More Info)
	ADA	ACLU	AFS	LCV	CON	ITIC	NTU	COC	ACU	NTLC	CHC
2002	0	7	0	0	55	88	62	100	100	97	100
2001	0	--	0	0	--	--	76	96	100	--	--

National Journal Ratings (More Info)
	2001 LIB	--	2001 CONS		2002 LIB	--	2002 CONS
Economic	0%	--	94%		0%	--	91%
Social	35%	--	63%		0%	--	75%
Foreign	16%	--	82%		0%	--	85%
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	Pete Sessions (R)	100,226	68%	$530,671
	Pauline Dixon (D)	44,886	30%	$10,578
	Other	2,790	2%
2002 primary	Pete Sessions (R)	19,973	93%
	Danny Davis (R)	1,391	7%
2000 general	Pete Sessions (R)	100,487	54%	$1,826,456
	Regina Montoya Coggins (D)	82,629	44%	$1,636,875
	Other	2,842	2%
Prior winning percentages: 1998 (56%); 1996 (53%)

2000 presidential
	Bush (R)	129,527	65%
	Gore (D)	70,029	35%
For 1992 and 1996 presidential results in the Thirty-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 +15
• District Size: 166 square miles
• Population in 2000: 651,619; 99.8% urban; 0.2% rural
• Median Household Income: $48,848; 11.3% are below the poverty line
• Occupation: 16.4% blue collar; 71.3% white collar; 12.4% gray collar; 8.9% military veterans
• Race/Ethnic Origin: 55.2% White, 9.1% Black, 6.3% Asian, 0.3% Amer. Indian, 0.0% Hawaiian, 1.5% Two+ races, 0.1% Other, 27.4% Hispanic origin
• Ancestry: 8.7% German, 8.2% English, 6.7% Irish
• Click here for statewide demographic data.