Rep. Tom Davis (R) Elected 1994, 5th term
Born:	Jan. 5, 1949, Minot, ND
Home:	Annandale
Education:	Amherst Col. B.A. 1971, U. of VA, J.D. 1975
Religion:	Christian Scientist
Marital Status:	married (Peggy)
Elected  Office:	Fairfax Cnty. Bd. of Supervisors, 1979-94, Chmn., 1991-94.
Military Career:	Army, 1971-72; Army Reserves, 1972-79.
Professional Career:	Vice Pres. & Gen. Cnsl., PRC Inc., 1977-94.
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When author and Washington Post reporter Joel Garreau coined the term ''edge city'' to describe the autonomous urban centers developing on the rims of some of the nation's oldest municipalities, his prime example was Tysons Corner, Virginia. Rising on a hill west of Washington, Tysons Corner was a back-country intersection 50 years ago and a junction of several suburban roads 25 years ago; today it is home to the largest concentration of office space to be found anywhere between Washington and Atlanta, with a modern skyline and busy multi-lane avenues that serve as arteries to the Capital Beltway. Fairfax County, which includes all of Tysons Corner, has changed just as dramatically since the end of World War II. At first only a few District of Columbia residents seeking breathing room in the suburbs trickled into Northern Virginia; initially they went to Arlington and Alexandria. But that trickle became a rush as young marrieds with large families and whites avoiding the increasingly high-crime District pushed farther out into Fairfax. Now Fairfax County is no longer Washington's country cousin. By 2000 it had 969,000 residents, nearly twice D.C.'s. 572,000; it reached 1 million by 2003. It had in 1999 the nation's highest median household income ($81,050), almost half its residents have a bachelor's degree or more and nearly 70% of its households have two or more vehicles. It also has plenty of immigrants, from Koreans and Vietnamese to Afghanis and Africans.

The 11th Congressional District consists of much of Fairfax County and most of fast-growing Prince William County to the south. The district straddles the Capital Beltway and includes Tysons Corner. Inside the Beltway are Baileys Crossroads and Annandale; beyond are Vienna, Fairfax, much of Springfield, Burke, Clifton, Centreville, part of Mount Vernon. In Prince William County it includes Woodbridge and Dale City and stretches west to Haymarket. This is a cosmopolitan district: 10% black, 9% Hispanic, 11% Asian; some 25% of residents speak a language other than English at home. The district is made up largely of two-income families, many with at least one spouse employed in one of the many divisions of high-tech companies that dot Fairfax County. The district was first created in 1991, after Virginia got a new seat in the 1990 Census. It was originally designed to be equally divided between the parties, and within its 1991 boundaries it voted 43%-42% for George Bush in 1992, 49%-47% for Bill Clinton in 1996 and 49%-47% for Al Gore in 2000. In its post-redistricting 2002 form, the district voted 52% for George W. Bush.

The congressman from the 11th District is Tom Davis, a Republican elected in 1994. Davis grew up in Northern Virginia, and was always interested in politics; by seventh grade he could name every member of the House. He got a job as a Senate page and was president of his class at the Capitol Page School; he was a friend of David Eisenhower at Amherst College, where almost everyone else was a Democrat or something further left; he served on active duty in the Army before earning a law degree. He practiced law in Northern Virginia and was general counsel to computer services firm PRC. In 1979 he was elected to the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, a high visibility position. In 1991 he was elected board chairman, something in the nature of a mayor.

In 1994 Davis ran for the 11th District seat against Democrat Leslie Byrne, who had won 50%-45% in 1992. Byrne had voted solidly for Clinton administration positions and called for discipline against members of the Democratic Caucus who did not; she had strong support from labor and feminist groups and spent $1.1 million. But Davis was able to raise and spend even more, $1.4 million. He won 53%-45%.

As soon as he arrived on Capitol Hill, Davis was handed by Speaker Newt Gingrich one of the hottest potatoes of the new Congress: Dealing with the affairs of the troubled District of Columbia government and its just re-elected mayor, Marion Barry. As chairman of the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee's D.C. Subcommittee, Davis first rejected Barry's request for massive federal aid, working closely with Gingrich and District Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton to cut District spending. Together they passed in April 1995 a law establishing a five-member control board to oversee the D.C. government. He tended to oppose the appropriators' detailed policy prescription as micromanagement, but went along with the 1997 law taking power over nine agencies from Barry and giving it to the control board. In February 1999 Davis and Norton sponsored a bill restoring full management powers to the District and its new mayor, Anthony Williams; it was speedily passed. Davis and Norton also passed a bill suggested by Washington Post publisher Donald Graham to enable District students to attend Virginia and Maryland public colleges and universities at in-state tuition rates.

Davis has a moderate voting record, near the midpoint of the House. He opposed the Contract with America tax cut in 1995 because it would have required higher pension payments by federal employees; he and suburban Washington's Frank Wolf and Connie Morella were three of only 11 Republicans who voted against the tax cut. He has worked for legislation to protect high-tech firms from the depredations of trial lawyers, including the securities litigation reform that was passed over Bill Clinton's veto in 1996. He co-sponsored a bill, supported by Philip Morris, to buy out tobacco farmers and allow the FDA to regulate tobacco products. He has kept in touch with the many immigrant groups in the 11th District, and favored amnesty to former refugees who have lived in the United States for many years. Over several years Davis worked on getting federal financing for the new Woodrow Wilson Bridge, which totaled $1.58 billion in federal aid; he has worked with Northern Virginia colleagues Jim Moran and Frank Wolf for new Potomac and Rappahannock buses and Job Access and Reverse Commute funds. He and Maryland Rep. Steny Hoyer got the House to pass a bill giving U.S. Park Police and the Secret Service Uniformed Division the same locality pay as other federal workers, and they pushed for the 4.1% federal pay increase in 2002.

Davis is a political buff with a detailed knowledge of political statistics across the country. In Virginia's 1997 elections, he criss-crossed the state and created a PAC that gave some $150,000 to state legislative candidates. In September 1997, NRCC Chairman John Linder named Davis to be his chief recruiter. He specialized in raising money from high-tech sources and argued that despite their cultural liberalism they were better protected by Republican principles of free trade, small government and laissez faire economic policies. The NRCC chairmanship became an elective post after the November 1998 election, and after Republicans lost seats in the cycle Davis ran against Linder. Tom DeLay put his whip organization to work for Davis, and Davis won 130-77.

Davis had a delicate balancing act as a moderate in a mostly conservative party; he insisted that he was just trying to maximize the number of Republicans elected. He was criticized by the Family Research Council for meeting with the Log Cabin Republicans of Northern Virginia in February 1999 and criticized by moderates for giving $750,000 to the U.S. Family Network and the National Right to Life Committee. He spent $1 million on 1999 state legislative races in Virginia, in which Republicans captured both houses and won control of redistricting; within a few months conservative incumbent Congressman Virgil Goode left the Democratic Party and announced he would caucus with Republicans and conservative Democrat Owen Pickett retired--a two-seat gain a year before an election in which Democrats needed only a five- or six-seat gain to win control.

Through most of the cycle Democrats were supremely confident they would win the House in 2000, and they matched, and at some points exceeded, Republicans' fundraising--a considerable achievement that owed much to the fame of their campaign committee chairman Patrick Kennedy. But Kennedy and those who advised him did not quite match Davis's political knowledge and instincts. He early on spotted open seats which had long voted Democratic but where conservative non-economic issues helped Republicans--Pennsylvania's 4th, West Virginia's 2d, Missouri's 6th, Michigan's 8th, Virginia's 2d--and won them all. Against party-switcher Michael Forbes in New York's 1st, he spent money on billboards thanking him for his solid support of Newt Gingrich and the Contract With America; Forbes was upset in the September Democratic primary, and the seat went Republican in November. He spotted the weakness of 20-year incumbent Democrat Sam Gejdenson in Connecticut's 2d, which led to another gain. The Republican nomination in the open seat in Florida's 8th was not determined until the October runoff; but for two months before the NRCC spent heavily on ads attacking the Democratic nominee, who lost 51%-49%. Only four Republican incumbents lost, three in California and one in the Arkansas 4th District (the one district where a vote for impeachment hurt).

Davis was re-elected campaign committee chairman in November 2000. During the 2002 cycle Republicans far outraised the Democrats, whose campaign committee staff was headed by Hillary Rodham Clinton's 2000 campaign spokesman. Once again Davis did a fine job of targeting vulnerable seats, but his most valuable work was on redistricting. Not since the death of California Democrat Phillip Burton in 1983 has a member of Congress with such a detailed knowledge of the political demography of the entire country taken such a lead role in redistricting. Davis and White House political strategist Karl Rove persuaded the chief Democratic redistricter in California, Michael Berman, brother of Congressman Howard Berman, to settle for a plan that gave the state's one new seat to Democrats but otherwise maintained the status quo: Not a bad deal for Democrats, who had just picked up three seats there, but not as much as they might have won in 2002, admittedly with a greater risk of losing seats later in the decade. After Democrats put through an aggressively partisan redistricting plan in Georgia, Davis worked to see that Republicans in Pennsylvania put through a similarly aggressive plan. As a result, Republicans gained seats in a state that lost two seats while Democrats failed to achieve the gains they expected in a state that gained two seats. Davis urged the appointment of Ohio Democrat Tony Hall to the FAO in Rome; redistricting made Hall's seat more Republican, and a Republican won it easily. Davis predicted that Republicans would pick up as many as eight seats; they picked up five, and he savored the victory after dinner with George W. Bush and other Republican congressional leaders at the White House election night. "I'll quote the great one, Wayne Gretzky," he told a reporter soon after. "'Most people skate to where the puck is. I skate to where the puck is going to be.' In politics you have to understand not where the voters are when a poll is taken, but where they are likely to end up on Election Day."

Davis also took care of himself in redistricting in Virginia. He and Republican Frank Wolf and Democrat Jim Moran drew new district lines for Northern Virginia that helped all three. He had no Democratic opponent in November 2002 and won with 83% of the vote; in 2000, against a Democrat in a district closely divided between the parties, Davis won 62%-34%. After the 2002 election he was faced with a deadline for spending NRCC soft money on party headquarters: he gave $250,000 and $50,000 to the Fairfax and Prince William County Republican parties for that purpose. When asked if he had given disproportionate favor to parties in his district, he said. "Of course. I'm the chairman. What do you expect?" Davis has not been shy about running for statewide office, perhaps for governor in 2005, more likely for the Senate in 2008 if John Warner retires.

In the meantime, he remained active in the House. On the Government Reform Committee, Davis ranked only ninth in seniority among Republicans in early 2002, but he was nevertheless seen as a likely candidate to replace Chairman Dan Burton, who would reach the end of his six-year term limit in January 2003. Also in the running were Christopher Shays, whose use of a discharge petition to get his campaign finance regulation bill to the floor irked the leadership, and Christopher Cox, already in a leadership post himself. But the leadership decided on Davis; Cox became head of the new Homeland Security Committee, and Shays seemed to accept this, saying "I felt like I was dealt with very, very fairly by the leadership." "We're going to focus legislatively on areas of reform--civil service, federal procurement," Davis said. "We're going to move from 75-25 investigative to legislative to maybe 60-40 legislative to investigative." Davis is an expert on both subjects, on good terms with government employee unions but willing to vote against them and with Bush on personnel rules in the Homeland Security Department. Davis promptly abolished the District of Columbia Subcommittee and announced that he would superintend District legislation himself.

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DC Office
2348 RHOB 20515, 202-225-1492; Fax: 202-225-3071; Web site: www.house.gov/tomdavis

State Offices
Annandale, 703-916-9610; Prince William, 703-590-4599.

Committees

• Government Reform (Chmn. of 24 R): Civil Service & Agency Organization (Chmn.); Criminal Justice, Drug Policy & Human Resources.

Group Ratings (More Info)
	ADA	ACLU	AFS	LCV	CON	ITIC	NTU	COC	ACU	NTLC	CHC
2002	10	33	0	50	36	100	57	84	88	69	75
2001	15	--	10	43	--	--	60	90	60	--	--

National Journal Ratings (More Info)
	2001 LIB	--	2001 CONS		2002 LIB	--	2002 CONS
Economic	41%	--	58%		28%	--	69%
Social	49%	--	51%		39%	--	57%
Foreign	21%	--	74%		22%	--	77%
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 Y 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	Tom Davis (R)	135,379	83%	$1,591,381
	Frank Creel (CNP)	26,892	16%	$8,797
	Other	1,027	1%
2002 primary	Tom Davis (R)	unopposed
2000 general	Tom Davis (R)	150,395	62%	$1,515,583
	M.L. (Mike) Corrigan (D)	83,455	34%	$72,833
	Other	9,118	4%
Prior winning percentages: 1998 (82%); 1996 (64%); 1994 (53%)

2000 presidential
	Bush (R)	140,961	52%
	Gore (D)	123,702	45%
	Other	8,087	3%
For 1992 and 1996 presidential results in the Eleventh 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 + 4
• District Size: 404 square miles
• Population in 2000: 643,509; 95.9% urban; 4.1% rural
• Median Household Income: $80,397; 3.8% are below the poverty line
• Occupation: 11.7% blue collar; 76.5% white collar; 11.8% gray collar; 15.9% military veterans
• Race/Ethnic Origin: 66.8% White, 10.1% Black, 10.9% Asian, 0.2% Amer. Indian, 0.1% Hawaiian, 2.6% Two+ races, 0.2% Other, 9.1% Hispanic origin
• Ancestry: 11.5% German, 10.0% Irish, 9.4% English
• Click here for statewide demographic data.