Rep. Terry Everett (R) Elected 1992, 7th term
Born:	Feb. 15, 1937, Dothan
Home:	Enterprise
Education:	Dale County H.S.
Religion:	Baptist
Marital Status:	married (Barbara)
Military Career:	Air Force, 1955-59.
Professional Career:	Newspaper reporter, 1959-61, 1966-68; Businessman, 1961-64; Editor & Publisher, 1968-88; Real estate developer, 1988-92; Owner & Pres., Union Springs Herald, 1988-2003.
DC Office	2312 RHOB20515, 202-225-2901; Fax: 202-225-8913; Web site: www.house.gov/everett
State Offices	Dothan, 334-794-9680; Montgomery, 334-277-9113; Opp, 334-493-9253.
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The thick green countryside is everywhere in southern Alabama. Even in Montgomery the stone and brick buildings that rise in the irregular downtown grid do not mask the contours of the hills or hide the lush foliage. You can look downhill from the restored Greek Revival Capitol toward Dexter Avenue Baptist Church where the young Martin Luther King Jr. was pastor in the 1950s, or out past the impressive Carolyn Blount Theater where the Alabama Shakespeare Festival is held toward new subdivisions and shopping malls, and you can easily imagine when this land was covered with cotton fields and pine trees. The atmosphere is even more rural in southeast Alabama's Wiregrass region, named for the stiff native grass, in the fishing town of Eufaula along the Chattahoochee River, around the town of Dothan, past Daleville and the Army's Fort Rucker (the home of Army aviation flight training) to Enterprise, site of the Boll Weevil Monument that commemorates the insect that destroyed two-thirds of the cotton crop here in 1915 and then spread throughout the South. Timber is an important resource here these days, and peanuts are now the main crop in the area surrounding Dothan; the district ranks second in the nation in acres harvested for peanuts.

The 2d Congressional District of Alabama covers the southeast corner of the state. It includes most of the city of Montgomery, but only a small part of Montgomery County; Democratic redistricters put the rest (which includes the Capitol and many black precincts), into the 3d District in an attempt to make that seat more Democratic. The result left the 2d heavily Republican. The Montgomery County precincts in the 2d together with suburban Elmore and Autauga Counties vote heavily Republican; so does the area around Dothan and Houston County in the Wiregrass region. These places heavily outvote the district's Black Belt counties--Lowndes, the site of Hyundai's first U.S. plant, Bullock, with a large black majority, and Barbour on the Georgia border, which was George Wallace's home base. It would be a mistake to see these preferences as purely racial, however. The civil rights laws of the 1960s have long since been accepted. Blacks here tend to support a larger and more generous government, and hence vote Democratic. Alabama whites tend to take a hard line on defense and crime, want government to promote traditional cultural values and hence vote Republican.

The congressman from the 2d District is Terry Everett, a businessman from the Wiregrass first elected in 1992. He grew up in the Wiregrass region and served in Air Force Intelligence in Germany in the 1950s, where he learned Russian, then worked as a sports and police beat reporter and circulation manager for southern Alabama newspapers. He bought some newspapers himself and sold them for far more, and ended up heading a S&L and owning a large farm and real estate development firm. In 1992, when he decided to run for the seat being vacated by 28-year incumbent Republican Bill Dickinson, he was far from the favorite. But he beat two career politicians, a Montgomery legislator in the Republican primary and, in the general, state Treasurer George C. Wallace, son of the former governor (Wallace, now a Republican, is an elected Public Service Commissioner). Everett spent $600,000 of his own money and, echoing an old George Wallace slogan, called on voters to, ''Send them a message, not a politician.'' Everett carried the Montgomery area and the Wiregrass but lost the Black Belt and rural areas.

Everett's voting record is mostly conservative; he shows a practical-minded concern about local issues and demonstrates a real impact on some issues. A prime example is peanuts: In 1995, he formed a Peanut Caucus and on the Agriculture Committee held out against the Freedom to Farm Act until he got the peanut program continued, though with a 10% cut in the support price and a lower national quota. On the 2002 farm bill, Everett chaired the Specialty Crops and Foreign Agriculture Programs Subcommittee, which placed him in a strong position to advocate the interests of peanut farmers. When he concluded that Congress would no longer support the 30 cents per pound peanut subsidy, Everett worked with Saxby Chambliss and Sanford Bishop of Georgia on a compromise that reduced imports and guaranteed quota farmers 10 cents per pound, with new farmers receiving a fallback option of government purchase at 18 cents. That Everett was able to get the House to accept a $3.5 billion (over 10 years) program shows his skill in protecting the interests of local farmers. Everett, himself a holder of a peanut quota, estimated that he would get $30,000 over five years from the new program. The new program developed record yields for the district's peanut crop, though the number of farmers fell a bit. On another issue, he echoed the district's populist tradition when he filed a bill to require two months public notice before corporations could give big pay raises to their top executives.

Everett has also worked on military and veterans' issues. As a Veterans Affairs subcommittee chairman in 1999, he took credit for a $1.7 billion increase for veterans' health care spending plus the opening of four new national cemeteries. In 2003, Everett became chairman of the Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee, where he sought to shift funding priorities "from longer-term efforts to those that will provide more immediate benefit to the war fighter" in Iraq, including space-based military capabilities.

Everett has been reelected easily against poorly-funded challengers.

Committees

• Agriculture (4th of 25 R): General Farm Commodities & Risk Management; Specialty Crops & Foreign Agriculture Programs (Vice Chmn.).
• Armed Services (6th of 34 R): Strategic Forces (Chmn.); Tactical Air & Land Forces.
• Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (4th of 12 R): Oversight; Technical & Tactical Intelligence.
• Veterans' Affairs (3d of 16 R): Oversight & Investigations.

Group Ratings (More Info)
	ADA	ACLU	AFS	LCV	ITIC	NTU	COC	ACU	NTLC	CHC
2004	0	5	13	9	78	54	100	92	86	100	--
2003	10	--	0	5	--	65	90	88	--	--	--

National Journal Ratings (More Info)
	2003 LIB	--	2003 CONS		2004 LIB	--	2004 CONS
Economic	19%	--	80%		25%	--	74%
Social	14%	--	85%		0%	--	91%
Foreign	23%	--	71%		25%	--	68%
For National Journal's complete 2004 Vote Ratings, as well as previous ratings dating back to 1995, please click here.

Key Votes Of The 108th Congress (More Info)
1. Drilling in ANWR Y 2. Approve Bush Tax Cuts Y 3. Medicare/Rx Bill Y 4. Bar Overtime Pay Regs. N 5. DC School Vouchers Y 6. Ban Human Cloning Y		7. Restrict Gun Liability Y  8. Ban Partial-Birth Abortion Y  9. Ban Same-Sex Marriage Y 10. Fund Iraq War Y 11. Bar Cuba Embargo Funds N 12. Intelligence Reorg. Y

Election Results (More Info)
	Candidate	Total Votes	Percent	Expenditures
2004 general	Terry Everett (R)	177,086	71%	$1,937,038
	Charles James (D)	70,562	28%	$1,320
	Other	299	0%
2004 primary	Terry Everett (R)	unopposed
2002 general	Terry Everett (R)	129,233	69%	$1,076,731
	Charles Woods (D)	55,495	30%
	Other	3,237	2%
Prior winning percentages: 2000 (68%); 1998 (69%); 1996 (63%); 1994 (74%); 1992 (49%)

2004 Presidential Vote Bush (R) 170,427 (67%) Kerry (D) 84,043 (33%)

2000 Presidential Vote Bush (R) 137,168 (61%) Gore (D) 84,435 (38%)

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: 10,608 square miles
• Population in 2000: 635,300; 50.1% urban; 49.9% rural
• Median Household Income: $32,460; 17.2% are below the poverty line
• Occupation: 29.5% blue collar; 55.1% white collar; 15.4% gray collar; 15.1% military veterans
• Race/Ethnic Origin: 67.0% White, 29.4% Black, 0.6% Asian, 0.4% Amer. Indian, 0.0% Hawaiian, 0.9% Two+ races, 0.1% Other, 1.5% Hispanic origin
• Ancestry: 15.7% USA, 6.2% English, 5.9% Irish
• Click here for statewide demographic data.