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GovernmentExecutive.com - Covering The Business Of The Federal Government
California: Third District
Rep. Dan Lungren (R)
Last Updated June 22, 2005


Rep. Dan Lungren (R)
Rep. Dan Lungren (R)
Elected 2004, 1st term
Born: Sept. 22, 1946, Long Beach
Home: Folsom
Education: Notre Dame U., A.B. 1968, Georgetown U., J.D. 1971
Religion: Catholic
Marital Status: married (Bobbi)
Elected
 Office:
U.S. House of Reps.1978-88; CA Atty. Gen. 1990-98.
Professional Career: Staff, U.S. Sen. George Murphy, 1969-70; Staff, U.S. Sen. Bill Brock, 1971; Spec. asst. RNC, 1971-72; Practicing atty., 1973-78.
DC Office 2448 RHOB20515, 202-225-5716; Fax: 202-226-1298; Web site: www.house.gov/lungren
State Offices Gold River, 916-859-9906.
Additional Info
Committees · Election Results
District Demographics
More On California
At A Glance · State Profile
District Map
Redistricting · Almanac Home
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Search the CongressDaily, Hotline, House Race Hotline, National Journal and Technology Daily archives using the form below:
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Until recently, Sacramento was chiefly the metropolis of a fertile valley that produced a marvelous variety of crops: rice, plums, almonds, olives, asparagus, pears, hops, beans, celery, onions, potatoes, plus caviar-yielding sturgeon in pools of filtered water. The farmlands remain, and the capital city flourishes as a center of government; greater Sacramento is one of the fastest-growing metro areas in the country. Almost all the growth has been away from the flood plain of the Sacramento River, in the higher land east of the city that eventually turns into hills rising toward the Sierra Nevadas. Here is the Mother Lode country in Amador and Calaveras Counties, which filled up with people in the Gold Rush days, when Mark Twain was inspired to write his story about the famous jumping frog of Calaveras County. Only in recent decades has Calaveras County had more than the 16,000 people who lived there in Twain's time. In Rancho Cordova, local leaders have worked to create a development plan with a new downtown in place of aging strip malls. But some things have not changed. When an animal-rights group called for cancellation of the annual Jumping Frog Jubilee, a local official said that the frogs are not tortured and that the jubilee would continue.

The 3d Congressional District of California includes much of suburban Sacramento, some territory in Solano County to the west and some of the Mother Lode country in Amador and Calaveras Counties to the east, where it reaches over the Sierras to Alpine County, the smallest county in California (1,190 people in 2004) with the state's highest mountain ridge line, and the Nevada line. Its ungainly shape contains only a little territory that was in the old district before 2001 redistricting. More than 80% of the people in the district live in Sacramento County, in suburbs like Carmichael, Citrus Heights and Arden-Arcade and the old town of Folsom. Historically Sacramento was Democratic. But in the 1980s and 1990s, Sacramento County, with its rapid private-sector growth, became more Republican. The 3d District voted 59% for George W. Bush in 2004 and has become a safe Republican seat.

The congressman from the 3d District is Dan Lungren, first elected here in 2004 but with previous experience in the House. Lungren grew up in Long Beach, and his father was Richard Nixon's personal physician; young Dan worked on the staffs of Senators George Murphy and Bill Brock. After a few years of law practice in Long Beach, he unsuccessfully challenged a "Watergate baby" in 1976, then came back and won rather easily in 1978 with a boost from the anti-tax Proposition 13. He entered a freshman class that included Dick Cheney, Newt Gingrich, and Jerry Lewis and Bill Thomas from California; one unsuccessful Republican who failed to win a seat that year was George W. Bush. During his first decade in Congress, Lungren focused on criminal code reform from his perch on the House Judiciary Committee; he was a member of the Conservative Opportunity Society, the influential group of young House conservatives founded in 1983 by Gingrich. He played a key role on major immigration legislation in 1986, which was enacted despite major reservations from Mexican-American groups, the Democratic leadership and the Reagan administration. In 1989 he was nominated as state treasurer but was not confirmed by the state Senate, despite court challenges; in 1990, he was elected to the first of two terms as California attorney general. After losing 58%-38% to Democrat Gray Davis in the 1998 race for governor, Lungren worked in the Sacramento area as a visiting professor and radio talk show host and joined a Washington-based law firm. When he returned to Congress, it not only had become a very different place with its Republican majority, but he found himself representing a district nearly 400 miles north of his old one.

In 2004 3d District incumbent Republican Doug Ose honored his pledge to retire after serving three terms, and Lungren ran for the seat. His toughest competition was in the Republican primary, in which he faced Mary Ose, the incumbent's sister, and state Senator Rico Oller. The contest split the California delegation, with the 4th district's John Doolittle backing Oller and Ways and Means Chairman Bill Thomas supporting Lungren. Ose, a real estate developer, raised more than $2 million, much of it from her own pocket, but despite an almost 2-to-1 fundraising advantage over both Oller and Lungren, she won only 23% of the votes. Oller, with a geographic base in Amador and Calaveras Counties, attacked Lungren as soft on immigration; Lungren ran an ad with praise from Gingrich for his work on the 1986 immigration bill. It took a week of counting absentee ballots to determine the outcome, but Lungren beat Oller 39%-36%. Oller was well ahead in Amador and Calaveras Counties, but in Sacramento County, which cast 82% of the total vote, Lungren led Oller 42%-32%. The general election was no contest. Lungren criticized his successor as attorney general, Bill Lockyer, for not immediately stopping San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom from issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples and said he his first act in Congress would be to introduce legislation banning same-sex marriage. He won 62%-35%.

Lungren returned to Washington with well-defined positions on crime, abortion and same-sex marriage. An opponent of abortion, Lungren supports capital punishment and has been an uncompromising advocate for California's "three-strikes" mandatory-minimum sentencing law. He claimed credit for his previous service in determining seniority and became eighth ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee and 10th ranking Republican on Homeland Security and chairman of the latter's Economic Security, Infrastructure Protection, and Cybersecurity Subcommittee. And on the Judiciary Committee he could get help learning the ropes from veteran communications director Jeff Lungren, his son.

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Committees

  • Budget (14th of 22 R).
  • Homeland Security (9th of 19 R): Economic Security, Infrastructure Protection & Cybersecurity (Chmn.); Intelligence, Information Sharing & Terrorism Risk Assessment; Prevention of Nuclear & Biological Attack.
  • Judiciary (8th of 23 R): Crime, Terrorism & Homeland Security; Immigration, Border Security & Claims.

Election Results (More Info)
Candidate Total Votes Percent Expenditures
2004 general Dan Lungren (R) 177,738 62% $1,407,970
Gabe Castillo (D) 100,025 35% $98,284
Other 9,310 3%
2004 primary Dan Lungren (R) 35,595 39%
Rico Oller (R) 32,728 36%
Mary Ose (R) 21,469 23%
Other 1,693 2%
2002 general Doug Ose (R) 121,732 62% $659,095
Howard Beeman (D) 67,136 34% $63,747
Other 6,050 3%

Prior winning percentages: 1986 (73%); 1984 (73%); 1982 (69%); 1980 (72%); 1978 (54%)

2004 Presidential Vote
Bush (R) 176,512 (58%)
Kerry (D) 123,671 (41%)

2000 Presidential Vote
Bush (R) 142,946 (55%)
Gore (D) 107,690 (41%)

For 1992 and 1996 presidential results in the Third District, please see the Almanac 2000 online. Please note that these older returns reflect district lines as they existed prior to 2002 redistricting.

District Demographics (More Info)
  • Cook Partisan Voting Index: R + 7
  • District Size: 3,422 square miles
  • Population in 2000: 639,088; 86.4% urban; 13.6% rural
  • Median Household Income: $51,313; 8.5% are below the poverty line
  • Occupation: 18.4% blue collar; 67.8% white collar; 13.8% gray collar; 15.7% military veterans
  • Race/Ethnic Origin: 74.4% White, 4.3% Black, 5.9% Asian, 0.8% Amer. Indian, 0.3% Hawaiian, 3.5% Two+ races, 0.2% Other, 10.7% Hispanic origin
  • Ancestry: 12.4% German, 9.0% Irish, 8.9% English
  • Click here for statewide demographic data.

Teusday, September 6, 2005 [an error occurred while processing this directive]


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