Rep. Pete Stark (D) Elected 1972, 17th term
Born:	Nov. 11, 1931, Milwaukee, WI
Home:	Fremont
Education:	MIT, B.S. 1953, U. of CA at Berkeley, M.B.A. 1960
Religion:	Unitarian
Marital Status:	married (Deborah)
Military Career:	Air Force, 1955-57.
Professional Career:	Founder, Beacon Savings & Loan Assn., 1961; Founder & Pres., Security Natl. Bank, Walnut Creek, 1963-72.
DC Office	239 CHOB20515, 202-225-5065; Fax: 202-226-3805; Web site: www.house.gov/stark
State Offices	Fremont, 510-494-1388.
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The East Bay is the workaday, unglamorous side of the San Francisco Bay area--a narrow strip of land between San Francisco Bay and the surprisingly high mountains that rise just to the east. The shoreline is not picturesque, with its closed-down Navy bases, docks, airports and salt evaporators; the Bay Bridge, bisected by Yerba Buena Island, cuts an inspiring figure, but the San Mateo Bridge to the south is at best utilitarian. Six decades ago, when the shipyards of Richmond and the Navy yard in Oakland were buzzing, the East Bay south of Oakland was still largely uninhabited farm fields. In the postwar years, it filled up, south along the old Route 17: San Leandro, originally settled by Portuguese; Hayward with its Cal State University campus and seafood industry; Union City with its rail yards; Fremont, home of the NUMMI auto plant where Chevrolets and Toyotas are produced together; and Newark, with dozens of manufacturing plants that range from salt processing to computer network servers. Hit hard by the dot-com bust, the East Bay has shown some life in high-tech and health care. Underneath is the Hayward Fault, not as famous as the San Andreas, but just as dangerous.

The 13th Congressional District of California is made up of this string of East Bay towns in Alameda County, with lower income than the Peninsula towns across the Bay. The district is racially and ethnically mixed in the California manner. Fremont is home to the Little Kabul neighborhood of Afghans; Koreans and other Asians have moved in large numbers not only to Fremont, but to Hayward and other East Bay towns. The district is 28% Asian--the fourth highest Asian percentage in any district outside Hawaii--21% Hispanic and 6% black. This has long been a Democratic area, and it has become more Democratic than ever: in 2004, John Kerry got 71% of the vote here.

The congressman from the 13th District is Pete Stark, a liberal Democrat and product of the peace movement of the 1960s, first elected in 1972. Stark grew up in Wisconsin, served in the Air Force, got an engineering degree at MIT and an M.B.A. at Berkeley, and in 1961 started a bank in Walnut Creek. He attracted attention, and accounts, all over the Bay Area when he put a giant peace symbol atop the bank headquarters and peace symbols on all checks. In 1972 he ran for Congress, spending his own money freely; he beat an 81-year-old incumbent in the primary 56%-22% and held on in the McGovern undertow to win the general with 53%. By his third term he had a safe seat back home and was on Ways and Means, on which he now is the second ranking Democrat; he chaired its Health Subcommittee from 1985 to 1995.

Stark brought to that post a desire to use government powers to make health care more available. In the majority, his record was mixed. He did expand Medicare benefits and provided COBRA benefit continuation to younger workers. But his major achievement was the Catastrophic Health Care Act of 1988, which created a new benefit for Medicare recipients, then was repealed by an overwhelming vote in 1989 after an outpouring of public protest: the problem was that its tax on the high-income elderly was very unpopular while benefits seemed puny. He has supported universal health insurance in various forms.

In the minority, Stark has mostly criticized and found few areas of agreement with Republicans, and has had testy personal dealings. He was one of two votes against the 1996 Kennedy-Kassebaum bill, on the grounds it did not include mental health coverage and extended patent protection for a drug. When George W. Bush presented his proposal for prescription drug coverage for seniors, Stark countered with a plan that would guarantee affordable and comprehensive coverage for all seniors under Medicare. "Our legislation will not be cheap," he conceded. But other than criticism from the sidelines, he played little role in the debate on the Medicare/prescription drug bill in 2003. He led the second-guessers when new cost projections revealed that the 10-year cost had ballooned to $720 billion. "I told you so. We can't trust numbers provided by administration officials," he said. He continued to push to permit reimportation of prescription drugs and opposed trade agreements that barred that.

During his long tenure (1995-2004) as the senior Democrat on the Joint Economic Committee, Stark produced reports that criticized Republican policies. He was one of two House members to vote against repeal of the 3% telephone excise tax and one of three who opposed the resolution denouncing the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision declaring the Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional. In March 2003 he called the bombing of Iraq "an act of extreme terrorism." He co-sponsored a plan to reinstate the military draft, and was on the losing side of a 402-2 vote on the proposal in October 2004. He cited the experience of World War II, when "it was everyone's patriotic duty and our country was better for it."

Stark has a habit of making provocative comments about other members. After he incorrectly stated at a committee hearing in May 2001 that all children of Republican Conference chairman J.C. Watts had been born out of wedlock, Watts confronted him in the House chamber and Stark reportedly gave a flippant response that further angered Watts. At a hearing on prescription drug coverage in February 2003, he said that George W. Bush did not have to pay a penny when he went to Alcoholics Anonymous to quit drinking (Bush has never said that he attended AA or that he was an alcoholic). In July 2003, when committee Democrats gathered in a room adjacent to the Ways and Means room and Chairman Bill Thomas called the Capitol Police to evict them, Stark called Thomas a "fascist." The San Francisco Chronicle reported "rumblings that it might be time for the veteran Congressman to retire," but Stark said, "I've got to keep running. I've got 2-year-old twins and I've got to get them through college. Our retirement plan is good, but it ain't that good."

Stark is next in line on Ways and Means to ranking Democrat Charles Rangel, and there has been talk that, should Rangel retire, another committee Democrat might challenge Stark for Rangel's post; would Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi protect her Bay Area colleague? There was speculation in the district that Stark's outspoken remarks might prompt a serious primary challenge in 2004, but well-known local politicians showed no interest in running in 2004, and Stark seems even at his most flamboyant to be expressing the views of most Democrats in the district.

Committees

• Ways & Means (2d of 17 D): Health (RMM); Human Resources.
• Joint Committee on Taxation (5th of 5 Reps.).

Group Ratings (More Info)
	ADA	ACLU	AFS	LCV	ITIC	NTU	COC	ACU	NTLC	CHC
2004	90	100	100	100	11	13	5	0	0	7	--
2003	100	--	100	95	--	28	17	8	--	--	--

National Journal Ratings (More Info)
	2003 LIB	--	2003 CONS		2004 LIB	--	2004 CONS
Economic	92%	--	0%		98%	--	0%
Social	92%	--	0%		88%	--	0%
Foreign	81%	--	17%		98%	--	0%
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 N 2. Approve Bush Tax Cuts N 3. Medicare/Rx Bill N 4. Bar Overtime Pay Regs. Y 5. DC School Vouchers N 6. Ban Human Cloning N		7. Restrict Gun Liability N  8. Ban Partial-Birth Abortion N  9. Ban Same-Sex Marriage N 10. Fund Iraq War N 11. Bar Cuba Embargo Funds Y 12. Intelligence Reorg. N

Election Results (More Info)
	Candidate	Total Votes	Percent	Expenditures
2004 general	Pete Stark (D)	144,605	72%	$455,735
	George Bruno (R)	48,439	24%	$31,883
	Mark Stroberg (Lib)	8,877	4%
2004 primary	Pete Stark (D)	unopposed
2002 general	Pete Stark (D)	86,495	71%	$438,055
	Syed Mahmood (R)	26,852	22%	$51,307
	Other	8,376	7%
Prior winning percentages: 2000 (70%); 1998 (71%); 1996 (65%); 1994 (65%); 1992 (60%); 1990 (58%); 1988 (73%); 1986 (70%); 1984 (70%); 1982 (61%); 1980 (55%); 1978 (65%); 1976 (71%); 1974 (71%); 1972 (53%)

2004 Presidential Vote Kerry (D) 153,598 (71%) Bush (R) 60,559 (28%)

2000 Presidential Vote Gore (D) 126,477 (67%) Bush (R) 55,803 (30%)

For 1992 and 1996 presidential results in the Thirteenth 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 +22
• District Size: 281 square miles
• Population in 2000: 639,088; 99.3% urban; 0.7% rural
• Median Household Income: $62,415; 7.1% are below the poverty line
• Occupation: 22.3% blue collar; 66.8% white collar; 10.9% gray collar; 9.6% military veterans
• Race/Ethnic Origin: 38.4% White, 6.3% Black, 28.2% Asian, 0.4% Amer. Indian, 0.8% Hawaiian, 4.5% Two+ races, 0.3% Other, 21.1% Hispanic origin
• Ancestry: 6.9% German, 5.7% Irish, 4.8% English
• Click here for statewide demographic data.