Rep. Ken Calvert (R) Elected 1992, 7th term
Born:	June 8, 1953, Corona
Home:	Corona
Education:	Chaffey Col., 1972-73; San Diego St. U., B.A. 1975
Religion:	Protestant
Marital Status:	divorced
Professional Career:	Restaurant owner, 1975-80; Real estate broker, 1980-92; Chmn., Riverside Cnty. Repub. Party, 1984-88.
DC Office	2201 RHOB20515, 202-225-1986; Fax: 202-225-2004; Web site: www.house.gov.calvert
State Offices	Riverside, 909-784-4300; San Clemente, 949-496-2343.
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Riverside was a sleepy town of 34,000, a couple hours' drive from Los Angeles, when Richard and Pat Nixon were married there in 1940 in the gaudy Mission Inn, with its bell towers, altars, fountains, rotunda, stained-glass windows and wrought-iron grilles. Riverside was not much larger, with 46,000 people, when Ronald and Nancy Reagan spent their honeymoon at the Mission Inn a dozen years later, in 1952. Riverside then was a citrus center, a market town amid orange groves, where the local agricultural college developed among other things, the navel orange. Today the Mission Inn is still doing business, but Riverside has changed completely. The city has expanded to some 281,000 people, and Riverside County, which had 105,000 people in 1940, had 1.9 million in 2004, more than doubling since 1980. Much of that growth came in the Inland Empire around Riverside, where the flat Los Angeles Basin plains are interrupted by oddly shaped hills and ridges, and the vegetation has an other-worldly air; it has used as the backdrop for reality TV shows. This has been a boom part of California, where modest-income families found new houses in inexpensive developments and small businesses expanded mightily; it was hit hard by the recession of the early 1990s but rebounded with strong growth. Near Moreno Valley the former March Air Force Base has become a regional hub for the shipping giant DHL.

The 44th Congressional District of California, which covers much of this area, has been one of the fastest-growing congressional districts in the nation in the past two decades. Some 40% of its residents live in the city of Riverside and most others in nearby towns like Corona and Norco, the home of a Naval Surface Warfare Center, which evaluates weapons systems. In May 2005, the Pentagon recommended closing the base; a 2004 study commissioned by Norco reported that closure would cost Corona and Norco more than $300 million a year and result in a loss of 3,300 local jobs. The district includes the eastern edge of Orange County all the way to the ocean, much of it uninhabited mountainsides but also including San Clemente, where Richard Nixon lived after he resigned the presidency, and half of San Juan Capistrano, to which the swallows famously return on the same day each spring. This is a solidly Republican district.

The congressman from the 44th District is Ken Calvert, a Republican first elected in 1992. Calvert grew up in Corona; during college, he was a congressional intern at the Senate Watergate hearings of 1973. Later, he ran the family restaurant back home and in 1980 entered the commercial real estate business. In 1982, at 29, he ran for Congress in a district that included almost all the geographic expanse of Riverside County and lost a nine-candidate primary to Al McCandless by 868 votes. In 1992 he ran in a new district and won the primary with 28% of the vote. His Democratic opponent was Mark Takano, an eighth grade teacher with institutional support from teachers' unions and financial support from Japanese Americans. In a district where George H.W. Bush beat Bill Clinton by 797 votes, Calvert beat Takano by 519 votes.

In the House, Calvert has compiled a moderate-to-conservative voting record. He ran into trouble back home soon after he was elected, when the Riverside Press-Enterprise reported that he had been stopped by police with a convicted prostitute in his car; Calvert apologized, and said that he was upset because his wife had divorced him the month before and his father had recently committed suicide. It was, as he said, "an extremely embarrassing situation," of which his opponents rushed to take advantage. Calvert won the 1994 primary 51%-49%, with only an 884-vote margin, against business professor Joseph Khoury. Takano, running again in the general, ran an ad with the song "The Liar" and accused him of "flagrant womanizing." But the Republican tide of the year showed up in the election results, with Calvert winning 55%-38%.

Since 1995, Calvert has worked quietly as a subcommittee chairman, and usually has been a Republican team player. In 2001, Calvert took over as chairman of the Water and Power Subcommittee at Resources, which distributes public works projects. He focused intensively on building support for reauthorization of the vital water supply program (CALFED) for California's Central Valley. During the middle of the water fight, Calvert was one of several contenders seeking to chair the Resources Committee in 2003, but he lost to fellow Californian Richard Pombo, who was backed by Tom DeLay; he kept the Water and Power chairmanship. With help from Pombo, Calvert negotiated with Senator Dianne Feinstein, and they reached a compromise among the competing users, including new levees and recycling projects. After the bill was finally enacted in October 2004, southern California was deluged with rain for months, perhaps a sign of celestial gratification. With the water issues largely resolved, he switched in 2005 to become chairman of Science's Space and Aeronautics Subcommittee, which could be a boost for local aerospace firms. In the meantime, he joined the Armed Services Committee, where he advocated the interests of local defense contractors and the area's shrinking military facilities, including March Air Reserve Base in Riverside, which has the longest runway in California. With Democrat Paul Kanjorski, he sponsored a bill to prohibit national banks and their subsidiaries from acting as real estate brokers or managers.

Calvert increased his margins in Republican primaries from 56%-35% in 1998 to 58%-25% in 2000 and 70%-25% in 2002; he has not had serious Democratic opposition. In early 2003 he said he would not keep his 1992 pledge to serve only 12 years; he was reelected easily anyway in 2004.

Committees

• Armed Services (15th of 34 R): Projection Forces; Tactical Air & Land Forces.
• Resources (7th of 27 R): Water & Power.
• Science (6th of 24 R): Space & Aeronautics (Chmn.).

Group Ratings (More Info)
	ADA	ACLU	AFS	LCV	ITIC	NTU	COC	ACU	NTLC	CHC
2004	0	0	14	9	89	48	100	88	70	92	--
2003	5	--	0	5	--	59	100	92	--	--	--

National Journal Ratings (More Info)
	2003 LIB	--	2003 CONS		2004 LIB	--	2004 CONS
Economic	9%	--	84%		21%	--	78%
Social	21%	--	78%		31%	--	67%
Foreign	11%	--	80%		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	Ken Calvert (R)	138,768	62%	$687,467
	Louis Vandenberg (D)	78,796	35%	$6,196
	Other	7,559	3%
2004 primary	Ken Calvert (R)	49,107	86%
	David Rizzo (R)	8,132	14%
2002 general	Ken Calvert (R)	76,686	64%	$643,408
	Louis Vandenberg (D)	38,021	32%
	Phill Courtney (Green)	5,756	5%
Prior winning percentages: 2000 (74%); 1998 (56%); 1996 (55%); 1994 (55%); 1992 (47%)

2004 Presidential Vote Bush (R) 139,476 (59%) Kerry (D) 94,374 (40%)

2000 Presidential Vote Bush (R) 101,897 (53%) Gore (D) 84,048 (44%)

For 1992 and 1996 presidential results in the Forty-Fourth 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 + 6
• District Size: 549 square miles
• Population in 2000: 639,088; 97.7% urban; 2.3% rural
• Median Household Income: $51,578; 12.1% are below the poverty line
• Occupation: 26.0% blue collar; 59.3% white collar; 14.6% gray collar; 11.2% military veterans
• Race/Ethnic Origin: 51.3% White, 5.5% Black, 4.8% Asian, 0.5% Amer. Indian, 0.3% Hawaiian, 2.4% Two+ races, 0.2% Other, 35.0% Hispanic origin
• Ancestry: 9.5% German, 7.0% Irish, 6.8% English
• Click here for statewide demographic data.