Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D) Elected 1990, 8th term
Born:	June 26, 1938, Buffalo, NY
Home:	Honolulu
Education:	Union Col., B.A. 1959, U. of HI, M.A.1964, Ph.D. 1974
Religion:	no religious affiliation
Marital Status:	married (Nancie Caraway)
Elected  Office:	HI House of Reps., 1974-78; HI Senate, 1978-86; U.S. House of Reps., 1986-87; Honolulu City Cncl., 1988-90.
Professional Career:	College prof., 1959-63; Probation Officer, Marin Cnty., CA, 1964-67; Sociologist, 1967-74; Asst. prof., HI Loa Col., 1979-80; Consultant, 1983-87, 1989-90; Asst., HI Superintendent of Educ., 1987-88.
DC Office	1502 LHOB20515, 202-225-2726; Fax: 202-225-4580; Web site: www.house.gov/abercrombie
State Offices	Honolulu, 808-541-2570.
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Tourists in Honolulu see the airport and adjacent Hickam Air Force Base, the Arizona monument in Pearl Harbor, perhaps the downtown with its wondrously Victorian Iolani Palace, and of course Waikiki, with its 40-story hotels rising within a few feet of one another. This is tight-packed Hawaii, between the 3,000-foot Koolau Range and the beaches and harbor, where tropical bungalows and garden apartments house Hawaiians of all incomes. Here are Hawaii's largest shopping centers and its state university; here are neighborhoods where the rich overlook the ocean and neighborhoods where the relatively poor are packed into people-clogged streets. Hawaii's topography also jams cars into just a few freeways and avenues, where traffic slows during rush hour and the aloha spirit is sorely tested. For much of the last decade Hawaii's high taxes and high land and utility costs have limited growth, but by 2004 the tourism business was reaching record levels, and the local economy has once again been growing. The University of Hawaii opened a medical school with an Asian-Pacific focus.

All of these areas are in the 1st District of Hawaii. It is mostly built up now, with well-established neighborhoods, and is growing less rapidly than the rest of the state. Politically, the neighborhoods around Honolulu's downtown and the university campus are middle and lower income and usually Democratic. To the west, around the harbor, are many military families in modest neighborhoods who may vote for Democrats but can be attracted to Republicans, including George W. Bush in 2004. To the east, past Waikiki, around Diamond Head and out to the Kahala and Koko Head beach areas, is higher-income territory, often voting for Hawaii Republicans as well as for Bush.

The congressman from the 1st District is Neil Abercrombie, a Democrat with a graying beard who used to sport a ponytail. He has been called an aging hippie but he has bench-pressed 260 pounds in the House gym; he debates with an aggressiveness and bombast tempered by enthusiasm and good humor. After college in upstate New York, he taught school, moved to Hawaii, earned a Ph.D. in American studies, and at various times worked as a waiter, custodian and probation officer. In those years he got to know Illinois Senator Barack Obama's parents before Obama was born. Abercrombie was elected to the Hawaii legislature in 1974 and served 12 years. Abercrombie first came to the House in 1986, when he won a special election, and served only three months; he lost a primary for the full term to Democrat Mufi Hanneman (now mayor of Honolulu) who then lost to Republican Pat Saiki. When she ran for the Senate in 1990, Abercrombie won a three-way primary for the House seat and won the general election easily.

Abercrombie is one of the distinctive and often delightful figures in the House. His voting record is mostly, but not entirely, liberal. He serves on the Armed Services Committee and sees no contradiction between his protests of war, and votes for military spending in Hawaii and elsewhere. But he still gets things done on Armed Services. "I see my work on Armed Services as a fulfillment of my principles and the motivating force of my life. I never opposed the military. … It's not about pro-war or anti-war, but how do you keep the peace." As ranking Democrat on the Tactical Air and Land Forces Subcommittee, Abercrombie has helped to get $3 billion in military construction for Hawaii, which became strategically more important with the closing of facilities elsewhere in the Pacific. He convinced Fluor Hawaii and the Hunt Building Company, which signed a 50-year contract to modernize and maintain 7,800 Army housing units, to accept the building trades as bargaining agent. He got a Navy admiral to commit to keeping nuclear submarine jobs in Hawaii, but endorsed a later plan to move some subs to Guam. He also has worked to assure adequate funding for Micronesia and the Marshall Islands 2,500 miles to the southwest in the Pacific.

On other issues Abercrombie is not always predictable. He co-sponsored repeal of the estate tax--there are a lot of small businesses in Hawaii, he said. Despite Hawaii's trade interests, he voted against normal trade relations with China and opposed trade promotion authority. He filed a bill to allow businesses to write off the travel costs of spouses on business trips--Hawaii has lots of hotels. He sought ways to use the Pentagon budget to combat the extinction of Hawaii's endemic animals and plants by invasive species.

In September 2000, he won a surprising victory as House sponsor of a bill to recognize Native Hawaiians as an indigenous people with a right to self-determination. The Senate Indian Affairs Committee, chaired by Daniel Inouye, approved the bill, but some Republicans objected when it was brought to the floor the next month, and the bill died. Since then, the House Republican leadership has not allowed the bill to come to the floor, though the Resources Committee unanimously approved it in September 2004. He sponsored a bill to end racial profiling in the 27 states, including Hawaii, which do not have such laws.

The 1st District is usually solidly Democratic, but in 1994 Abercrombie had serious competition from Orson Swindle, Marine Corps pilot and Vietnam POW, a national leader of Ross Perot's United We Stand America, and later member of the Federal Communications Commission. Swindle charged that Abercrombie was too dovish, but Abercrombie raised more money and won 54%-43%. Swindle ran again in 1996, labeled Abercrombie a far left hippie and called for big spending cuts. Abercrombie narrowly outspent him, and won by only 50%-46%. Since then, he has been reelected by overwhelming margins.

Committees

• Armed Services (6th of 28 D): Readiness; Tactical Air & Land Forces (RMM).
• Resources (7th of 22 D): Fisheries & Oceans; Forests & Forest Health; National Parks.

Group Ratings (More Info)
	ADA	ACLU	AFS	LCV	ITIC	NTU	COC	ACU	NTLC	CHC
2004	85	95	86	73	30	9	32	0	5	7	--
2003	95	--	100	85	--	23	30	12	--	--	--

National Journal Ratings (More Info)
	2003 LIB	--	2003 CONS		2004 LIB	--	2004 CONS
Economic	70%	--	30%		74%	--	25%
Social	90%	--	8%		88%	--	0%
Foreign	81%	--	17%		91%	--	7%
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 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	Neil Abercrombie (D)	128,567	63%	$1,055,643
	Dalton Tanonaka (R)	69,371	34%	$213,639
	Other	6,243	3%
2004 primary	Neil Abercrombie (D)	unopposed
2002 general	Neil Abercrombie (D)	131,673	73%	$673,054
	Mark Terry (R)	45,032	25%
	Other	4,028	2%
Prior winning percentages: 2000 (69%); 1998 (62%); 1996 (50%); 1994 (54%); 1992 (73%); 1990 (60%); 1986 (30%)

2004 Presidential Vote Kerry (D) 110,702 (53%) Bush (R) 99,256 (47%)

2000 Presidential Vote Gore (D) 100,403 (55%) Bush (R) 70,674 (39%)

For 1992 and 1996 presidential results in the First 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 + 7
• District Size: 326 square miles
• Population in 2000: 606,718; 99.3% urban; 0.7% rural
• Median Household Income: $50,798; 9.7% are below the poverty line
• Occupation: 15.7% blue collar; 63.8% white collar; 20.5% gray collar; 13.0% military veterans
• Race/Ethnic Origin: 17.7% White, 1.9% Black, 53.6% Asian, 0.1% Amer. Indian, 6.6% Hawaiian, 14.4% Two+ races, 0.2% Other, 5.4% Hispanic origin
• Ancestry: 3.8% German, 2.9% English, 2.8% Irish
• Click here for statewide demographic data.