Rep. Henry Hyde (R) Elected 1974, 16th term
Born:	Apr. 18, 1924, Chicago
Home:	Wood Dale
Education:	Georgetown U., B.S. 1947, Loyola U., J.D. 1949
Religion:	Catholic
Marital Status:	widowed
Elected  Office:	IL House of Reps., 1966-74, Maj. Ldr., 1971-72.
Military Career:	Navy, 1944-46 (WWII); Naval Reserves, 1946-68.
Professional Career:	Practicing atty., 1950-75.
DC Office	2110 RHOB20515, 202-225-4561; Fax: 202-225-1166; Web site: www.house.gov/hyde
State Offices	Addison, 630-832-5950.
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In World War II, what is now the nation's second-busiest airport was an apple orchard on which a defense plant was built (hence its current three-letter code: ORD). To the east was the Forest Preserve along the Des Plaines River, to the west little suburban villages strung along rail lines, separated by cornfields. But in the 1940s, Chicago politicians, in search of a new airport site, annexed the orchard and named it after a World War II airman awarded the Medal of Honor, who got a military appointment from the feds after his father turned state's evidence against Al Capone and was gunned down. Mayor Richard J. Daley opened O'Hare in 1955 and promoted its development, correctly concluding that a great airport could maintain in the 20th century the economic strength Chicago gained from railroad stations and rail yards in the 19th century. For years O'Hare has been America's number one or two airport in passenger traffic, and number one in combined passenger and cargo traffic; it has done much to maintain Chicago as the most vibrant center of commerce in the Midwest. Mayor Richard M. Daley's plans to reconfigure the runways and expand the airport are aimed at maintaining that preeminence. They are not popular, however, with the suburbs that surround O'Hare on all sides and are almost as densely settled as the bungalow wards of the city. Politically, these suburbs were for many years solidly Republican, convinced that civic virtues could best be realized by opposing the party of City Hall in Chicago and that economic growth could best be assured by opposing the party that backed stifling government regulation. But in the 1990s they became less Republican, as voters here recoiled from the national party's cultural conservatism.

The 6th Congressional District of Illinois includes O'Hare and much of the suburban area to its west. Most of the district is in DuPage County, the second largest county in Illinois. It includes the string of long-settled suburbs due west of the Loop: Elmhurst, Villa Park, Lombard, Glen Ellyn, Wheaton, plus the newer suburbs along I-290 and Lake Street: Bensenville, Addison, Wood Dale, Bloomingdale. Economically, this remains high-income territory; culturally, it is now cautiously moderate or even liberal. Politically, it has become less overwhelmingly Republican. In 1988 George Bush carried DuPage by 124,000 votes, with 68% of the vote, but in 2004 George W. Bush carried the county by only 39,000, with 54% of the vote--which tells you in a nutshell why the elder Bush carried Illinois in 1988 and the younger Bush twice wrote it off.

The congressman from the 6th District is Henry Hyde, chairman of the House International Relations Committee and one of the most respected and intellectually honest members of the House. Hyde springs from Chicago earth, was raised a Catholic and a Democrat; he was an all-city basketball center and played against basketball great George Mikan; he went off to college at Georgetown and enlisted in the Navy and served at Lingayen Gulf. After the war, he finished college and law school, practiced law in Chicago, and in 1958 switched parties, convinced that Republicans were more in line with his anti-Communist beliefs. He ran for the House in 1962 in northwest Chicago and lost 53%-47% to incumbent Roman Pucinski. He was elected to the Illinois House in 1966 and in the Democratic year of 1974 was elected to the U.S. House, where he now is the second-oldest member (next to Ralph Hall) and the fourth most senior Republican (behind Bill Young, Ralph Regula and Don Young).

He first made his name in the House as an abortion opponent, attaching to appropriations bills his amendments prohibiting the use of federal funds to pay for most abortions. ''I look for the common thread in slavery, the Holocaust and abortion,'' he said in 1998. ''To me, the common thread is dehumanizing people.'' In 1976 he passed the first Hyde amendment, banning abortions financed by Medicaid. It has remained in force ever since, though states can spend their own money on abortions, and some do; exceptions for saving the life of the mother, and victims of rape and incest were added in 1993. Hyde is concerned about born as well as unborn children. He was one of the few Republicans who supported the family leave bill, and has sponsored bills to expand the number of women eligible for pregnancy benefits under the children's health insurance program. He opposes assisted suicide as part of a "culture of death" and sponsored the bill passed by the House to criminalize the prescription of lethal drugs to terminally ill patients contemplating ending their lives.

On many occasions, Hyde has proven himself one of the most eloquent members of the House. His speeches against term limits and in favor of the flag-burning amendment are classics; his evisceration of the nuclear freeze resolution helped turn the tide on foreign policy in the House in the 1980s. He defended the Reagan administration on Iran-Contra and in the process said, somewhat to his embarrassment in the impeachment debate, that to condemn all lying "seems to me too simplistic. In the murkier grayness of the real world, choices must often be made." Three major Hyde measures passed both houses but were vetoed by Bill Clinton: the partial-birth abortion ban, product liability and tort law changes.

None of these challenges he had faced before was as great or as public as the challenge of impeachment, when he chaired the Judiciary Committee. From the first, Hyde had little taste for the subject, yet realized he had the responsibility to handle it. Early in 1998, he said that any impeachment resolution must be bipartisan if it were to be credible, but it became clear by September that many Democrats were determined to defend Clinton at every turn. Democrats resisted his resolution for an impeachment inquiry but felt obliged to advance one of their own. All Republicans and 31 Democrats voted for the Republican resolution. Clinton defenders tried to put Hyde on the defensive. In September, an online publication, Salon, reported that Hyde had had an affair 30 years before; "youthful indiscretions," Hyde responded. As the facts of Clinton's conduct became known, Hyde decided that the president had lied under oath in a District Court proceeding, and that that could not be forgiven. He ran the fractious hearings with scrupulous fairness, and even with occasional humor. His summation to the House was genuinely eloquent, and impeachment was voted on two of four counts.

Then came the historic march of Hyde and the 12 other House managers to the Senate presided over by Chief Justice William Rehnquist. The managers were pitted against Clinton's professional litigators, and the discomfort of almost all senators was obvious. Remembering his own experience in combat, he summoned up memories of Americans who had fallen in battle and urged the senators to uphold the rule of law. But Democrats did not waver, and the articles of impeachment were rejected.

After the 2000 election he tried to get House Republican leaders to waive the six-year term limit on chairmanships, arguing that he had lost one year of chairing Judiciary to impeachment. But they declined; instead, at age 76, Hyde got the International Relations chairmanship. This was a far less partisan assignment for Hyde, who agreed with committee senior Democrat Tom Lantos on many foreign policy issues, including support for the Iraq war, support for Israel, door-opening to Vietnam, economic aid to Afghanistan, aiding third world nations fighting AIDS and increased funding for public diplomacy overseas after September 11.

Hyde has continued to work on other issues. Much of his district lies under O'Hare flight paths, and he has championed a third Chicago-area airport in Peotone in Will County; in this, his chief ally has been the 2d District's Jesse Jackson Jr. He was the only House Republican from Illinois not to endorse a federal bailout for United Airlines. He supported the bankruptcy bill, and unexpectedly found himself at odds with the House's pro-life movement that he had been instrumental in creating. When he painstakingly negotiated in 2002 a deal with Senator Charles Schumer on the Democrat's amendment to the bankruptcy bill to make it more difficult for abortion-clinic protestors to declare bankruptcy to avoid paying court fines or damages, many conservative colleagues said that Hyde had been too accommodating, and the bill died that year.

Although his mind has remained sharp, Hyde has slowed physically and has appeared frail in recent years; back surgery in March 2003 forced him to use a wheelchair. In 2004, he was held to a 56%-44% victory over information technology consultant Christine Cegelis, his smallest margin since he was first elected. With committee term limits set to conclude in 2006 his second chairmanship, he announced on April 18, his 81st birthday, that he would retire at the end of the term. He will take with him the bipartisan respect accorded to an iconic and principled lawmaker. Although his successor likely will be a Republican, Democrats back home will be more competitive than when Hyde first took this seat. Likely Republican candidates include state Senator Peter Roskam, who lost the 13th District House primary to Judy Biggert in 1998, state Senator Carole Pankau of Roselle and former DuPage County Recorder J.P. "Rick" Carney. On the Democratic side, Wheaton arbitrator Peter O'Malley announced he would run and 2004 nominee Cegelis said she would run again.

Committees

• International Relations (Chmn. of 27 R).
• Judiciary (2d of 23 R): Courts, the Internet & Intellectual Property.

Group Ratings (More Info)
	ADA	ACLU	AFS	LCV	ITIC	NTU	COC	ACU	NTLC	CHC
2004	15	0	13	9	90	51	95	75	78	91	--
2003	10	--	0	5	--	60	93	87	--	--	--

National Journal Ratings (More Info)
	2003 LIB	--	2003 CONS		2004 LIB	--	2004 CONS
Economic	0%	--	91%		41%	--	58%
Social	17%	--	83%		34%	--	65%
Foreign	0%	--	89%		4%	--	93%
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 *		7. Restrict Gun Liability *  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	Henry Hyde (R)	139,627	56%	$804,197
	Christine Cegelis (D)	110,470	44%	$193,947
2004 primary	Henry Hyde (R)	unopposed
2002 general	Henry Hyde (R)	113,174	65%	$839,199
	Tom Berry (D)	60,698	35%
Prior winning percentages: 2000 (59%); 1998 (67%); 1996 (64%); 1994 (73%); 1992 (66%); 1990 (67%); 1988 (74%); 1986 (75%); 1984 (75%); 1982 (68%); 1980 (67%); 1978 (66%); 1976 (61%); 1974 (53%)

2004 Presidential Vote Bush (R) 139,028 (53%) Kerry (D) 121,344 (47%)

2000 Presidential Vote Bush (R) 126,254 (53%) Gore (D) 103,616 (44%)

For 1992 and 1996 presidential results in the Sixth 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 + 3
• District Size: 215 square miles
• Population in 2000: 653,647; 100.0% urban; 0.0% rural
• Median Household Income: $62,640; 4.3% are below the poverty line
• Occupation: 20.2% blue collar; 69.5% white collar; 10.3% gray collar; 9.6% military veterans
• Race/Ethnic Origin: 75.3% White, 2.7% Black, 8.1% Asian, 0.1% Amer. Indian, 0.0% Hawaiian, 1.3% Two+ races, 0.1% Other, 12.5% Hispanic origin
• Ancestry: 16.7% German, 11.0% Irish, 9.4% Polish
• Click here for statewide demographic data.