Rep. Danny Davis (D) Elected 1996, 5th term
Born:	Sept. 6, 1941, Parkdale, AR
Home:	Chicago
Education:	AR AM&N Col., B.A. 1961, Chicago St. U., M.S. 1968, Union Inst., Ph.D. 1977
Religion:	Baptist
Marital Status:	married (Vera)
Elected  Office:	Chicago City Alderman, 1979-90; Cook Cnty. Commissioner, 1990-96.
Professional Career:	Teacher, Chicago Public Schls., 1962-69; Health Care Planner, 1969-79.
DC Office	1526 LHOB20515, 202-225-5006; Fax: 202-225-5641; Web site: www.house.gov/davis
State Offices	Broadview, 708-345-6857; Chicago, 773-533-7520.
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The cross-country flyer on a lucky day can get a clear view of the biggest man-made cityscape between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans: Chicago's Loop. High-rise buildings were pioneered a century ago in the Loop--named in 1897 for the quadrilateral the elevated train forms around the city's center--by architects like Louis Sullivan and Daniel Burnham. International School modernists built their most impressive collection of buildings here and along Lake Shore Drive in the years after World War II; in recent years, postmodernists have decorated the Chicago River and reinvented the skyscraper. The Loop now spreads beyond the El, up the wondrous shopping street of North Michigan Avenue with a peak at the John Hancock Tower plus the new Millennium Park and band shell along the lakefront, and west beyond the commodities exchanges to the Sears Tower on the Chicago River. This is the face Chicago likes to present to the world: giant structures rising where the prairies meet the inland sea, a vast concentration of brains and muscle, the nerve center of the markets of the nation and the world.

Behind the lakefront, where the air traveler sees the grid spread out below with occasional radials, are the muscle and sinew, gristle and fat of the city. There are parts that do not work so well: houses and apartment buildings are abandoned; commercial space stands empty and vandalized; giant, crime-racked housing projects, like the Robert Taylor Homes off the Dan Ryan Expressway, built by Mayor Richard J. Daley in the 1960s (he preferred low-rise projects, but the feds wouldn't finance them) and now torn down by Mayor Richard M. Daley. The West Side of Chicago, the vast acres directly west of the Loop, for years was a dreadful slum, with some areas almost emptied out; the decay spread west to the Austin neighborhood, just before the border of upper-income--and for decades racially integrated--Oak Park. In the 1990s, there was some revival. The United Center, the erstwhile home court of Michael Jordan, sparked commercial development of the West Side, and lower crime rates raised the value of land once again.

The 7th Congressional District of Illinois contains the Loop and most of the North Michigan corridor and the Near North Side, where the infamous Cabrini-Green housing project has been replaced by new, mixed-market housing. It goes south, past landmark museums, controversially renovated Soldier Field stadium and 19th century Prairie Avenue mansions to take in a few of the heavily black South Side neighborhoods chronicled in the groundbreaking 1945 book Black Metropolis. Its heart, demographically and spiritually, is the black ghetto of the West Side, more depopulated and socially disorganized than the South Side. To the west, just outside city limits, are Oak Park, the boyhood home of Ernest Hemingway and location of the Frank Lloyd Wright home and museum and many of his prairie-style houses; River Forest; and the much more modest Maywood, which is black-majority; plus Broadview and Hillside, site of a one-lane Chicago expressway bottleneck known as the Hillside Strangler. As with the South Side districts, redistricting in 2001 added nearly 100,000 people to the 7th and reduced slightly the share of black population, but did not change the basic contours. Just under two-thirds of the people here are black; there are relatively few Hispanics, since Latino neighborhoods were carefully placed in the 4th District.

The congressman from the 7th District is Danny Davis, a Democrat first elected in 1996 after two unsuccessful tries in the 1980s. Davis grew up on a cotton farm in Arkansas, graduated from college there, then moved to Chicago and worked as a teacher, assistant principal and guidance counselor in Chicago public schools. For 10 years, he ran a community health project on the West Side. He was elected alderman in the 29th Ward on the boundary of Oak Park in 1979 and supported Mayor Harold Washington in the council wars of the 1980s. In 1990 he was elected a Cook County commissioner; in 1991 he made a quixotic run for mayor against Richard M. Daley; he lost his 29th Ward committeeman post to a Daley-backed challenger in 2000.

In 1996, when Cardiss Collins retired after nearly 24 years in the House, Davis decided to run for the House again. His major opponents were 3d Ward Alderman Dorothy Tillman, a Daley ally, and 37th Ward Alderman Ed Smith. Davis campaigned as a big-government liberal, calling for a $7.60 minimum wage, affirmative action, and a national health care plan. Davis won with 33%. He won the general with ease and has not faced a serious challenge since then.

In the House, Davis has a very liberal voting record. He has opposed income tax cuts, even when advocated by Bill Clinton. He opposed the sugar program as corporate welfare (Chicago is the nation's leading candy manufacturer). On the Government Reform Committee, he has worked with a bipartisan coalition led by chairman Tom Davis that has pressed for changes in the Postal Service. With his wife Vera, who is president of the West Side NAACP, Davis advocated a local program to increase from its existing 28% the share of black home ownership in his district by offering credit counseling and innovative forms of mortgage financing. Davis also has taken a deep interest in the problems of former convicts seeking to transition back to the mainstream.

Davis speaks in an impressive sepulchral tone, and his self-evident sincerity and concern for the poor have helped him to some success in a mostly conservative House. With conservative Republican Mark Souder, he proposed the Public Safety ex-Offender Self-Sufficiency Act, to use tax credits to encourage transitional housing and job training for former prisoners. "Within three years, 60% to 70% of the people who get out of the penitentiary are rearrested," he says. "That's just recycling misery and poverty, and reinforcing the inability of our society to salvage."

Committees

• Education & the Workforce (17th of 22 D): Education Reform; Select Education.
• Government Reform (9th of 17 D): Criminal Justice, Drug Policy & Human Resources; Federal Workforce & Agency Organization (RMM).
• Small Business (6th of 15 D): Tax, Finance & Exports; Workforce, Empowerment & Government Programs.

Group Ratings (More Info)
	ADA	ACLU	AFS	LCV	ITIC	NTU	COC	ACU	NTLC	CHC
2004	90	100	88	100	60	8	30	0	3	15	--
2003	100	--	100	100	--	26	19	8	--	--	--

National Journal Ratings (More Info)
	2003 LIB	--	2003 CONS		2004 LIB	--	2004 CONS
Economic	83%	--	17%		81%	--	19%
Social	92%	--	0%		88%	--	0%
Foreign	94%	--	0%		89%	--	10%
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 *  8. Ban Partial-Birth Abortion N  9. Ban Same-Sex Marriage * 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	Danny Davis (D)	221,133	86%	$438,680
	Antonio Davis-Fairman (R)	35,603	14%	$43,718
2004 primary	Danny Davis (D)	84,950	82%
	Anita Rivkin-Carothers (D)	15,190	15%
	Other	3,191	3%
2002 general	Danny Davis (D)	137,933	83%	$215,233
	Mark Tunney (R)	25,280	15%	$51,387
	Other	2,543	2%
Prior winning percentages: 2000 (86%); 1998 (93%); 1996 (83%)

2004 Presidential Vote Kerry (D) 227,018 (83%) Bush (R) 45,071 (17%) Other 887 (0%)

2000 Presidential Vote Gore (D) 199,064 (83%) Bush (R) 38,196 (16%)

For 1992 and 1996 presidential results in the Seventh 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 +35
• District Size: 59 square miles
• Population in 2000: 653,647; 100.0% urban; 0.0% rural
• Median Household Income: $40,361; 24.0% are below the poverty line
• Occupation: 15.5% blue collar; 70.6% white collar; 13.9% gray collar; 8.0% military veterans
• Race/Ethnic Origin: 27.3% White, 61.6% Black, 3.8% Asian, 0.1% Amer. Indian, 0.0% Hawaiian, 1.2% Two+ races, 0.1% Other, 5.8% Hispanic origin
• Ancestry: 5.6% German, 5.2% Irish, 2.9% Italian
• Click here for statewide demographic data.