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Last Updated June 22, 2005
At the southernmost shore of Lake Michigan is a part of America made by steel. Here, in the northwest corner of Indiana, where the water highway of the Great Lakes comes closest to the rail highway of the transcontinental railroads, America's leading capitalists a century ago identified an ideal site for manufacturing steel. On empty sand dunes United States Steel, then the nation's largest corporation, founded Gary in 1906 and named it for the company's chairman, Chicago Judge Elbert Gary. For nearly 70 years the steel mills attracted a diverse work force, like Chicago and quite unlike the rest of Indiana: Irish, Poles, Czechs, Ukrainians and blacks from the American South. Politics here has always been turbulent, from the Communist-led long and unsuccessful steel strike of 1919 to the racially polarized politics of the 1960s and 1970s. The tone of public life--the clash between union stewards and management foremen, between blacks and eastern European ethnics, between the stalwarts of different factions vying for control of Gary's massive City Hall--was always abrasive, like the clash of steel on steel. Steel brought sudden growth and sudden depression to northwest Indiana. The massive storefronts built on Gary's aptly named Broadway bear witness to the confidence and exuberance of the 1920s. But today they stand vacant--vandalized, whole blocks burned down--witness to steel layoffs and crime waves. The steel mills went cold during the Depression of the 1930s, but were thronged with workers during World War II, and in the years afterward their massiveness helped create the illusion that life in the steel towns of Gary, Hammond and East Chicago would go on forever just like it was in the 1950s. But technological advances inevitably replaced increasingly expensive workers with increasingly efficient machines. And the efforts to seal off the U.S. steel market from the world inevitably failed. The oil crunch of 1979 was the catalyst for change, reducing the demand for large-sized autos, the biggest customer for steel. Steel employed 70,000 workers in northwest Indiana in 1979, 35,000 a few years later, 23,000 in 2001. Obsolete mills were closed, old mills modernized and new ones built that cut the number of man-hours needed by two-thirds. Just-in-time methods were introduced, management and high-skill workers cooperated to engineer higher-quality, less expensive steel to meet customers' needs. For the last decade, Indiana has been the number one or two steel-producing state. The steel tariffs imposed by George W. Bush in March 2002 were followed by a rise in steel prices, but steel producers complained and sought exemptions, and the tariffs were dropped 20 months later. As the steel industry was changing, Gary was falling almost into ruins. As long ago as 1967, Gary elected a black mayor, Richard Hatcher, who was determined to use city government to cure poverty. But high crime rates gave Gary the national distinction as the "Murder Capital" for nine consecutive years with the most homicides per capita, and led to white flight to the suburbs. The city's population fell 12% in the 1990s to 102,000, far below its peak of 170,000; in nearby Hammond, with many Hispanic immigrants, the population loss was much less. Local officials tried to promote the city's airport as a third Chicago area airport, but with only limited success. Indiana's 1st Congressional District stretches from Gary and Hammond along the Lake Michigan shore, east almost to Michigan City. It includes Lake County, 25% black and 12% Hispanic in 2000, and Porter County to the east, which includes Valparaiso, known locally as Valpo, notable for its annual Popcorn Festivals, honoring longtime resident and developer of 300 popcorn hybrids, Orville Redenbacher. The 2001 redistricting added three small Republican-leaning counties south of Gary, but nearly three-quarters of the population is in Lake County. This remains the most Democratic district in Republican Indiana, as it has been since the United Steelworkers' organizing drives of the late 1930s. The congressman from the 1st District is Pete Visclosky, a Democrat first elected in 1984. Visclosky grew up in Lake County (his father was mayor of Gary in the early 1960s), went to college there and law school at Notre Dame. He practiced law, and then worked for six years for 1st District Congressman Adam Benjamin. Benjamin died suddenly in 1982 and Visclosky returned to Indiana. In 1984 he ran against Katie Hall, a black state senator who had been given the 1982 nomination--and thus the election, in this Democratic district--by Mayor Hatcher, then district party chairman. But Hall was able to win only 33% of the 1984 primary vote; Visclosky had 34% and another white candidate got 31%. In two later primaries Visclosky twice beat Hall by more than 20%. Visclosky's voting record has trended moderate and he concentrates much of his effort on projects to help the local economy, especially the steel industry. He has a solid pro-union voting record. He is a leader of the Congressional Steel Caucus and has been vigilant in monitoring surges in steel imports. When George W. Bush was elected with critical help from steel-producing areas, Visclosky had greater leverage, and Bush did impose steel import quotas. But when the quotas were removed, Visclosky protested that Bush "stabbed the American steelworkers in the back." Visclosky, meanwhile, sought health benefits for unemployed and retired workers whose steel companies were unable to pay them, and he again called for closer monitoring of imports. As ranking Democrat on the Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development, Visclosky has secured federal funding for projects in his district. He pushed through an exception to the Johnson Act, making Lake Michigan waters eligible for gambling and thus allowing riverboat casinos for Gary. In 2004, he took credit for a $4 million appropriation for expanded commuter rail service to Chicago. He has worked with local communities to encourage economic and recreational development along the lakeshore. In heavily Republican 1994, with an opponent who spent more than $100,000, Visclosky lost some conservative suburbs and won by just 56%-44%. Since then he has won without difficulty, by 68%-32% in 2004.
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