Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R) Elected 1994, 6th term
Born:	June 15, 1951, Vermillion, SD
Home:	Goddard
Education:	SD Sch. of Mines, 1969-71; Evangel Col., B.A. 1975; SW MO St. U., M.B.A. 1989
Religion:	Assembly of God
Marital Status:	married (Vicki)
Elected  Office:	KS Senate, 1992-94.
Professional Career:	Project Engineer, Zenith Corp., 1978-81; Proposal Mgr., Boeing Co., 1981-94.
DC Office	2441 RHOB20515, 202-225-6216; Fax: 202-225-3489; Web site: www.house.gov/tiahrt
State Offices	Wichita, 316-262-8992.
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Wichita is the largest Kansas-only metropolitan area, smaller than million-plus metro Kansas City, but a Great Plains metropolis of the magnitude of Omaha or Tulsa, and still growing. It began as a farm market town and grew with local oil and gas discoveries in the 1920s. But its real impetus came during World War II and the years just after, when aircraft factories sprouted up here on the Kansas plains and Wichita suddenly became the nation's major producer of small planes. Today the big four--Cessna, Raytheon, Boeing, Bombardier--are all located here. In the early 1990s, general aviation was hurt by the recession and by lawsuits that held manufacturers liable for planes they had produced years, even decades, before. A few years later, Wichita recovered: The demand for small planes was robust, and a federal limit on liability enlivened the industry. But the September 11 attacks were a severe blow to the airline industry and, therefore, to Wichita which lost some 12,000 jobs. Some shifted to health care, as Wichita has become a regional center in the Great Plains pattern, as people from miles around come to the metropolis for treatment. In 2004, the Navy gave the area a boost with a contract for 100 modified 737's to hunt submarines. More good news came with the opening of Cessna's huge hangar center to service business jets.

Kansas' 4th Congressional District is centered around Wichita, covering wheat-growing areas to the east and west, but with most of its people in Wichita and Sedgwick County. Politically, it has voted Republican in federal elections but has voted Democratic occasionally in state contests.

The congressman from the 4th District is Todd Tiahrt (pronounced TEE-hart), a Republican first elected in 1994. He grew up on a farm in South Dakota, went to the same high school as South Dakota Senator Tim Johnson, played football for the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology and graduated from Evangel College. In 1976 he moved to the Wichita area to be closer to his wife's family and worked at Zenith as a project engineer and at Boeing as a proposal manager on the Space Station, Air Force One, KC-135, B-52, B-1, B-2, A-67, YF-22 and Comanche helicopter programs. In 1990 he went to the courthouse to file to run for the Kansas House and decided he was a Republican; he lost that race by eight votes. His grandfather raised him to be a Democrat, but he found his strong religious views were more in line with Republicans. In 1992 he was elected to the Kansas Senate, where his great cause was a concealed weapons law.

In 1994 Tiahrt decided to run against Democratic Congressman Dan Glickman, who had served for 18 years: one of the reasons Democrats held majorities in the House so long was because talented politicians held Republican-leaning districts like this for many years. Tiahrt ran ads showing Glickman's face morphing into Bill Clinton's, and attacked him for voting for gun control in the 1994 crime bill. With his base among Wichita's numerous religious conservatives, who had taken over the local Republican Party, he assembled a corps of 1,800 volunteers, many from church contacts. Glickman outspent him more than 3-to-1 and continued to run relatively well in high-income Republican precincts, but he suffered serious losses in middle-income areas in Sedgwick County. Tiahrt won a solid 53%-47% victory.

In the House, Tiahrt has a solidly conservative voting record, and has been a close ally of Tom DeLay. He has sponsored measures that help aircraft manufacturers, including accelerated depreciation for non-commercial sales and support for the Air Force's proposal to buy KC-767 aerial refueling tankers from Boeing. He sided with aerospace workers in opposing George W. Bush's proposal to change rules on overtime pay. He proposed eliminating the Department of Energy and transferring nuclear weapons storage and waste disposal to the Pentagon, to no effect. He tried to zero out--and later, to reduce--AmeriCorps, but with no success. On Appropriations, he won approval of his proposal to bar enforcement of certain record-keeping requirements for gun dealers. He kept the pressure on Metro officials in the Capitol region to make sure that their signs included the correct name of Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. In response to a federal investigation of Wichita-area construction sites, Tiahrt proposed to overhaul the Occupational Safety and Health Administration so that the relationship between builders and OSHA was less adversarial. In November 2004, in conference he added $1 million to the omnibus appropriations bill at the request of Wichita's police chief; the police department was running out of money to investigate the "BTK" serial killer, who had resurfaced earlier that year. In March 2005, police announced an arrest in the case. By agreeing to his funding request, "The Republican leadership helped to catch a serial killer," Tiahrt said. "It's one of the top 10 most gratifying things I've done since I got to Congress."

Democrats targeted Tiahrt during his early years with well-financed opponents, but he finally may have locked up the district. In 2000, Wichita attorney and former Glickman aide Carlos Nolla ran a tougher-than-expected challenge against him. Tiahrt won 54%-42%, sweeping all 12 counties. In a rematch two years later, Nolla doubled his fundraising with support from national Hispanics, and said that Tiahrt was beholden to pharmaceutical companies, but he lost 61%-37%. In 2004, the Democratic nominee was poorly funded and got little attention. Tiahrt has sought to move up the political ladder. He considered running for governor in 2002, but backed off. In the House, he pushed for Roy Blunt to appoint him as chief deputy whip, but the job went to the more junior Eric Cantor of Virginia. Blunt later named Tiahrt as his liaison to the Appropriations Committee.

Committees

• Appropriations (17th of 37 R): Defense; Transportation, Treasury, HUD, the Judiciary & District of Columbia.
• Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (10th of 12 R): Oversight; Terrorism, Human Intelligence, Analysis & Counterintelligence.

Group Ratings (More Info)
	ADA	ACLU	AFS	LCV	ITIC	NTU	COC	ACU	NTLC	CHC
2004	5	0	13	9	88	60	100	92	81	100	--
2003	5	--	13	0	--	63	100	92	--	--	--

National Journal Ratings (More Info)
	2003 LIB	--	2003 CONS		2004 LIB	--	2004 CONS
Economic	0%	--	91%		16%	--	83%
Social	5%	--	87%		23%	--	77%
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 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	Todd Tiahrt (R)	173,151	66%	$491,456
	Michael Kinard (D)	81,388	31%	$15,083
	Other	7,376	3%
2004 primary	Todd Tiahrt (R)	unopposed
2002 general	Todd Tiahrt (R)	115,691	61%	$1,132,104
	Carlos Nolla (D)	70,656	37%	$686,952
	Other	4,616	2%
Prior winning percentages: 2000 (54%); 1998 (58%); 1996 (50%); 1994 (53%)

2004 Presidential Vote Bush (R) 173,643 (64%) Kerry (D) 93,129 (34%)

2000 Presidential Vote Bush (R) 146,921 (59%) Gore (D) 91,232 (37%)

For 1992 and 1996 presidential results in the 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 +12
• District Size: 9,596 square miles
• Population in 2000: 672,101; 78.8% urban; 21.2% rural
• Median Household Income: $40,917; 9.6% are below the poverty line
• Occupation: 28.3% blue collar; 57.0% white collar; 14.6% gray collar; 14.0% military veterans
• Race/Ethnic Origin: 81.0% White, 6.8% Black, 2.4% Asian, 1.1% Amer. Indian, 0.0% Hawaiian, 2.0% Two+ races, 0.1% Other, 6.6% Hispanic origin
• Ancestry: 17.7% German, 8.0% English, 7.9% Irish
• Click here for statewide demographic data.