Sen. Jim Bunning (R) Elected 1998, 2d term up 2010
Born:	Oct. 23, 1931, Campbell Cnty.
Home:	Southgate
Education:	Xavier U., B.S. 1953
Religion:	Catholic
Marital Status:	married (Mary)
Elected  Office:	Ft. Thomas City Cncl., 1977-79; KY Senate, 1979-83; U.S. House of Reps., 1986-98.
Professional Career:	Pro baseball player, 1950-71; Investment broker & agent, 1960-86.
DC Office	316 HSOB20510, 202-224-4343; Fax: 202-228-1373; Web site: bunning.senate.gov
State Offices	Ft. Wright, 859-341-2602; Hazard, 606-435-2390; Hopkinsville, 270-885-1212; Lexington, 859-219-2239; Louisville, 502-582-5341; Owensboro, 270-689-9085.
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Jim Bunning, a Republican elected to the Senate in 1998, is the first player elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame to serve in Congress. Bunning grew up in Northern Kentucky, just across the Ohio River from Cincinnati. He started in minor league baseball in 1950, but at his father's insistence finished high school and college. He made the majors in 1956 and the next year became the only pitcher to strike out Ted Williams three times in one game. Bunning threw a no-hitter for the Detroit Tigers in 1958 and pitched a perfect game for the Philadelphia Phillies on Father's Day 1964; he also played for the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Los Angeles Dodgers. He retired in 1971 with a 224-184 record, a 3.24 ERA and 2,855 strikeouts; he was the second pitcher (Cy Young was the first) to achieve 1,000 strikeouts and 100 wins in both the American and the National Leagues. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in August 1996. He is a family man, with nine children (two sets of twins) and at last count 35 grandchildren and 2 great-grandchildren; his son David Bunning, after 10 years as a federal prosecutor, was unanimously confirmed as a federal judge in February 2002. Jim Bunning and fellow pitcher Robin Roberts set up the Major League Baseball Players Association and hired Marvin Miller in 1966, when the minimum player salary was $6,000; in 2002, however, he was criticizing the players for not accepting a salary cap, the big metro area teams for not accepting revenue sharing and the owners for not opening their books. He has long been in favor of repealing baseball's exemption from the antitrust laws.

The skill, energy and aggressiveness he showed in baseball--Bunning registered one of the highest totals in baseball history for hitting batters--he brought to politics in his native northern Kentucky. He was elected to the Fort Thomas City Council in 1977, to the state Senate in 1979, and won a respectable 44% against Martha Layne Collins in the 1983 race for governor (the best showing for a Republican gubernatorial candidate between 1971 and 1995). When incumbent 4th District Congressman Gene Snyder retired in 1986, Bunning won the seat with 55% of the vote. He served six years on the ethics committee, starting off in March 1992 by leading the charge against the House bank overdraft scandal. In September 1993, he called Bill Clinton ''the most corrupt, the most amoral, the most despicable person I've ever seen in the presidency.''

In February 1997, Senator Wendell Ford announced he would retire in 1998, and Bunning, with typical aggressiveness, made plans to run for his seat. The Democratic nominee was Lexington Congressman Scotty Baesler, who was still known as a star on one of Adolph Rupp's University of Kentucky basketball teams in the early 1960s.

Baesler emerged from the primary ahead of Bunning in the polls but out of money; Bunning, with extensive help from Senator Mitch McConnell, had plenty of money. Bunning ran an ad showing actors thanking Baesler, in Spanish and (with subtitles) Chinese, for voting for NAFTA and for normal trade relations with China. This was perhaps the country's closest race for months. And, despite Kentucky's early poll closing times and rapid count, it was not until late in the evening that Bunning was declared the winner. His margin was 49.7%-49.2%, or 6,766 votes.

Bunning has compiled one of the most conservative voting records in the Senate. He has taken bipartisan initiatives on occasion. In 2002 he teamed up with Democrat Barbara Boxer to get approval of arming pilots. In March 2004, he and Boxer complained about the TSA's delaying in approving pilots and sponsored a bill to require training within 90 days of application. He joined Paul Sarbanes on a bill to crack down on property owners who falsely claim flood damage.

Bunning has worked on many Kentucky issues. He has criticized the Energy Department's cleanup of the USEC uranium enrichment plant in Paducah, ongoing since 1988, on which $823 million had been spent by 2003. He has been especially angry at DOE's failure to compensate workers stricken with radiation-related disease. He held several hearings on the issue and blocked the nomination of the agency's CFO to get attention. In December 2003 he supported the workers' union's efforts to get laid-off workers hired by the new contractor with continued pension and service credit. In March 2004 he noted that only one claim had been filled in four years. In June 2004 he got a unanimous vote to put in the defense authorization an amendment moving the compensation process to the Labor Department and to have the government rather than private contractors compensate workers. It was part of the final bill passed in October 2004. "It guarantees a willing payer and will ensure that these claims are processed in a timely manner." The first Kentucky claimant got $125,000 in December 2004; Bunning pointed out that there were 24,000 claims pending and only 30 had been acted on.

Bunning came up for reelection in 2004. For some time it seemed he would face Governor Paul Patton, ineligible to seek a third term in 2003. But in September 2002 Patton admitted that he had had an affair with a nursing home operator who sued him that month for sexual harassment; she accused him of sending in state inspectors to close down her business after she broke off the affair. Patton, after denying the affair, admitted it after phone records showed 440 calls from his office to her home or business; a few days later he announced, unsurprisingly, that he would not run for the Senate. Other well known Democrats--Lieutenant Governor Steve Henry, Treasurer Jonathan Miller, 4th District Congressman Ken Lucas--dropped out for one or another reason. That left Bunning the heavy favorite. But he ended up facing a serious challenge from state Senator Daniel Mongiardo. Mongiardo, a physician from the eastern mountains, had beaten a longtime incumbent for one state Senate seat, then won another that Republicans had redistricted three hours away from his home; he started off by putting $168,000 of his own money into his campaign. Bunning raised and spent $6.5 million in all, but the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee started spending money on Mongiardo in July. Mongiardo got ammunition from what some considered Bunning's strange behavior. He refused to give the press advance notice of his appearances--Kentucky Republicans believe the state's dominant paper, the Louisville Courier-Journal, is biased against them--and traveled with a security guard, because of "classified briefings that I have received in the U.S. Senate," Bunning said. At one campaign stop (Mongiardo staffers videotaped Bunning on the stump) Bunning said that Mongiardo looked like one of Saddam Hussein's sons. Bunning ran ads attacking Mongiardo on national security, taxes and as a "Medicaid millionaire." Mongiardo promised to reduce the cost of health care and called for reimportation of prescription drugs from Canada; his ads pointed out that Bunning accepted $75,000 from pharmaceutical PACs. Mongiardo said he was against abortion and same-sex marriage and in favor of gun rights.

The contest came to a head in the single debate October 11. Bunning participated on video from Washington, where he said he needed to be to vote in the Senate. Democrats complained loudly about this because Bunning read his opening and closing statements from a teleprompter, though that did not violate the agreed on rules. Bunning accused Mongiardo and his staff of passing on "horrible rumors" about his health (he was 73) and asked for an apology. "I hope that you are healthy," Mongiardo said, and accused Bunning of behavior "unbecoming of a U.S. senator. You have conduct that has been unbecoming of a Kentucky gentleman. People are reaching, searching for an excuse." Bunning apologized for "an inappropriate comment," presumably the Saddam Hussein comment. Both continued in that vein in post-debate comments. "When we went to Fancy Farm," Bunning said, referring to the traditional July political gathering in Graves County, "my wife was black and blue from their staff or someone connected with the Mongiardo campaign--absolutely running into her." He said that members of the media were hostile because they "don't believe the same way I believe." Mongiardo said, "Senator Bunning has the history and record of throwing high, hard fastballs and we were ready for a beanball. Senator Bunning's arrogance and his mean-spiritedness prevents him from seeing the impact of his policies on the people of Kentucky." The commentary continued from others. The Courier-Journal editorialized, "Is he, as he ages, just becoming a more concentrated version of himself: more arrogant, more prickly? Certainly that would be a normal occurrence. Or is his increased belligerence an indication of something worse? Has Senator Bunning drifted into territory that indicates a serious health concern?" Republicans were also throwing punches at Mongiardo. State Senate President David Williams said he had a "limp wrist," and another state senator said Mongiardo "is not a gentleman. I'm not even sure the word 'man' applies to him." A constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage was on the ballot, and passed in November 75%-25%.

The DSCC shrewdly poured money into this race, $466,000 in five days in October alone, and the polls tightened; a Democratic poll showed Bunning leading by only 47%-39% and a Bunning poll showed him ahead by the not entirely reassuring margin of 50%-39%. Bunning provided his critics with more material on October 21 when asked about a unit of Army Reserve soldiers in Iraq who refused an order to deliver fuel because they said their trucks were lightly armored. Bunning said he was unaware of the incident. "Let me explain something. I don't watch the national news, and I don't read the paper. I haven't done that for the last six weeks. I watch Fox News to get my information." This might have been taken as a statement of how busy he was during campaign season or as a response to what he saw as press bias.

On November 2 Bunning just barely squeaked to victory, 51%-49%, as George W. Bush was carrying the state 60%-40%. Mongiardo ran far ahead of John Kerry in his home area in the eastern mountains--30% ahead in his home of Perry County--and 12% to 22% ahead in the ring of counties around Lexington. But Bunning was rescued, as he had been in 1998, by his strong showing in his home area, the three counties of Northern Kentucky, where he won 66.5% of the vote (to Bush's 66.6%), and which he carried by 48,000 votes, more than double his statewide margin of 22,000. Bunning, asked whether he had made mistakes, said, "Sure we made mistakes. Everybody makes mistakes. The only time I've ever been perfect was for about two hours and 10 minutes on June 21, 1964."

Committees

• Banking, Housing & Urban Affairs: Economic Policy (Chmn.); Financial Institutions; Securities & Investment.
• Budget.
• Energy & Natural Resources: Energy; Water & Power.
• Finance: Health Care; International Trade; Social Security & Family Policy.

Group Ratings (More Info)
	ADA	ACLU	AFS	LCV	ITIC	NTU	COC	ACU	NTLC	CHC
2004	15	0	14	0	100	69	100	100	90	100	--
2003	10	--	11	0	--	73	100	85	--	--	--

National Journal Ratings (More Info)
	2003 LIB	--	2003 CONS		2004 LIB	--	2004 CONS
Economic	0%	--	82%		11%	--	84%
Social	0%	--	59%		0%	--	84%
Foreign	0%	--	78%		0%	--	67%
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. Ban Drilling in ANWR N 2. Approve Bush Tax Cuts Y 3. Medicare/Rx Bill Y 4. Bar Overtime Pay Regs. N 5. Energy Bill Y 6. Support Roe v. Wade N		7. Ban Partial-Birth Abortion Y  8. Assault Weapons Ban N  9. Ban Same-Sex Marriage Y 10. Ban Bunker-Buster Bomb N 11. Fund Iraq War Y 12. Restrict Missile Defense N

Election Results (More Info)
	Candidate	Total Votes	Percent	Expenditures
2004 general	Jim Bunning (R)	873,507	51%	$6,075,399
	Daniel Mongiardo (D)	850,855	49%	$3,104,981
2004 primary	Jim Bunning (R)	96,545	84%
	Barry Metcalf (R)	18,395	16%
1998 general	Jim Bunning (R)	569,817	50%	$3,746,540
	Scotty Baesler (D)	563,051	49%	$3,841,950
	Other	12,546	1%
Prior winning percentages: 1996 House (68%); 1994 House (74%); 1992 House (62%); 1990 House (69%); 1988 House (74%); 1986 House (55%)