Rep. Vernon Ehlers (R) Elected Dec. 1993, 6th full term
Born:	Feb. 6, 1934, Pipestone, MN
Home:	Grand Rapids
Education:	Calvin Col., 1952-55; U. of CA at Berkeley, A.B. 1956, Ph.D. 1960, U. of Heidelberg, Germany, 1961-62
Religion:	Christian Reformed
Marital Status:	married (Johanna)
Elected  Office:	Kent Cnty. Comm., 1974-82, Chmn., 1978-81; MI House of Reps., 1982-86; MI Senate, 1986-93, Pres. Pro Tem, 1990-93.
Professional Career:	Prof., Calvin Col., 1966-82.
DC Office	1714 LHOB20515, 202-225-3831; Fax: 202-225-5144; Web site: www.house.gov/ehlers
State Offices	Grand Rapids, 616-451-8383.
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Grand Rapids is Michigan's second-largest city, the center of its most prosperous and confident metropolitan area. The city's roots are in trees: It grew as a center for processing and turning into furniture the hardwood forests of northern Michigan. By the early 20th century, Grand Rapids was the leading furniture manufacturer in the nation. The Depression of the 1930s knocked the bottom out of the residential furniture market, and many manufacturers moved to cheaper-labor North Carolina. So Grand Rapids had to reinvent itself, and did. It went into office furniture, and today, three of the nation's largest office furniture manufacturers (Steelcase, Haworth and Herman Miller) are located in or near here. It capitalized also on a knack for sales. Rich DeVos and Jay Van Andel started Amway, the direct sales empire, which now has half of its sales abroad, and Frederik and Hendrik Meijer started Meijer's Thrifty Acres, combining supermarkets with discount stores in a way that even Wal-Mart has not been able to equal. Grand Rapids is also the center of a machine tool empire, the home of Wolverine World Wide, maker of Hush Puppy shoes, and the headquarters of Bissell and its carpet sweepers. Fifty years ago Grand Rapids and its up-and-coming businesses were outshined by Detroit and the auto industry. Today, the Grand Rapids region has been growing rapidly and has been a major engine in Michigan's economy.

One ingredient in Grand Rapids's success is its unique ethnic mix. It was founded by New England Yankees, but much of its character was set by the Dutch immigrants who began arriving in western Michigan in the 1870s, and are still coming today; 13% of people here claim Dutch ancestry (probably no other American city has such a high proportion of "V" pages in the phone book). The Dutch brought with them a piety witnessed in their Reform and Christian Reform churches, and a culture of hard work and precision craftsmanship; their cultural conservatism and belief in market economics runs deep. Dutch tradition and entrepreneurial success have been the ingredients of a civic activism that has given Grand Rapids a host of creative civic institutions--and an Alexander Calder stabile--that are the match of any city in the country.

Politically, Grand Rapids has been the center of Michigan Republicanism for much of the last century. It has also produced national Republican leaders. Arthur Vandenberg, originally a newspaper editor, was U.S. senator from 1928-51; once an isolationist, he provided key support for the bipartisan internationalist foreign policies of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry Truman. Another was Gerald Ford, who rose to House Republican leader in 1965, vice president in 1973, and then president after Richard Nixon resigned in 1974. Nixon got a bit of a nudge from the Grand Rapids area when, in a February 1974 special election, it voted to replace Ford with a Democrat, a clear sign that the Republican heartland was turning on Nixon. Since then, however, the area became more Republican than ever; Grand Rapids and Kent County voted 59% for George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004.

The 3d Congressional District of Michigan includes Grand Rapids and almost all of Kent County, plus Ionia and Barry Counties to the east and south. It is one of the two most Republican districts in Michigan, indeed one of the most Republican in the Midwest.

The congressman from the 3d District is Vern Ehlers, first chosen in a December 1993 special election. Ehlers grew up in small-town Minnesota, the son of a Christian Reform minister, attended Calvin College in Grand Rapids, got a Ph.D. in physics at Berkeley and then returned to Calvin to teach for 17 years. In 1974, concerned about local waste management, he was elected Kent County commissioner; in 1982 he won a seat in the state House and in 1986 the state Senate. After Congressman Paul Henry died in July 1993, Ehlers ran to succeed him, as he had in both houses of the legislature. He won the November primary with 33% of the vote; a month later he whipped the Democrat 67%-23%.

Ehlers brought to House Republicans, then entering their 40th year in the minority, a majority mindset. That brought him to the attention of Newt Gingrich, who named him to his transition team after the 1994 election. He assigned Ehlers, the first research physicist in Congress, to lead efforts to revamp the House's computer system. In 1995 Ehlers responded with a system making available vote tallies, public hearing transcripts and texts of amendments and bills. His religious faith and scientific training have left Ehlers with a middle-of-the-House voting record. Ehlers often insists on the need for research to determine public needs. In February 2004 he passed an amendment to the transportation bill pegging future research at 1.08% of total spending. When controversy arose over the composition of National Academy of Science advisory panels, he said, "A single, guiding principle should be applied--select the most qualified person for the job." But he added that on presidential appointments, "It is important that the scientists be in tune with the philosophy of the appointing president."

As chairman of the Science Subcommittee overseeing EPA and NOAA, he has sponsored several laws that have won widespread backing. With Senator Carl Levin, he has sponsored measures to study invasive species, and in October 2004 he helped pass $9 million for an electric barrier in the Illinois River to prevent Asian carp from getting into the Great Lakes. The House also passed his bill to monitor and prevent algal blooms and hypoxia in the Great Lakes. He pressed with some success for more spending on Great Lakes problems; armed with a GAO report showing that there were 33 federal and 17 state programs impacting the Great Lakes, he sponsored a bill to consolidate some of them and pressed EPA Administrator Mike Leavitt to report on them in 2005. In 2004 his subcommittee passed a NOAA authorization bill, to codify the agency's powers and establish its structure; it had been established by executive order in 1970 and, as he put it, "Congress has passed a hodgepodge of issue-specific legislation for NOAA, resulting in a confusing collection of laws that are not coordinated by an overarching mission for the agency."

Ehlers has a penchant for compromise. As head of a three-member task force on Robert Dornan's challenge to his 984-vote defeat in 1996, Ehlers looked over the evidence and announced that it showed "a large amount" of vote fraud but not enough to vacate the seat. That may help explain why Speaker Dennis Hastert bypassed him and selected Bob Ney to chair the House Administration Committee after the 2000 election. Like most other Michigan Republicans, he opposed George W. Bush's steel tariffs, and he was one of the Republicans who voted to repeal the section of the Patriot Act allowing agents access to library records--a vote on which the leadership held open the roll call to round up a majority.

Ehlers refuses to take more than 30% of his campaign money from outside the district. He has been re-elected by very wide margins.

Committees

• Education & the Workforce (8th of 27 R): 21st Century Competitiveness; Education Reform.
• House Administration (2d of 6 R).
• Science (8th of 24 R): Energy; Environment, Technology & Standards (Chmn.).
• Transportation & Infrastructure (9th of 41 R): Aviation; Water Resources & Environment.

Group Ratings (More Info)
	ADA	ACLU	AFS	LCV	ITIC	NTU	COC	ACU	NTLC	CHC
2004	20	25	0	45	100	56	100	67	60	84	--
2003	15	--	0	55	--	57	87	72	--	--	--

National Journal Ratings (More Info)
	2003 LIB	--	2003 CONS		2004 LIB	--	2004 CONS
Economic	41%	--	59%		44%	--	56%
Social	44%	--	56%		49%	--	50%
Foreign	50%	--	49%		53%	--	46%
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	Vernon Ehlers (R)	214,465	67%	$308,785
	Peter Hickey (D)	101,395	31%	$1,054
	Other	6,243	2%
2004 primary	Vernon Ehlers (R)	unopposed
2002 general	Vernon Ehlers (R)	153,131	70%	$371,513
	Kathryn Lynnes (D)	61,987	28%	$8,290
	Other	3,737	2%
Prior winning percentages: 2000 (65%); 1998 (73%); 1996 (69%); 1994 (74%); 1993 (67%)

2004 Presidential Vote Bush (R) 197,493 (59%) Kerry (D) 133,460 (40%)

2000 Presidential Vote Bush (R) 170,622 (60%) Gore (D) 110,121 (38%)

For 1992 and 1996 presidential results in the Third 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 + 9
• District Size: 1,897 square miles
• Population in 2000: 662,563; 77.1% urban; 22.9% rural
• Median Household Income: $45,936; 8.6% are below the poverty line
• Occupation: 29.5% blue collar; 56.7% white collar; 13.8% gray collar; 11.4% military veterans
• Race/Ethnic Origin: 82.2% White, 7.9% Black, 1.6% Asian, 0.4% Amer. Indian, 0.0% Hawaiian, 1.5% Two+ races, 0.1% Other, 6.2% Hispanic origin
• Ancestry: 14.6% German, 13.1% Dutch, 7.9% Irish
• Click here for statewide demographic data.