Sen. Thad Cochran (R) Elected 1978, 5th term up 2008
Born:	Dec. 7, 1937, Pontotoc
Home:	Jackson
Education:	U. of MS, B.A. 1959, J.D. 1965, Rotary Fellow, Trinity Col., Ireland, 1963-64
Religion:	Baptist
Marital Status:	married (Rose)
Elected  Office:	U.S. House of Reps., 1972-78.
Military Career:	Navy, 1959-61.
Professional Career:	Practicing atty., 1965-72.
DC Office	113 DSOB20510, 202-224-5054; Fax: 202-224-9450; Web site: cochran.senate.gov
State Offices	Gulfport, 228-867-9710; Jackson, 601-965-4459; Oxford, 662-236-1018.
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Thad Cochran was elected to the House in 1972 and the Senate in 1978, where he sits at Jefferson Davis's old desk. He grew up in small towns in northern Mississippi and near Jackson, the son of a principal and a teacher, graduated with high grades from Ole Miss (where he was a cheerleader, which was a very big deal) and its law school, served in the Navy, spent a year abroad and practiced law in Jackson. In 1972, as Richard Nixon was sweeping Mississippi, he was elected as a Republican to the House from the Jackson-area district with a plurality against a white Democrat and black independent. After three terms, he was ready to step down, when Senator James Eastland retired; Cochran ran, and once again won with a plurality over a white Democrat and a black independent. In the House and in the Senate he has managed to amass a generally conservative record with little controversy or acrimony. His pleasant personal demeanor, his refusal to engage in racial politics and his Republican Party label, in a state where most whites have been voting Republican for president for three decades, have made him broadly acceptable to voters at home. His toughest race came in 1984, when he was opposed by popular former Governor William Winter. Winter could make a case for himself but not against Cochran; Cochran outraised him $2.7 million to $738,000, and won 61%-39%.

Cochran is now the chairman of the Appropriations Committee. He serves on the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, where he has been a key proponent of missile defense. He has worked to fund projects big and small which are based in Mississippi--the DDG-51 Aegis destroyers, two of them to be built at Ingalls Shipyard in Pascagoula, the LHD-8 helicopter carrier, additional AN/APG-73 radars for the F-18 Hornet, Mississippi State University's research center where superfast computers do undersea modeling of Navy projects, the University of Mississippi computer labs receiving information from orbiting satellites. Timely amendments to appropriations that make major policy are a Cochran specialty. To the bill allowing reimportation of prescription medicines in July 2000 Cochran added an amendment to require the FDA to certify lack of risk to public health and safety; HHS Secretary Donna Shalala was unable to so certify, and the law became a dead letter. An October 2000 amendment delaying the imposition of regulations on the treatment of rats, mice and birds in research laboratories prevented a big increase in the cost of medical research. In 2003 and 2004 Cochran chaired the new Homeland Security Subcommittee, which sharply increased spending over what the agencies in the new department had spent before. He got additional screening technologies for the TSA, accelerated funding of the Coast Guard's Deepwater long-term recapitalization program and worked for funding of NOAA research vessels. With ranking minority member Robert Byrd he secured Senate passage of the New Shippers Review, to help Customs and Border Protection collect antidumping and countervailing duties on imports from countries evading payment.

In January 2005 Cochran succeeded Ted Stevens as chairman of the full committee. "We're not going to have runaway spending on the Appropriations Committee when I'm chairman," he said. "I won't tolerate it." Stevens noted that "he's less confrontational, perhaps, more deliberate." Cochran said he would not encourage earmarks. "If it's not agreed upon by all who are concerned, then it doesn't get included in the bill. I'm not going to engage in a practice of putting things in bills without consultation with other senators." And he sought to tamp down expectations that he would provide for Mississippi as Stevens had for Alaska. "I think Mississippi can be assured that our needs will be carefully considered, but it will be a tough budget year, and I don't want to enlarge expectations too much." And he warned that some Mississippi military bases could end up on the 2005 base closing list, which is in fact what happened. In May 2005, the Pentagon recommended closing Pascagoula Naval Station, shrinking Keesler Air Force Base and redistributing airplanes from the 186th Refueling Wing at Key Field in Meridian. Cochran said he wanted to avoid omnibus bills in which multiple subcommittees' bills are rolled into one huge piece of legislation. "It's my plan to have us stay on a schedule that will cause us to pass 13 individual appropriation bills." But that goal was endangered when the House Appropriations Committee reduced the number of its subcommittees from 13 to 10. That would have made subcommittees' jurisdictions incongruent, making it difficult to settle issues in conference committees. In response, the Senate committee abolished one of its 13 subcommittees and reshuffled jurisdictions.

On the Agriculture Committee Cochran played an important role in shaping the very different 1996 and 2002 farm bills. In 1996 he supported the move to phase out most crop subsidies over seven years, but insisted on maintaining the cotton marketing loan plan that he largely wrote in 1985. In 2002 he supported the strategy of reviving annual crop payments through the marketing loan program and the target price mechanism, which was abolished in 1996, and of vastly increasing the Conservation Reserve Program to provide money for producers of non-program crops, thus producing more support for the bill. The bill also required country-of-origin labeling for beef, pork, lamb and fish--the last being very important for Mississippi's big catfish farm industry; Cochran has worked hard to get the Senate to prevent a similar Vietnamese fish from being labeled catfish. After the bill passed Cochran argued that it was weaning farmers from subsidies. In January 2003 Cochran moved swiftly to fashion a $3.1 billion drought relief measure, about half the size of Tom Daschle's, which spread money not just to the drought-stricken Great Plains but to most of the South, with special aid for tobacco and catfish producers; he got it into the omnibus appropriation with a coalition of all Republicans and seven southern Democrats. He helped steer to passage the Healthy Forests Restoration Act in 2003. In 2004 he pushed through reauthorization of nutrition programs like WIC and the school lunch program, providing more access to the poor. In December 2004 he and ranking Democrat Tom Harkin got passage of a bill restoring $100 million which had been diverted for other purposes to the conservation program.

He helped create the Delta Health Alliance and introduced a bill to help close the health care gap between the races. Over the years he has built up a National Writing Program, to instruct teachers how to teach writing; for only $10 million it sends 100,000 teachers to summer programs on 167 campuses. He has fostered programs to improve arts education, foreign languages and civics and economics education.

Going into the 109th Congress, Cochran and Trent Lott have combined congressional service of 64 years; both were first elected to the House in 1972. Their relations have not always been harmonious. They clashed over judgeships and vied for White House favor in the 1980s and mixed it up in leadership fights in the 1990s. In 1990 Cochran challenged the more moderate John Chafee of Rhode Island for the chairmanship of the Senate Republican Conference, the number three leadership position, and won 22-21. When Lott challenged Alan Simpson for majority whip, the number two position, Cochran pointedly endorsed Simpson; Lott won anyway, with the support of junior conservatives, and thus leapfrogged Cochran. When Bob Dole announced in May 1996 that he would resign from the Senate in June, Cochran and Lott both entered the race for majority leader; Lott had the contest sewed up, but Cochran stayed in and lost 44-8. In January 2001, Cochran appeared by John McCain's side as a new co-sponsor of the latest version of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance bill; this had been strongly opposed by Lott, and Cochran's vote made the bill apparently filibuster-proof. It gave McCain leverage in his drive to get it early consideration. But Cochran spoke sympathetically about Lott after he relinquished the majority leadership in December 2002.

Cochran holds what seems to be one of the safest seats in the Senate. In 1990 he was unopposed and in 1996 he was re-elected 71%-27% over a Democrat who spent half of his $4,700 on gas for a borrowed car. In 2002 he beat a Reform party candidate 85%-15%. He comes up for reelection in 2008; in August 2004 he said, "I'll make that decision when the time comes, but I'm not making any promises either way to anyone at this point." He has a ways to go before he matches John Stennis's record as Mississippi's longest serving senator: that won't happen until March 2020.

Committees

• Agriculture, Nutrition & Forestry: Forestry, Conservation & Rural Revitalization; Production & Price Competitiveness; Research, Nutrition & General Legislation.
• Appropriations (Chmn.): Agriculture, Rural Development & Related Agencies; Defense; Energy & Water; Homeland Security; Interior & Related Agencies; Labor, Health and Human Services, Education & Related Agencies; Legislative Branch.
• Rules & Administration.

Group Ratings (More Info)
	ADA	ACLU	AFS	LCV	ITIC	NTU	COC	ACU	NTLC	CHC
2004	15	0	0	0	92	67	100	92	88	100	--
2003	5	--	11	0	--	72	100	85	--	--	--

National Journal Ratings (More Info)
	2003 LIB	--	2003 CONS		2004 LIB	--	2004 CONS
Economic	0%	--	82%		18%	--	78%
Social	0%	--	59%		19%	--	71%
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
2002 general	Thad Cochran (R)	533,269	85%	$1,453,688
	Shawn O'Hara (Ref)	97,226	15%
2002 primary	Thad Cochran (R)	unopposed
1996 general	Thad Cochran (R)	624,154	71%	$1,305,680
	James W. Hunt (D)	240,647	27%
	Other	13,861	2%
Prior winning percentages: 1990 (100%); 1984 (61%); 1978 (45%); 1976 House (76%); 1974 House (70%); 1972 House (48%)