Rep. Gene Taylor (D) Elected Oct. 1989, 8th full term
Born:	Sept. 17, 1953, New Orleans, LA
Home:	Bay St. Louis
Education:	Tulane U., B.A. 1974
Religion:	Catholic
Marital Status:	married (Margaret)
Elected  Office:	Bay St. Louis City Cncl., 1981-83; MS Senate, 1983-89.
Military Career:	Coast Guard Reserve, 1971-84.
Professional Career:	Sales rep., Stone Container Corp., 1977-89.
DC Office	2311 RHOB20515, 202-225-5772; Fax: 202-225-7074; Web site: www.house.gov/genetaylor
State Offices	Gulfport, 228-864-7670; Hattiesburg, 601-582-3246; Laurel, 601-425-3905; Ocean Springs, 228-872-7950.
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The strand where Mississippi faces the Gulf of Mexico has gone through several transformations. French explorers here founded Biloxi in 1699, before New Orleans or St. Louis, and made it the capital of an empire extending to what is now Yellowstone National Park. Two hundred years later, rich people from New Orleans came to this Gulf Coast in summer to get away from yellow fever and to rest on Victorian verandas; six American presidents have vacationed here. More recently the Gulf Coast, with the help of riverboat casinos since 1992, has grown more than any other major part of Mississippi; along much of the strand, new 1,000-room hotels rose as part of Mississippi's boom and about 50,000 jobs were created during the past decade. There is a military flavor to the Gulf Coast: Biloxi's Keesler Air Force Base is one of the four largest in the country. Pascagoula, once a small town, is now home of the more than 12,000 employees at Ingalls Shipyard, whose gray hangar-like buildings and skeletons of ships under construction loom over the flat landscape. The Pentagon's 2005 base closing recommendations hit hard here: Pascagoula Naval Station was slated for closure and Keesler was scheduled to shrink by about 400 jobs. To the west is the Stennis Space Center named for longtime (1947-89) Senator John Stennis, where Lockheed Martin has established an advanced propulsion center.

This is the heart of the 4th Congressional District of Mississippi. About half of its people live on the Gulf Coast; the rest are inland, in farm counties or around Hattiesburg and Laurel. This was mostly scrub land, not much good for plantations. With its low black percentage and mostly booming economy, the 4th District has become prime Republican territory. This district, in close to current form, gave Richard Nixon his highest percentage in all 435 districts in 1972, voted five times against fellow Southerners Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and Al Gore, and was represented for 16 years in the House by Lott until he was elected to the Senate in 1988.

The congressman from the 4th District is Gene Taylor, a Democrat chosen in a 1989 special election. Taylor graduated from Tulane and served in the Coast Guard Reserves as skipper of a search and rescue boat for 10 years. He was elected to the Bay St. Louis Council in 1981 and in 1983, at 30, was elected to the state Senate. In 1988, when Lott ran for the Senate, Taylor ran for his House seat, won the Democratic primary, but lost to Republican Larkin Smith 55%-45%. When Smith died in an August 1989 plane crash, Lott brushed aside Smith's widow and backed his own longtime aide Tom Anderson, who had spent little time in the district and proved to be an abrasive candidate. Taylor, combining a barely reined-in aggressiveness with a down-home manner, won the special 65%-35%.

In the House, Taylor has a conservative voting record and has bluntly criticized the leadership of both parties. When asked to vote for the 1998 budget, he characteristically remarked, "One of the people who is asking us to trust him is now being studied to see if he committed perjury. Another of the people who says trust us admitted lying to the ethics committee. That's not a very good place to start." Taylor is a peppery populist with a reasonably consistent view on issues. He is against abortion, gun control, free trade, foreign aid and federal deficits. He is strongly pro-defense and boasts of bringing defense contracts to the area. As a senior Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, he is a firm believer in improving pay and benefits. He was a leading proponent of the major expansion in 2000 of health benefits for military retirees. In 2004, he had the most conservative voting record of any House Democrat.

Feisty almost to the point of being belligerent, he opposes any U.S. military commitment that stops short of assured and total victory. He voted against the Gulf War resolution, lifting the arms embargo on Bosnia, and sending troops to Haiti, and won House passage of limits on forces in Colombia. But he seems to have become in recent years more willing to use military power. When faced with apparently ineffective American military involvement in Serbia in April 1999, he called for a declaration of war; in October 2002 he voted for the use of force in Iraq. He is a protectionist, loudly opposing NAFTA, GATT and normal trade relations with China. If anything holds his record together, it is boats. He promotes Ingalls and other shipyards, succeeded in widening and deepening the Gulfport shipping channel, champions the seafood industry, and wants to prohibit foreign-flag ships from conducting passenger "voyages to nowhere" from U.S. ports. He supports the federal shipbuilding program and revitalizing the Merchant Marine; he objects to waivers to the Jones Act, which requires coastal shipping to be conducted in U.S.-made ships. When American Classic Voyages went bankrupt while building a cruise ship in Pascagoula, Taylor sought to have the government finish construction and use the ship as a floating barracks. With Jo Ann Davis of Virginia, he organized the Shipbuilding Caucus to expand the Navy fleet. He vigorously opposed the 2005 base-closing round, arguing that Congress was surrendering its constitutional authority, that this was the wrong time because the nation is at war--and out of concern that facilities in his district may be on the closing list. But a House-Senate conference committee in October 2004 dropped a two-year delay that he helped insert in the House bill.

He is hardly ever a reliable Democratic vote. Taylor voted "present" for speaker in 1995, and he voted for John Murtha in 2001, 2003 and again in 2005, rather than Richard Gephardt or Nancy Pelosi. But Taylor has rebuffed all importunings to switch parties. "I personally would feel like a prostitute. I still believe the average working person's best interest is best served by the Democratic Party." Facing the possibility that the House would decide the 2000 presidential election, he said that he would vote for George W. Bush to reflect the views of his constituents.

Taylor seldom has much serious opposition, except in 1996, when Republican Dennis Dollar opposed him. Taylor won with a solid 58%-40%, even as Bob Dole was carrying the district by a similar margin. Since then, he has won overwhelmingly. In 2004, state representative Mike Lott (no relation to the senator) sought to take advantage of George W. Bush's ample coattails in this area and complained that Taylor was too worried about the national deficit rather than the need for tax cuts. But Taylor won, 64%-35% in a district Bush was carrying 68%-31%. If the seat becomes open, Republicans would have an excellent chance to capture this seat. But Taylor shows no signs of accommodating them.

Committees

• Armed Services (5th of 28 D): Projection Forces (RMM); Readiness.
• Transportation & Infrastructure (11th of 34 D): Coast Guard & Maritime Transportation; Highways, Transit & Pipelines; Water Resources & Environment.

Group Ratings (More Info)
	ADA	ACLU	AFS	LCV	ITIC	NTU	COC	ACU	NTLC	CHC
2004	60	15	75	55	40	30	52	54	38	76	--
2003	65	--	88	50	--	40	47	64	--	--	--

National Journal Ratings (More Info)
	2003 LIB	--	2003 CONS		2004 LIB	--	2004 CONS
Economic	55%	--	45%		56%	--	44%
Social	44%	--	55%		23%	--	77%
Foreign	57%	--	42%		58%	--	41%
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 N 3. Medicare/Rx Bill N 4. Bar Overtime Pay Regs. Y 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 Y 12. Intelligence Reorg. Y

Election Results (More Info)
	Candidate	Total Votes	Percent	Expenditures
2004 general	Gene Taylor (D)	179,979	64%	$426,134
	Michael Lott (R)	96,740	35%	$89,085
	Other	3,663	1%
2004 primary	Gene Taylor (D)	unopposed
2002 general	Gene Taylor (D)	121,742	75%	$372,065
	Karl Mertz (R)	34,373	21%
	Other	5,753	4%
Prior winning percentages: 2000 (79%); 1998 (78%); 1996 (58%); 1994 (60%); 1992 (63%); 1990 (81%); 1989 (65%)

2004 Presidential Vote Bush (R) 188,880 (68%) Kerry (D) 86,010 (31%)

2000 Presidential Vote Bush (R) 154,997 (65%) Gore (D) 78,224 (33%)

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 +16
• District Size: 9,536 square miles
• Population in 2000: 711,219; 53.7% urban; 46.3% rural
• Median Household Income: $33,023; 16.9% are below the poverty line
• Occupation: 29.7% blue collar; 51.9% white collar; 18.4% gray collar; 15.3% military veterans
• Race/Ethnic Origin: 73.5% White, 22.1% Black, 1.2% Asian, 0.3% Amer. Indian, 0.0% Hawaiian, 0.9% Two+ races, 0.1% Other, 1.8% Hispanic origin
• Ancestry: 13.4% USA, 7.3% Irish, 6.3% English
• Click here for statewide demographic data.