Rep. Jon Porter (R) Elected 2002, 2d term
Born:	May 16, 1955, Ft. Dodge, IA
Home:	Henderson
Education:	Attended Briar Cliff College, 1974-78.
Religion:	Catholic
Marital Status:	married (Laurie)
Elected  Office:	Boulder City Cncl., 1983-93; Boulder City Mayor, 1987-91; NV Senate, 1994-2002.
Professional Career:	Indep. contractor, Farmers Insurance Group Corp., 1982-2000.
DC Office	218 CHOB20515, 202-225-3252; Fax: 202-225-2185; Web site: www.house.gov/porter/
State Offices	Henderson, 702-387-4941.
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Las Vegas means The Meadows, and was the name of a place on the Old Spanish Trail from Santa Fe to California. In the early 20th century it was one of the terminuses of the Las Vegas & Tonopah Railroad, a link to Nevada's silver mines. Even at the end of the 1930s, when gambling was legalized in Nevada, Las Vegas was still a town of less than 10,000. Then came decades of amazing growth, as Las Vegas became America's greatest center of gambling and one of its greatest centers of entertainment; it grew to a metropolitan area of 1.6 million people by 2000. For the past 15 years, Las Vegas has been the fastest-growing metropolitan area in America--up 123% from 1990 to 2004--and Clark County in 2004 was the nation's 17th largest county. Although the real estate market remained hot, this is still frontier country, one of the few places in the nation with more men than women. Las Vegas has spread from the few blocks around Fremont Street that it occupied in the 1930s all across the bleak desert, in every direction. It is an exuberant, undisciplined and chaotic American city, within its pattern of grid-street mile roads, all manner of curved-street subdivisions and gated communities, an America uncontrolled by traditional elites.

The 3d Congressional District is a Y-shaped segment of Nevada's Clark County made up of most of the suburbs of Las Vegas. It includes the south end of the Las Vegas Strip and McCarran International Airport and spreads west, northeast and south. It includes active retiree communities, blue-collar towns such as Blue Diamond that still have a rural flavor and a variety of planned (and often gated) areas like Summerlin that cater to young families drawn by the job opportunities. Southeast of Las Vegas, the district takes in two additional population hubs: Henderson, the fastest-growing city in the United States in the 1990s, and Boulder City, originally built for federal workers at Hoover Dam. (Under an old agreement with the federal government, Boulder City is the only place in Nevada where gambling is prohibited). The 3d includes the Nevada halves of Lake Mead and Lake Mohave, on the Arizona border, and the state's southernmost tip including Searchlight (hometown of Senator Harry Reid) and Laughlin, right across the Colorado River from Bullhead City, Arizona. The 3d District is a creature of redistricting, drawn after the 2000 Census so that the new district would have almost a precisely equal number of registered Democrats and registered Republicans. Clark County historically was the most Democratic part of Nevada, but the newcomers attracted to the state in the 1990s have tilted toward Republicans; the result is this closely divided district, with small pluralities for Al Gore in 2000 and George W. Bush in 2004.

The congressman from the 3d District is Jon Porter, a Republican first elected in 2002. He grew up in Humboldt, Iowa, and attended Briar Cliff College in Sioux City. After moving to Nevada, he managed an office with more than 40 agents for the Farmers Insurance Group. He was elected mayor of Boulder City in 1987 and in 1994 was elected to the state Senate, where he earned a reputation as a consensus-building moderate. In 2000 he ran against Democrat Shelley Berkley in the 1st District, attacking her controversial memo to a hotel owner who was seeking approvals for another hotel; he lost 52%-44%.

When the new district lines were adopted, Porter ran in the new 3d District. National Democrats were enthusiastic about their political wunderkind candidate, 28-year-old Clark County Commissioner Dario Herrera, who seemed to have the political skills and savvy that could make him in time a major statewide politician.

But Herrera turned out to have serious problems. He spent much of the campaign defending himself against a spate of charges over alleged ethics violations--such as his winning a no-bid consulting deal and taking a questionable loan. In turn, he sought to discredit Porter on the grounds that as an insurance agent he was furthering his own interests in restricting recoveries for medical malpractice, a raging issue in Nevada. Though both candidates strongly opposed shipping the nation's nuclear waste to the nearby Yucca Mountain site, Herrera attacked Porter for accepting contributions from House Republicans who supported the Nevada nuclear waste repository. Herrera also criticized Porter for supporting "privatization" of Social Security. Porter had supported individual investment accounts in 2000, but retreated from that position and said that he would "always look at alternatives." It turned out to be no contest. Porter won 56%-37%, running far ahead of party lines--or perhaps it was Herrera running far behind party lines.

In the House, Porter carved out a voting record near the center of House Republicans, and his votes on social issues were especially moderate. He proposed creation of a new undersecretary for local government and tourism in the Homeland Security Department; the House approved the proposal as part of its intelligence reorganization bill. He argued that his experience on tax issues and the underrepresentation of Western states should warrant a seat on the Ways and Means Committee, but he didn't get one. Instead he became chairman of the Government Reform Subcommittee on Federal Workforce and Agency Organization, where he promised to devote attention to oversight of Energy Department contracts for the Yucca Mountain project.

Even with the failure of Herrera, House Democrats held out hope for a serious challenger in 2004. They eventually found Tom Gallagher, a former top executive of Park Place Entertainment who spent $940,000 of his own money on the campaign; Democratic party sources gave another $750,000. Democrats were embarrassed by the disclosure that Gallagher had contributed $2,000 to the Bush campaign in 2003. Gallagher called the 2003 Medicare prescription drug bill a "boondoggle" for the pharmaceutical companies, and he criticized Porter for "getting along with Tom DeLay and the House Republican leadership." Shelley Berkley criticized Porter for voting for the energy bill, on the ground that its subsidies for the nuclear industry would expedite the Yucca Mountain repository; Porter said that the issues were separate and criticized Gallagher because the nuclear industry was a client of his former law firm. Gallagher suffered from political inexperience and lack of local familiarity, and he lost 54%-40%.

Committees

• Education & the Workforce (15th of 27 R): 21st Century Competitiveness; Select Education (Vice Chmn.).
• Government Reform (17th of 23 R): Federal Workforce & Agency Organization (Chmn.); National Security, Emerging Threats & International Relations.
• Transportation & Infrastructure (29th of 41 R): Aviation; Highways, Transit & Pipelines; Railroads.

Group Ratings (More Info)
	ADA	ACLU	AFS	LCV	ITIC	NTU	COC	ACU	NTLC	CHC
2004	15	20	13	9	90	51	100	76	68	83	--
2003	5	--	0	10	--	61	100	92	--	--	--

National Journal Ratings (More Info)
	2003 LIB	--	2003 CONS		2004 LIB	--	2004 CONS
Economic	9%	--	84%		31%	--	68%
Social	30%	--	65%		53%	--	47%
Foreign	23%	--	71%		34%	--	63%
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	Jon Porter (R)	162,240	54%	$2,653,136
	Tom Gallagher (D)	120,365	40%	$2,372,518
	Other	15,313	5%
2004 primary	Jon Porter (R)	unopposed
2002 general	Jon Porter (R)	100,378	56%	$1,916,277
	Dario Herrera (D)	66,659	37%	$1,809,383
	Pete O'Neil (I)	6,842	4%	$11,560
	Other	5,115	3%

2004 Presidential Vote Bush (R) 156,335 (50%) Kerry (D) 152,150 (49%)

2000 Presidential Vote Gore (D) 104,772 (49%) Bush (R) 103,720 (48%)

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: D + 1
• District Size: 4,749 square miles
• Population in 2000: 666,082; 96.3% urban; 3.7% rural
• Median Household Income: $50,749; 7.5% are below the poverty line
• Occupation: 18.4% blue collar; 56.8% white collar; 24.8% gray collar; 16.4% military veterans
• Race/Ethnic Origin: 69.3% White, 5.5% Black, 5.9% Asian, 0.5% Amer. Indian, 0.4% Hawaiian, 2.7% Two+ races, 0.1% Other, 15.6% Hispanic origin
• Ancestry: 11.1% German, 8.7% Irish, 7.7% English
• Click here for statewide demographic data.