Rep. John Spratt (D) Elected 1982, 12th term
Born:	Nov. 1, 1942, Charlotte, NC
Home:	York
Education:	Davidson Col., A.B. 1964, Oxford U., M.A. 1966, Yale U., LL.B. 1969
Religion:	Presbyterian
Marital Status:	married (Jane Stacy)
Military Career:	Army Operations, U.S. Dept. of Defense, 1969-71.
Professional Career:	Practicing atty., 1971-82; Pres., Bank of Ft. Mill, 1973-82; Pres., Spratt Insurance Agcy., 1973-82.
DC Office	1401 LHOB20008, 202-225-5501; Fax: 202-225-0464; Web site: www.house.gov/spratt
State Offices	Darlington, 843-393-3998; Rock Hill, 803-327-1114; Sumter, 803-773-3362.
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Some of the fiercest battles of the Revolutionary War were fought in South Carolina's Up Country, on hilly lands just being settled by Scots-Irish farmers moving up from the Low Country or down the Virginia Piedmont valley. This was a country of violent passions and unclear lines; Carolinians have long argued over which side of the North and South Carolina boundary Andrew Jackson was born in 1767. Ever since, the fighting spirit and Calvinist faith of Up Country Carolinians have never wavered. This ''Olde English District'' remains intensely religious and pro-military. But it is no longer impoverished. For many years, the dominant industry here was textiles, traditionally the first factory enterprise of industrializing countries, with low pay and poor working conditions. But in the 1980s and 1990s the number of textile jobs declined, and small business prosperity more recently has been barreling out the interstates from Greenville-Spartanburg and Columbia and Charlotte, to transform counties once dependent on tobacco fields and textile mills.

The 5th Congressional District of South Carolina consists of all or part of 14 counties, mostly in the Up Country. It includes fast-growing (up 40% from 1990 to 2004) York County, part of the Charlotte, North Carolina, metro area; growth accelerated here after settlement of the Catawba Indians' land claims in 1993. Just to the east is Lancaster County, where Del Webb's Sun City Carolina Lakes has plans for 12,000 new homes, more than half the county's total. Further east, the 5th includes Dillon County, site of the pink, orange and turquoise South of the Border tourist attraction heralded on 250 billboards on I-95, and Darlington, site of the Southern 500 stock car race every Labor Day. It also includes lowland tobacco country, including Marlboro and Chesterfield Counties. Politically, this homeland of Andrew Jackson is ancestrally Democratic. But Republicans are now competitive if not dominant here: the tobacco counties are heavily Democratic but York County is trending Republican. George W. Bush won 55% of the districtwide vote in 2000 and 57% in 2004; in 2002 the 5th was carried by Democratic Governor Jim Hodges, who lives in the district, and by Republican Senator Lindsey Graham.

The congressman from the 5th District is John Spratt, ranking minority member on the House Budget Committee and assistant to the minority leader, a Democrat first elected in 1982. He comes from a prominent York County family and graduated from Davidson College, Oxford University and Yale Law School. He served two years in the Army, in the Operations Analysis Group in the office of the Pentagon comptroller. He first got involved in politics in Charles Ravenel's unsuccessful 1974 campaign for governor. In 1982 the 5th District incumbent announced his retirement a week before the filing deadline; Spratt put a campaign together fast and won 38% in the primary, 55% in the runoff against a high-spending candidate, and 68% in the general. And so a campaign quickly put together has given Spratt a seat in the House for more than 20 years and a key role in shaping national legislation.

Spratt is the second-ranking Democrat on the Armed Services Committee. In the 1980s, he worked with Chairman Les Aspin and, in his thick Carolina accent and with impressive knowledge of details, stitched together compromises on the MX missile, binary nerve gas weapons, the Strategic Defense Initiative, and the Savannah River Site and other nuclear plants--keeping military projects flowing through the House, many of whose members were constantly looking to cut military spending. In the late 1990s Spratt was the House Democrats' lead man on missile defense; his amendment on the subject prevailed in February 1995 by 218-212, the first significant defeat of a Contract with America promise in the Republican House. Later he called for development of missile defense, but warned against hasty departure from the ABM treaty. After George W. Bush abrogated the treaty, Spratt moved in May 2004 to shift money from ballistic missile defense to theater defenses against tactical missiles, like the Navy's Area Missile Defense system and the Patriot missiles; that was defeated.

On the Iraq war resolution, Spratt played a key role for House Democrats. In September 2002, after Bush's speech at the United Nations, Minority Leader Dick Gephardt turned to Spratt and Ike Skelton, ranking Democrat on Armed Services, for help in drafting an alternative to the broad White House resolution authorizing the use of force. Spratt sought another round of weapons inspections and wanted Bush to ask for U.N. approval and suggested removing a phrase authorizing any action to ensure peace and security in the region; the administration agreed to delete it. He sought advice from Anthony Zinni, Joseph Hoar and other retired generals with experience in the region, and found that they were wary of military action against Iraq. When Gephardt went to the White House and agreed on a resolution, Spratt continued to prepare a Democratic alternative, working with Minority Whip Nancy Pelosi. He saw "no need to invoke preemptive intervention or to draw a tenuous connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda." His resolution authorized military action if the U.N. approved and left room for the administration to seek another resolution from Congress if the U.N. did not approve. "Iraq's defiance of Security Council resolutions is enough to warrant force, particularly if it does not comply with a new, tougher round of arms inspections," Spratt said, but he also argued that it was worth getting approval from others. He offered his resolution as an amendment and it was defeated 270-155; Democrats favored it 147-60 but Republicans opposed it 210-8. Spratt joined the majority and voted for the resolution sponsored by the administration and Gephardt, which passed 296-133. After the 2002 election, Gephardt stepped down and Pelosi was elected minority leader; one of her first acts was to appoint Spratt assistant to the leader and name him her designee on budget issues--a sign, it appeared, that she would be paying attention to moderates in the Democratic Caucus.

In 1991 Spratt got a seat on the Budget Committee. His moderate voting record made him a natural point of contact between the parties, but Democrats did not see him as their leader: In their November 1992 caucus, he was beaten for Budget chairman by the more liberal Martin Sabo by 149-112. He rotated off the committee in 1992, then ran for the ranking Democrat position on Budget again in December 1996. Democrats, now in the minority, were more ready for his leadership; he beat the more liberal Louise Slaughter by 106-83. He played a major role in putting together the May 1997 agreement to reach a balanced budget.

The bipartisanship of that period has not continued, and Spratt has been given the role of offering Democratic alternatives which are beaten on party lines. In early 2001 he urged Bush to approach the budget as Bill Clinton did in 1997, with negotiations between leaders of both parties. But the new Budget chairman, Jim Nussle, instead offered a budget resolution based on Bush's program, with a $1.6 trillion tax cut over 10 years and a 4% increase in non-defense spending. Spratt's alternative offered a smaller tax cut, with one-third of the surplus going to tax cuts, one-third to increased spending and one-third to a "strategic reserve fund." He decried the size of the Republican tax cuts. After September 11, he issued a report predicting that the budget surplus would disappear in 2002 and quite possibly for several years. In 2002 he called for negotiations like those that produced the 1997 budget agreement or the 1990 budget summit in which Bush's father agreed to break his promise and raise taxes. "He can take a page from his father's experience and hope it doesn't cost him what it cost his dad. But his dad did the right thing." In 2002 Republicans once again passed a budget resolution along party lines; surveying the deficits ahead, Spratt blamed them on the 2001 Bush tax cuts, but said that he would not urge their repeal. In July 2003, in response to another monopartisan budget resolution, Spratt said, "Republican claims that spending discipline and economic growth are the solution to our budget problem are not supportable." In September 2003 he presented forecasts that operations in Iraq could cost $418 billion over 10 years. In 2004 Nussle joined Spratt in expressing concern about the administration's practice of omitting from budget projections expenses for Iraq and Afghanistan provided for in supplemental appropriations. In January 2005, as Republicans continued their monopartisan approach, he complained that CBO forecasts of the deficit were unduly optimistic because they did not include all Iraq and Afghanistan costs.

On other issues, Spratt has a moderate record, a bit to the left of the middle of the House. He voted for NAFTA in 1993, but in 2003 said he would oppose the Central America Free Trade Agreement. He fought Senator Lindsey Graham's bill to reclassify nuclear wastes at the Savannah River Site so they could be destroyed there, but Graham prevailed. In February 2005 he criticized the Bush approach to Social Security. In 2004, Washingtonian's poll of congressional staffers rated him number two in the House in the workhorse category, behind Bill Thomas, chairman of Ways and Means, and tied with David Obey, ranking Democrat on Appropriations. His response was cautious. "I think it's positive. It's better than being called a show horse, I guess."

Spratt had two tough races, in 1994 and 1996, when he won by margins of 52%-48% and 54%-45%. Since then he has been reelected easily; he had no Republican opponent in 2002 and won with 63% of the vote in 2004.

Committees

• Armed Services (2d of 28 D): Strategic Forces; Tactical Air & Land Forces.
• Budget (RMM of 17 D).

Group Ratings (More Info)
	ADA	ACLU	AFS	LCV	ITIC	NTU	COC	ACU	NTLC	CHC
2004	80	50	88	100	40	10	48	20	6	23	--
2003	95	--	100	90	--	20	32	29	--	--	--

National Journal Ratings (More Info)
	2003 LIB	--	2003 CONS		2004 LIB	--	2004 CONS
Economic	70%	--	30%		63%	--	36%
Social	65%	--	35%		62%	--	37%
Foreign	75%	--	25%		59%	--	40%
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 N 2. Approve Bush Tax Cuts N 3. Medicare/Rx Bill N 4. Bar Overtime Pay Regs. Y 5. DC School Vouchers N 6. Ban Human Cloning N		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	John Spratt (D)	152,867	63%	$757,151
	Albert Spencer (R)	89,568	37%	$1,215
2004 primary	John Spratt (D)	unopposed
2002 general	John Spratt (D)	121,912	86%	$406,711
	Doug Kendall (Lib)	11,013	8%
	Steve Lefemine (CNP)	8,930	6%
Prior winning percentages: 2000 (59%); 1998 (58%); 1996 (54%); 1994 (52%); 1992 (61%); 1990 (100%); 1988 (70%); 1986 (100%); 1984 (92%); 1982 (68%)

2004 Presidential Vote Bush (R) 143,001 (57%) Kerry (D) 104,850 (42%)

2000 Presidential Vote Bush (R) 119,052 (55%) Gore (D) 93,637 (43%)

For 1992 and 1996 presidential results in the Fifth 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 + 6
• District Size: 7,141 square miles
• Population in 2000: 668,668; 46.7% urban; 53.3% rural
• Median Household Income: $35,416; 15.2% are below the poverty line
• Occupation: 37.5% blue collar; 48.5% white collar; 14.1% gray collar; 13.0% military veterans
• Race/Ethnic Origin: 64.1% White, 32.2% Black, 0.5% Asian, 0.6% Amer. Indian, 0.0% Hawaiian, 0.7% Two+ races, 0.1% Other, 1.8% Hispanic origin
• Ancestry: 14.8% USA, 5.6% Irish, 5.6% English
• Click here for statewide demographic data.