Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R) Elected 2002, 2d term
Born:	June 6, 1952, Laurel, MS
Home:	Brentwood
Education:	MS St. U., B.S. 1973
Religion:	Presbyterian
Marital Status:	married (Chuck)
Elected  Office:	TN Senate, 1998-2002.
Professional Career:	Retail marketing consultant, 1973-98.
DC Office	509 CHOB20515, 202-225-2811; Fax: 202-225-3004; Web site: www.house.gov/blackburn
State Offices	Clarksville, 931-503-0391; Franklin, 615-591-5161; Memphis, 901-382-5811.
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Rural Tennessee north of Mississippi is one of the most sparsely settled areas in the state. Along each side of the Tennessee River, as it flows north and widens out into Kentucky Lake amid heavy forests, are small rural communities; many go back to pre-Civil War days and some have not grown much since. One of those towns is Waynesboro, where Davy Crockett delivered campaign speeches from the base of a huge natural stone double bridge overlooking the Buffalo River. Farther west is McNairy County, where Sheriff Buford Pusser of Walking Tall fame carried his big stick until his untimely death in 1974; here, the land is flatter and more open, a northward extension economically and demographically of the northern Mississippi farmlands. This mostly empty land is bounded on two sides by large metropolitan areas, Nashville to the east and Memphis to the west, with Nashville now the largest in Tennessee. South of Nashville is booming Williamson County, with its bedroom communities of Franklin and Brentwood; this is the most affluent, highly educated and fastest-growing county in Tennessee. To the north, along the Cumberland River, is fast-growing Clarksville, with many well-restored 19th century homes and the sprawling Fort Campbell army base, which has more than 20,000 military personnel just across the Kentucky border.

The 7th Congressional District of Tennessee spans this territory, packing Republican voters from Montgomery County's seat of Clarksville, south through the western half of Cheatham County and most of Williamson County plus a bite of Nashville-Davidson, then rambling west across the Tennessee River and south to the Mississippi border and finally to the white neighborhoods on the east side of Memphis and Shelby County. On the map, this looks like a rural district. Demographically, it's mostly suburban. Almost 40% of its votes are cast in metro Memphis and 30% in metro Nashville, mostly in Williamson County; another 11% are in Montgomery County and only 21% in the smaller rural counties. Redistricting added Republican Williamson County making the 7th nearly as solidly Republican as the 1st District in faraway East Tennessee. In 2004, when John Kerry won Nashville by about 25,000 votes (55%-45%), George W. Bush carried the four rapidly growing counties in the southern and eastern suburbs of Nashville by 91,000 votes (66%-33%).

The congresswoman from the 7th District is Marsha Blackburn, a Republican first elected in 2002. She grew up in a Farm Bureau family in Laurel, Mississippi, where her father sold oil-field production equipment. Her interest in gardening and canning won her a 4-H college scholarship at Mississippi State University, where she majored in merchandising and clothing. After that, she sold books and became a sales manager with Southwestern Company, which sells educational materials, and moved to Williamson County. (Her hilltop home is known as "Up Yonder," named by its former owner, Grand Ole Opry star Minnie Pearl). Blackburn became director of retail fashion for a Nashville department store and was appointed by Governor Don Sundquist as executive director of the Tennessee Film, Entertainment and Music Commission. In 1992, she was the Republican nominee against Bart Gordon in the 6th District and attacked his spending record and the congressional pay raise; she lost 57%-41%. She was elected in 1998 to the Tennessee Senate, where she became an outspoken opponent of Sundquist's proposed income tax. She was well known there for her appearances on conservative radio talk shows and for organizing rallies opposed to the income tax.

In March 2002, after Congressman Ed Bryant decided to run for the Senate, Blackburn decided to run in the 7th District. Seven candidates ran in the Republican primary; three were well known in the Memphis area. Blackburn was the only well-known candidate from the Nashville area. An opponent called her "an uncomplicated obstructionist," and a Tennessean columnist said her career was "marked by unblemished negativism." But she benefited from $100,000 in advertising and another $90,000 in contributions by the anti-tax Club for Growth, and from attacks by the Shelby County candidates on one another. She ran as pro-life, pro-gun and pro-military. The Memphis area cast 50% of the votes in the primary and the Nashville area only 25%. But Blackburn won with 40% of the total to 20% for the runner-up. She won 78% in the Nashville area, and was competitive in the Memphis area, with 24%. Blackburn won the general election, 71%-26%.

In the House, Blackburn continued her low-tax message and her voting record was among the most conservative in the House. She urged renewal of the federal ban on Internet access taxes, and urged across-the-board cuts for non-defense discretionary spending. She cosponsored the bill to make sales taxes deductible in states that have no income tax; it was passed as part of the corporate tax bill. On the Judiciary Committee, she worked on intellectual property tax issues important to the music industry. A survey of Capitol Hill staff by Washingtonian magazine rated her the top newcomer among House Republicans.

Blackburn was reelected without opposition in 2004. In late 2004 Blackburn was being mentioned both as a candidate to succeed Bill Frist in the Senate and as a challenger to Democratic Governor Phil Bredesen in 2006. In January 2005, she won a seat on the Energy and Commerce Committee, which would help her fundraising in a Senate race but also increased her incentive to remain in the House. A month later, she announced she would not run for the Senate in 2006 but left the door open for a future run.

Committees

• Energy & Commerce (31st of 31 R): Commerce, Trade & Consumer Protection; Oversight & Investigations; Telecommunications & the Internet.

Group Ratings (More Info)
	ADA	ACLU	AFS	LCV	ITIC	NTU	COC	ACU	NTLC	CHC
2004	0	0	0	0	90	75	100	100	97	100	--
2003	5	--	0	0	--	71	97	92	--	--	--

National Journal Ratings (More Info)
	2003 LIB	--	2003 CONS		2004 LIB	--	2004 CONS
Economic	9%	--	84%		25%	--	75%
Social	0%	--	95%		0%	--	91%
Foreign	0%	--	89%		10%	--	86%
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	Marsha Blackburn (R)	unopposed
2004 primary	Marsha Blackburn (R)	unopposed
2002 general	Marsha Blackburn (R)	138,314	71%	$552,213
	Tim Barron (D)	51,790	26%	$18,969
	Other	5,454	3%

2004 Presidential Vote Bush (R) 206,410 (66%) Kerry (D) 104,792 (33%)

2000 Presidential Vote Bush (R) 146,213 (59%) Gore (D) 99,423 (40%)

For 1992 and 1996 presidential results in the Seventh 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 +12
• District Size: 6,349 square miles
• Population in 2000: 632,139; 61.0% urban; 39.0% rural
• Median Household Income: $50,090; 8.0% are below the poverty line
• Occupation: 24.0% blue collar; 64.0% white collar; 12.0% gray collar; 14.2% military veterans
• Race/Ethnic Origin: 83.5% White, 11.4% Black, 1.5% Asian, 0.2% Amer. Indian, 0.1% Hawaiian, 1.1% Two+ races, 0.1% Other, 2.2% Hispanic origin
• Ancestry: 12.3% USA, 9.1% English, 9.1% Irish
• Click here for statewide demographic data.