Rep. John Culberson (R) Elected 2000, 3d term
Born:	Aug. 24, 1956, Houston
Home:	Houston
Education:	Southern Methodist U., B.A. 1981, S. TX Col. of Law, J.D. 1988
Religion:	Methodist
Marital Status:	married (Belinda)
Elected  Office:	TX House of Reps., 1986-2000, Maj. Whip, 1999-2000.
Professional Career:	Jim Culberson Advertising, 1981-85; Practicing atty., 1988-2000.
DC Office	1728 LHOB20515, 202-225-2571; Fax: 202-225-4381; Web site: www.culberson.house.gov
State Offices	Houston, 713-682-8828.
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When George H. W. Bush moved from Midland in West Texas to Houston in 1960, he bought a house in Briarwood, in what was then the western edge of the fast-growing city, beyond Memorial Park and Loop 610, before the Galleria and high-rises went up around the intersection of Post Oak and Westheimer. Bush returned to Houston in 1993 and built a new house a mile from his old one, just west of lush Memorial Park. Bush's favorite shopping mall is nearby on Sage and San Felipe and his favorite barbecue joint a mile east on Memorial; his office is atop the Park Laureate building at 10000 Memorial. Today these landmarks are no longer at the edge of the vastly bigger and economically vibrant Houston metropolitan area, but near its epicenter, certainly its retail center and not far from its commercial center, though the industrial center of gravity remains far to the east, near the Ship Channel. Downtown has survived the Enron collapse and is sprouting residential apartments. Near the lavish Galleria, business leaders have made this area more than a shopping center. With extensive landscaping and art, they have sought to give it a unique and inviting image, and they have made improvements on the 610 to increase mobility for commuters and shoppers.

The 7th Congressional District of Texas is the lineal descendant of the district that elected George H.W. Bush as its first member of the House in 1966 and the first Republican to represent Houston. It occupied far more territory then, half of Harris County. In successive redistrictings, its boundaries have been pared back and new districts created out of the old, as the population of the west side of Houston has skyrocketed. Today more than 1.5 million people live in the area where 350,000 lived when Bush was first elected. The 7th District today touches the western edge of downtown Houston and includes most of the land between the Katy Freeway and Westheimer running straight west to Highway 1960. To the south it includes the affluent neighborhoods southwest of downtown Houston, Rice University and the Texas Medical Center, Belleaire and a swatch of Houston southwest of 610. It extends north to include much territory along the Sam Houston Freeway and Highway 1960 to the radial Route 249. Within its boundaries live most of Houston's business and professional elite, the partners of the big law firms and the people you read about on the society page. Back in the 1980s the 7th District was one of the most Republican districts in the country, sometimes the most Republican, and it still is heavily Republican. But like many precincts of the very elite, from Greenwich, Connecticut, to Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, and Hillsborough, California, it--or at least a significant minority of longtime Republicans living here--has not taken a liking to George W. Bush's brand of Republicanism. Within these boundaries he won 69% of the vote in 2000 but dropped to 64% in 2004, a lower percentage than he won in 14 other Texas districts. The younger Bush now runs much stronger in the modest-income counties of West Texas than he does in the high-income precincts of Houston where his parents live and where he spent some of what he admits now were his misspent years.

The congressman from the 7th District is John Culberson, a Republican first elected in 2000 and only the second man to hold the seat after the senior Bush. Culberson grew up in Houston and graduated from Southern Methodist University, then worked for his father's advertising agency. He graduated from South Texas College of Law and worked as a civil defense attorney. In 1986, at 29, Culberson won a seat in the Texas House, where he served for 14 years. In 2000 Bill Archer, Bush's successor in the House, retired after serving six years as chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. Naturally there was a seriously contested primary in this safe Republican seat. The frontrunners were Culberson and Peter Wareing, a Houston merchant banker and son-in-law of Texas oilman Jack Blanton. Culberson led Wareing in the first round 38%-27%. Wareing spent nearly $4 million to Culberson's $650,000. But Culberson had an extensive grassroots campaign and won the runoff four weeks later 60%-40%. The general election was no contest.

Culberson calls himself a "Jeffersonian Republican" and is passionate about transferring power from the federal to local governments; he has had a firmly conservative voting record. He opposes racial quotas and preferences, gun control, and abortion (except in cases of rape, incest, or to save the life of the mother). In the Archer tradition, he says his goal is to junk the current tax system and replace it with a national sales tax. On the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee in his first term he proposed a "trusted traveler" card for those who pass background checks to assist frequent flyers to avoid standard airport screening. He battled with Houston officials who wanted to increase spending for light rail, and insisted on expanded highway capacity, including the Katy Freeway, as part of the plan to relieve gridlock. "We shouldn't shoehorn people into a transportation design based on what Washington think tanks believe." In November 2003, he complained that the transit authority had not adequately described its spending plans and opposed the ballot referendum in Houston to authorize $640 million in revenue bonds for 22 additional miles of light rail transit; the proposal passed narrowly.

In the House, Culberson has often gone his own way. He ruffled feathers as one of only two Texas Republicans to oppose the 2003 Medicare/prescription drug bill. Also in the face of White House opposition, he passed an appropriations rider to prohibit funding of a regulation to permit banks to accept Mexican matricula consular documents as identification; in September 2004, the House defeated his proposal, 222-177. He was outraged when immigration officials in Houston promised a group of Latinos that their agents would not perform random workplace raids. "If they expected to get funded, they must enforce the immigration laws." Though the district lines have changed twice since he was first elected, he did not face serious competition in either 2002 or 2004.

Committees

• Appropriations (32d of 37 R): Science, State, Justice, Commerce & Related Agencies; Transportation, Treasury, HUD, the Judiciary & District of Columbia.

Group Ratings (More Info)
	ADA	ACLU	AFS	LCV	ITIC	NTU	COC	ACU	NTLC	CHC
2004	0	0	17	9	90	59	100	96	81	92	--
2003	15	--	13	5	--	69	93	100	--	--	--

National Journal Ratings (More Info)
	2003 LIB	--	2003 CONS		2004 LIB	--	2004 CONS
Economic	41%	--	57%		9%	--	91%
Social	30%	--	65%		0%	--	91%
Foreign	0%	--	89%		0%	--	96%
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 N 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	John Culberson (R)	175,440	64%	$617,860
	John Martinez (D)	91,126	33%	$26,993
	Other	7,085	3%
2004 primary	John Culberson (R)	26,561	92%
	Sam Texas (R)	2,245	8%
2002 general	John Culberson (R)	96,795	89%	$472,911
	Drew Parks (Lib)	11,674	11%
Prior winning percentages: 2000 (74%)

2004 Presidential Vote Bush (R) 179,456 (64%) Kerry (D) 99,422 (36%)

2000 Presidential Vote Bush (R) 172,336 (69%) Gore (D) 76,046 (31%)

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 +16
• District Size: 198 square miles
• Population in 2000: 651,620; 99.7% urban; 0.3% rural
• Median Household Income: $57,846; 7.4% are below the poverty line
• Occupation: 11.2% blue collar; 79.4% white collar; 9.3% gray collar; 9.9% military veterans
• Race/Ethnic Origin: 67.5% White, 5.6% Black, 6.9% Asian, 0.2% Amer. Indian, 0.0% Hawaiian, 1.6% Two+ races, 0.2% Other, 18.0% Hispanic origin
• Ancestry: 11.3% German, 9.3% English, 7.4% Irish
• Click here for statewide demographic data.