Rep. Pete Sessions (R) Elected 1996, 5th term
Born:	Mar. 22, 1955, Waco
Home:	Dallas
Education:	SW U., B.A. 1978
Religion:	Methodist
Marital Status:	married (Juanita)
Professional Career:	District Mgr., SW Bell Telephone Co., 1978-93; V.P., Public Policy, Natl. Center for Policy Analysis, 1994-95.
DC Office	1514 LHOB20515, 202-225-2231; Fax: 202-225-5878; Web site: sessions.house.gov
State Offices	Dallas, 972-392-0505.
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North Dallas has long been the home of the city's elite--indeed, of a good portion of the nation's elite. Early in the 20th century, Dallas's richest citizens started moving away from old neighborhoods next to downtown and out past Turtle Creek to the area around the suburbs of Highland Park and University Park--the Park Cities. Dallas grew lustily from mid-century on, and beyond the Park Cities miles of affluent neighborhoods were built, especially between the Central Expressway and the Dallas North Tollway. Gallerias and office complexes followed; increasingly North Dallasites were working near where they lived. Not all of North Dallas is like that; there is an entertainment and singles apartment corridor along Greenville Avenue, working class black neighborhoods here and there, pockets of Latino neighborhoods near the freeways. But overall the tone has been set by the Dallas elite. In the 1960s and 1970s this was one of the politically most conservative parts of the country: people believed firmly in free markets, personal responsibility and the Republican party. Since 1992, North Dallas has moved, like elite areas in other big metropolitan areas, toward Democrats. Gun control is not much more popular here than in rural Texas, and the number of affluent women willing to vote Democratic on the abortion issue is much smaller than in similarly affluent quadrants of New York or Los Angeles; but there are some. A decade ago, both George W. Bush and Dick Cheney lived in North Dallas, in or near the Park Cities; Bush moved to Austin in January 1995 when he became governor and Cheney changed his residence to Wyoming in July 2000 so that he could be nominated vice president.

The 32d Congressional District of Texas includes pretty much all the area commonly thought of as North Dallas: the Park Cities and affluent North Dallas neighborhoods north to the Dallas County line. Most of the business and professional elite of Dallas live in this area. The district also includes affluent suburbs in Dallas County: parts of Richardson northeast of the city, Addison to the northwest and Irving to the west. The 2003 redistricting removed some suburban territory and added Irving and the heavily Latino Oak Cliff neighborhoods south of the Trinity River, where Lee Harvey Oswald was captured inside the old Texas Theater on November 22, 1963, shortly after he killed President John F. Kennedy. Redistricting raised the Hispanic percentage from 27% to 36%. As in the elite-heavy 7th District in Houston, Bush's percentage declined here in 2004, to 60%; an increase in Latino voters may also have contributed to this result.

The congressman from the 32d District is Pete Sessions, a Republican first elected in 1996. Sessions grew up in Waco, graduated from Southwestern University, then worked at Southwestern Bell in Dallas for 16 years; his father William Sessions, a federal judge, served as FBI director from 1987 to 1993. Sessions has shown he is willing to move around to different House districts. In 1991 he ran and finished sixth in the special election in the 3d District, which then included much of North Dallas. In 1993 he resigned from the phone company to run against Democratic incumbent John Bryant in the 5th District, which included much of the east side of Dallas and several rural counties to the south. The district had been designed to reelect Bryant, a liberal and active legislator. But Sessions ran a vigorous campaign, making a two-day, 12-city tour of the district's rural portions with a livestock trailer full of horse manure and a sign saying "the Clinton health care plan stinks worse than this trailer." This was a heavily Republican year and, although he outspent Sessions 2-1, Bryant won by just 50%-47%. In 1996 Bryant ran unsuccessfully for the Senate; Sessions ran again and won the primary. The district lines were changed by a federal court, and he faced Democrat John Pouland, a former regional GSA administrator. Sessions charged that Pouland was a big government liberal and would abandon U.S. military bases overseas; Pouland criticized subsidizing the foreign bases while pursuing Medicare "cuts." This was a seriously contested race; Sessions won 53%-47%.

In the House, Sessions has a voting record that has been among the more conservative in the Texas delegation. In 1999 he got a seat on the Rules Committee, a sure sign that he is regarded as a leadership loyalist. He sponsored the constitutional amendment to require a two-thirds vote to raise taxes and was a leading advocate of the Republican proposal to put Social Security and Medicare surpluses in a lockbox. He also joined with Democrats Charles Grassley, Ted Kennedy and Henry Waxman on a bill to permit families with disabled children to keep their Medicaid coverage even if their income rises; Sessions and his wife have a son with Down's syndrome. He was an early House supporter of George W. Bush's presidential candidacy. He wants to abolish the IRS and scrap the income tax code, and he talked about the need for private-sector actions to improve the quality of life and economic opportunities for all citizens, including local Hispanics.

Since winning office, Sessions has faced serious challenges in various districts. In 2000, Democrats spoke well of his challenger Regina Montoya Coggins, who was a Clinton White House liaison to local elected officials and whose husband was Clinton's U.S. attorney in the Dallas area; she was well known for her on-air work at KERA-TV in Dallas. In a strong Republican year in Texas, Sessions had a slightly smaller victory margin, 54%-44%. The federal court's redistricting plan, issued in November 2001, made the 5th District more Republican; the percentage in the newly created 32d District, which had no incumbent, was 64%. Sessions surprised almost everyone in the political world by leaving the 5th and running in the 32d, which included only 16% of his old district. He said he wanted to spend less time traveling around his district and that the new district was compatible with his pro-business philosophy; certainly the 32d has a stronger fundraising base. After Sessions's decision, state Representative Kenny Marchant abandoned his plan to run in the 32d; in 2004 Marchant was elected in the 24th District. Sessions had only token primary opposition in 2002 and won the general, 68%-30%.

In 2003, Sessions urged the legislature to order a new round of congressional redistricting to replace the "current partisan interim map," and he worked actively with Majority Leader Tom DeLay to make that happen. But in getting what he wished for, he found himself with a less Republican district and a reelection challenge from 13-term Democratic stalwart Martin Frost, whose 24th District had been shorn of its most Democratic precincts. Frost kept people guessing for several weeks which district he would run in and announced, shortly before the filing date, that he would run in the 32d. He chose the 32d because of the large Jewish population in the Park Cities and his view that Sessions was too conservative for the local establishment. From the start, Sessions voiced confidence that he would win by about 10 points, though he braced himself for negative attacks. Frost focused on his accomplishments, including national "AMBER Alert" legislation to protect missing children and his work on local issues to help the Dallas business community; he rarely mentioned John Kerry. This was the most expensive House campaign of 2004; Sessions spent $4.5 million and Frost $4.8 million; more was spent by party committees and independent groups. The candidates hurled charges at each other and tangential issues came into play. Frost criticized Sessions for having engaged in a streaking incident in college. Sessions criticized Frost for scheduling a fundraiser with Peter Yarrow, the Peter, Paul and Mary singer who had been convicted of "taking indecent liberties" with a 14-year-old girl in 1969. Sessions kept his clothes on during the campaign and Frost canceled the fundraiser. Frost cited Sessions's vote, along with only eight other members, against a bill opposing establishment of new air passenger security rules after September 11, and ran an ad with images of the World Trade Center in flames and the message, "Protect America. Say No to Pete Sessions." Frost was endorsed by the Dallas Morning News, local police and firefighters groups, teachers' organizations, and the Sierra Club. Sessions had support from the Club for Growth and the National Federation of Independent Business.

Sessions won by 10 points, 54%-44%, as he had predicted, with more than 80% of the vote in some precincts in the Park Cities. Frost failed to get the higher turnout he needed in Oak Cliff. After the election, Frost made a serious bid to chair the Democratic National Committee, but dropped out a few days before the vote. On the Rules Committee, on which both served, Sessions filed and won unanimous support in the lame-duck session for his resolution paying tribute to Frost for his "honesty, integrity and a general willingness to work together with colleagues on a variety of important issues." Sessions has been mentioned as a possible statewide candidate in 2006, though that would be unlikely as he is contending to become chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee for the 2008 election cycle.

Committees

• Budget (15th of 22 R).
• Rules (4th of 9 R): Legislative & Budget Process (Vice Chmn.).

Group Ratings (More Info)
	ADA	ACLU	AFS	LCV	ITIC	NTU	COC	ACU	NTLC	CHC
2004	0	0	0	0	100	73	100	100	100	92	--
2003	5	--	0	0	--	70	100	92	--	--	--

National Journal Ratings (More Info)
	2003 LIB	--	2003 CONS		2004 LIB	--	2004 CONS
Economic	9%	--	84%		13%	--	85%
Social	5%	--	87%		9%	--	85%
Foreign	0%	--	89%		23%	--	76%
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	Pete Sessions (R)	109,859	54%	$4,512,464
	Martin Frost (D)	89,030	44%	$4,761,288
	Other	3,347	2%
2004 primary	Pete Sessions (R)	unopposed
2002 general	Pete Sessions (R)	100,226	68%	$530,671
	Pauline Dixon (D)	44,886	30%	$10,578
	Other	2,790	2%
Prior winning percentages: 2000 (54%); 1998 (56%); 1996 (53%)

2004 Presidential Vote Bush (R) 120,970 (60%) Kerry (D) 81,846 (40%)

2000 Presidential Vote Bush (R) 118,257 (64%) Gore (D) 66,003 (36%)

For 1992 and 1996 presidential results in the Thirty-Second 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 +11
• District Size: 161 square miles
• Population in 2000: 651,620; 99.9% urban; 0.1% rural
• Median Household Income: $45,725; 12.5% are below the poverty line
• Occupation: 21.3% blue collar; 65.9% white collar; 12.8% gray collar; 8.9% military veterans
• Race/Ethnic Origin: 50.1% White, 7.7% Black, 4.2% Asian, 0.4% Amer. Indian, 0.0% Hawaiian, 1.3% Two+ races, 0.1% Other, 36.2% Hispanic origin
• Ancestry: 7.7% German, 7.5% English, 6.1% Irish
• Click here for statewide demographic data.