Rep. Norm Dicks (D) Elected 1976, 15th term
Born:	Dec. 16, 1940, Bremerton
Home:	Bremerton
Education:	U. of WA, B.A. 1963, J.D. 1968
Religion:	Lutheran
Marital Status:	married (Suzanne)
Professional Career:	Legis. Asst., U.S. Sen. Warren Magnuson, 1968-73, A.A., 1973-76.
DC Office	2467 RHOB20515, 202-225-5916; Fax: 202-226-1176; Web site: www.house.gov/dicks
State Offices	Bremerton, 360-479-4011; Port Angeles, 360-452-3370; Tacoma, 253-593-6536.
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The rainiest part of the continental United States is at its far northwest corner, where the Olympic Mountains of Washington thrust into the Pacific Ocean. The waters of the Pacific evaporate, condense and then mist or rain down on the hills and mountains that jut up from the ocean and Puget Sound. The mountains here are always green, the trees that line the inlets towering, and during heavy rainfalls the rivers can rise six feet a day. This has long been lumbering and fishing country, where men go out to work at 6 a.m. in air cold enough to see your breath year-round, and where dependence on the vagaries of nature plus harsh environmental laws--like the ban on old-growth logging to protect the habitat of the spotted owl--have strengthened a traditional surly independence and suspicion of authority. Still, respect for the beauty of Nature endures at the 3,310 square mile Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary, which probes a vast underwater reserve.

The inlets of Puget Sound, winding sinuously through the mountains, are among America's most picturesque waterways and strategically among its most important. Here during World War II, shipyards built and sheltered much of the U.S. Navy's Pacific fleet, and here during the Cold War much of the nuclear submarine fleet anchored at the giant Bremerton Navy base, which has a new aircraft carrier pier. To the south is the Tacoma Straits Bridge, the replacement of the narrow span that, in a scene preserved on newsreel (and still viewed by civil engineering students), started vibrating on the wrong harmonic in high winds and collapsed in 1940. On the other side is Tacoma, long the second-ranking city on Puget Sound, with its massive docks, former pulp mills, pleasant hilly residential neighborhoods and the recent revival of a downtown streetcar line.

The 6th Congressional District of Washington includes the Olympic Peninsula, Bremerton and much of surrounding Kitsap County amid various inlets of Puget Sound, and most of Tacoma. Politically, the Olympic Peninsula and Bremerton are working-class Democratic. Tacoma also is traditionally Democratic. But as cultural issues have become more important, and as Seattle latte liberals come to symbolize the Democratic party, these areas have become trended a bit Republican. In 2004 the 6th District cast 45% of its votes for George W. Bush, far more than the 19% cast for him in Seattle's 7th District.

The congressman from the 6th District is Norm Dicks, a Democrat first elected in 1976. Dicks grew up in Bremerton, graduated from the University of Washington where he was on the football team. He became a top Appropriations Committee aide to Senator Warren Magnuson when his staff was one of the best on Capitol Hill. Dicks returned home to Bremerton to run for Congress in 1976, when the incumbent got a judgeship. He was elected easily that year and in every year since except 1980, when Magnuson lost. He has passed up several chances to run for the Senate. In his long tenure, Dicks has brought aggressiveness and political shrewdness, plus a hard-nosed interest in defense and intelligence reminiscent of Magnuson's colleague for 40 years, Henry "Scoop" Jackson. Before 1994 it never occurred to him that he would serve in the minority party, but he has adapted smoothly to that fate; he has been helped by the fact that on some issues, though not all, his goals are more congenial to Republicans than Democrats, and that most legislating on Appropriations is done on a bipartisan basis.

Dicks has a moderate voting record, especially on foreign issues, and has a seat on the Appropriations Committee and on its Defense Subcommittee--a vital post for Kitsap County, where most workers depend on Pentagon payrolls, and for Washington generally. In these posts Dicks has exerted pivotal influence on vital policies, usually operating behind the scenes. Quoting Jackson, he often says, "I'm not a hawk or a dove. I just don't want my country to be a pigeon." In the early 1980s Dicks took the lead in restoring Export-Import Bank loan authority--Boeing is America's biggest exporter and user of the loans--when the Reagan administration wanted to cut it, and led a campaign that switched 80 House votes overnight. During the post-Cold War downsizing of the Pentagon, he successfully looked out for the F-117 Stealth aircraft and especially for expanded production of the B-2 Stealth bomber. He was vindicated when the B-2 was used in the bombing of Serbia and Kosovo in 1999, Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003, delivering weapons with pinpoint accuracy and sometimes flying halfway around the world to do so. Dicks was strong supporter of normal trade relations with China; Washington accounts for one-quarter of U.S. exports to China and in January 2005 China agreed to buy 60 Boeing 7E7s for $7.2 billion.

As ranking Democrat on the Interior Subcommittee, Dicks has used his Appropriations seat to help additional Washington communities, funneling money to lumber mill towns when logging in old-growth forests was banned, passing timber salvage riders to keep mills going, dealing with the cost of maintaining salmon runs in dammed rivers. Naturally, he looks after the interests of the Bremerton waterfront; he pushed for funding of a Tacoma waterfront development from which visitors can gaze upon Mount Rainier and see I-705, the last of the original interstate routes to be built. He was instrumental in defending Bill Clinton's "lands legacy" from attacks by Western Republicans, and in the bipartisan approval of billions of dollars for new conservation projects. He hammered out a deal with the Skokomish tribe and a Bellingham seafood company to end the dumping of salmon carcasses into Hood Canal, which suffered from algae growth. He is a booster of a tourist train from Tacoma to Mount Rainier.

Dicks had a long friendship with Al Gore that began when they entered the House in January 1977; they worked together on defense issues in the 1980s and on Northwest issues when Gore was Vice President. There was talk that Gore, if elected, would have given Dicks a prime national security job. Instead Dicks found himself meeting with George W. Bush to urge building more B-2s. During the slowdown in aircraft building in 2001, he successfully pushed for a $20 billion, 10-year lease of up to 100 Boeing 767s to replace aging KC-135 tankers. Opponents argued that was more expensive in the long run, but Dicks said, "We don't have the money to buy them." The future of the deal remained uncertain because of continuing turmoil, including the criminal conviction of a top Boeing official after he hired the Air Force's top procurement officer. Dicks worked quietly behind the scenes to build Democratic support for the Iraq war resolution even as his 7th District neighbor Jim McDermott went to Baghdad and said he found Saddam Hussein more credible than George W. Bush.

Dicks has been reelected easily since 1982.

Committees

• Appropriations (3d of 29 D): Defense; Interior, Environment & Related Agencies (RMM).
• Homeland Security (4th of 15 D): Economic Security, Infrastructure Protection & Cybersecurity; Emergency Preparedness, Science & Technology; Prevention of Nuclear & Biological Attack.

Group Ratings (More Info)
	ADA	ACLU	AFS	LCV	ITIC	NTU	COC	ACU	NTLC	CHC
2004	85	78	100	91	70	10	48	13	3	0	--
2003	90	--	100	95	--	22	38	24	--	--	--

National Journal Ratings (More Info)
	2003 LIB	--	2003 CONS		2004 LIB	--	2004 CONS
Economic	66%	--	32%		64%	--	35%
Social	77%	--	22%		72%	--	27%
Foreign	57%	--	42%		78%	--	22%
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 N  8. Ban Partial-Birth Abortion *  9. Ban Same-Sex Marriage N 10. Fund Iraq War Y 11. Bar Cuba Embargo Funds Y 12. Intelligence Reorg. N

Election Results (More Info)
	Candidate	Total Votes	Percent	Expenditures
2004 general	Norm Dicks (D)	202,919	69%	$871,608
	Doug Cloud (R)	91,228	31%
2004 primary	Norm Dicks (D)	unopposed
2002 general	Norm Dicks (D)	126,116	64%	$914,657
	Bob Lawrence (R)	61,584	31%	$62,571
	John Bennett (Lib)	8,744	4%
Prior winning percentages: 2000 (65%); 1998 (68%); 1996 (66%); 1994 (58%); 1992 (64%); 1990 (61%); 1988 (68%); 1986 (71%); 1984 (66%); 1982 (63%); 1980 (54%); 1978 (61%); 1976 (74%)

2004 Presidential Vote Kerry (D) 163,145 (53%) Bush (R) 137,891 (45%)

2000 Presidential Vote Gore (D) 139,643 (52%) Bush (R) 115,736 (43%)

For 1992 and 1996 presidential results in the Sixth 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 + 6
• District Size: 8,592 square miles
• Population in 2000: 654,902; 78.8% urban; 21.2% rural
• Median Household Income: $39,205; 13.2% are below the poverty line
• Occupation: 25.3% blue collar; 54.8% white collar; 19.8% gray collar; 19.8% military veterans
• Race/Ethnic Origin: 77.7% White, 5.5% Black, 4.4% Asian, 2.2% Amer. Indian, 0.7% Hawaiian, 4.1% Two+ races, 0.2% Other, 5.1% Hispanic origin
• Ancestry: 13.2% German, 8.5% English, 8.5% Irish
• Click here for statewide demographic data.