Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D) Elected 1998, 4th term
Born:	Feb. 11, 1962, Madison
Home:	Madison
Education:	Smith Col., A.B. 1984; U. of WI Law Schl., J.D. 1989
Religion:	No religious affiliation
Marital Status:	companion (Lauren Azar)
Elected  Office:	Dane Cnty. Bd. of Supervisors, 1986-94; WI Assembly, 1992-98.
Professional Career:	Practicing atty, 1989-92.
DC Office	1022 LHOB20515, 202-225-2906; Fax: 202-225-6942; Web site: www.tammybaldwin.house.gov
State Offices	Beloit, 608-362-2800; Madison, 608-258-9800.
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On a narrow isthmus between Lakes Mendota and Monona is the center of Madison and, in many ways, the center of Wisconsin. Here the state Capitol rises at one end of State Street; at the other end of several commercial blocks is the main campus of the University of Wisconsin, on a beautiful, parklike, sometimes windswept setting above Lake Mendota. For most of the 20th century, Wisconsin politics was dominated by the Madison-based LaFollettes and their liberal Democratic successors. And the traffic on State Street was two-way, with university faculty devoted to Bob LaFollette's "Wisconsin idea" of an apolitical bureaucracy, his Wisconsin Tax Commission and workmen's compensation law--both firsts in the nation. In recent years there was more division, with the liberal campus at odds with the welfare and school choice law enacted while Republican Tommy Thompson was governor and not entirely happy with the no-tax-increase policy of his Democratic successor Jim Doyle. But there is a steady debate carried on here between the very liberal Madison Capital Times and its more conservative rival, the Wisconsin State Journal; the two newspapers practice the kind of competitive journalism still seen in only a few major cities and state capitals. This is an urban capital set in the midst of farmland; the Dane County farmers' market is the largest in the nation.

Madison is the center of Wisconsin's 2d Congressional District, which includes surrounding Dane County and dairy and alfalfa country to the north and south, as well as several rural dairy counties that have traditionally been Republican; they include such picturesque scenes as the birthplace of the Ringling Brothers Circus in Baraboo, and the Swiss-settled town of New Glarus. With the largest indoor hydropark in the world, the Wisconsin Dells have become a popular year-round tourist destination. Madison spawned an activist and sometimes violent student movement (during the Vietnam War, a grad student was killed in a laboratory by a bomb set off by a protester) and a permanent postgraduate proletariat. In the 1990s, with double-digit job growth in both the public and private sectors, Money magazine rated Madison among the best places to live in America; but the industrial base has declined, including Schwinn Bicycle Company, which once employed thousands here but no longer makes bikes domestically. At the same time, the politics got more fluid: Dane County was open to Republicans like Thompson and to Republican Congressman Scott Klug, first elected in 1990. But in other elections the contrast between Madison's Dane County and the rural counties has faded, as Madison area liberals have moved into the countryside: a map of the 2004 presidential election results shows the rural areas south and west of Madison as a solid Democratic blue. This makes the 2d now a very Democratic district, 62%-37% for John Kerry in 2004.

The congresswoman from the 2d District is Tammy Baldwin, a Democrat elected in 1998. She grew up in Madison, where she was raised by her mother (a University of Wisconsin student when she was born) and her maternal grandparents, a UW biochemist and the theater department's head costume designer. She graduated first in her class at Madison West High School and went on to Smith College and UW law school. In 1986, at 24, while still in law school, she was elected to the Dane County Board of Supervisors. In 1992 she was elected to the Wisconsin Assembly from a heavily Democratic Madison seat.

In 1998, when moderate Republican Scott Klug honored his promise to serve only four terms, this seemed a good chance for Democrats to pick up an open seat. Four Democrats and six Republicans ran. Baldwin had special advantages. As a woman with great political skills, she was supported by EMILY's List, which helped raised about one-quarter of her $1.5 million. And as a lesbian, she had support from national gay and lesbian organizations, which raised money from a large and affluent national constituency. With 86% of Democratic primary votes cast in Dane County, this was mostly a Madison contest. Baldwin won with 37% of the vote. Republicans nominated former state Insurance Commissioner Jo Musser. The primary results guaranteed that Wisconsin would elect its first woman member to Congress (the states that still have not are an odd bunch: Delaware, Iowa, Mississippi, New Hampshire and Vermont). Baldwin roused the enthusiasm of Madison liberals in a way not seen in years. She called for a single-payer health insurance system and suggested that Musser was dominated by cash from insurance companies; Musser, a nurse who founded the Madison Employers Health Care Alliance, argued that single-payer would reduce choices and create long waiting periods for elective surgery. Both sides were well-financed. Dane County went 57%-42% for Baldwin, and she won the district 53%-47%.

Baldwin thus became the first openly homosexual non-incumbent to win a seat in the House; the two other openly gay members of the House, Barney Frank and Jim Kolbe, revealed their sexual orientation after they had served several terms. Befitting Madison, she has a strongly liberal voting record, though she prefers to be called a progressive. She sponsored the Health Security for All Americans Act to guarantee universal coverage. At the Democratic convention in 2004, she cited four local anecdotes as she spoke from the podium about the urgency of addressing national health care issues. She has been a leader in urging additional federal support for embryonic stem-cell research, some of which has been done at UW. She strongly opposed the bankruptcy bill and twice enacted bills for short-term extension of special bankruptcy protections for farmers. Baldwin said that she did not want to be seen primarily as a lesbian congresswoman, but she was vocal--and visible--in her opposition to the constitutional amendment to bar same-sex marriages, and praised local jurisdictions that encouraged "people who have made lifelong, permanent commitments to one another." She sought to broaden hate crimes to include people targeted because of gender, sexual orientation or disability. Baldwin was an outspoken opponent of the Iraq war resolution; she said Iraq "poses no imminent threat."

In the 2000 campaign Baldwin faced Republican John Sharpless, whose ads in UW newspapers called him "our professor, our Congressman, our voice"; he had students in senior campaign positions. He said that Baldwin had sparse accomplishments, had ignored farmers and raised most of her campaign money out of state. Baldwin ran far behind Al Gore and won by only 51%-49%, a smaller margin than when she was first elected, a reversal of the usual pattern. Since then, she appears to have secured the seat. In 2002, Ron Greer, a black minister and firefighter who was suspended from the force for distributing what many considered anti-gay literature when he ran in the 1998 House Republican primary, complained that Republican officials abandoned him because "they find me too conservative." Baldwin won 66%-34%. In 2004, Portage radio station owner Dave Magnum won the primary over Greer; he spent $650,000 but got little national attention and Baldwin won 63%-37%. In January 2005, she got a seat on the Energy and Commerce Committee and its Health Subcommittee.

Committees

• Energy & Commerce (25th of 26 D): Commerce, Trade & Consumer Protection; Environment & Hazardous Materials; Health; Oversight & Investigations.

Group Ratings (More Info)
	ADA	ACLU	AFS	LCV	ITIC	NTU	COC	ACU	NTLC	CHC
2004	100	90	100	100	30	12	29	4	0	7	--
2003	100	--	100	100	--	26	23	8	--	--	--

National Journal Ratings (More Info)
	2003 LIB	--	2003 CONS		2004 LIB	--	2004 CONS
Economic	87%	--	9%		87%	--	13%
Social	90%	--	8%		88%	--	0%
Foreign	89%	--	8%		89%	--	10%
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 N  9. Ban Same-Sex Marriage N 10. Fund Iraq War N 11. Bar Cuba Embargo Funds Y 12. Intelligence Reorg. N

Election Results (More Info)
	Candidate	Total Votes	Percent	Expenditures
2004 general	Tammy Baldwin (D)	251,637	63%	$1,448,889
	Dave Magnum (R)	145,810	37%	$658,153
2004 primary	Tammy Baldwin (D)	unopposed
2002 general	Tammy Baldwin (D)	163,313	66%	$1,238,876
	Ron Greer (R)	83,694	34%	$171,865
Prior winning percentages: 2000 (51%); 1998 (53%)

2004 Presidential Vote Kerry (D) 250,151 (62%) Bush (R) 151,024 (37%)

2000 Presidential Vote Gore (D) 201,738 (58%) Bush (R) 125,442 (36%)

For 1992 and 1996 presidential results in the 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: D +13
• District Size: 3,602 square miles
• Population in 2000: 670,457; 75.6% urban; 24.4% rural
• Median Household Income: $46,979; 8.7% are below the poverty line
• Occupation: 22.3% blue collar; 63.6% white collar; 14.1% gray collar; 11.1% military veterans
• Race/Ethnic Origin: 89.0% White, 3.6% Black, 2.4% Asian, 0.3% Amer. Indian, 0.0% Hawaiian, 1.3% Two+ races, 0.1% Other, 3.4% Hispanic origin
• Ancestry: 28.4% German, 9.4% Irish, 9.1% Norwegian
• Click here for statewide demographic data.