Rep. Ron Kind (D) Elected 1996, 5th term
Born:	Mar. 16, 1963, La Crosse
Home:	La Crosse
Education:	Harvard U., B.A. 1985, London Schl. of Econ., 1986, U. of MN, J.D. 1990
Religion:	Lutheran
Marital Status:	married (Tawni)
Professional Career:	Practicing atty., 1990-92; Asst. St. Prosecutor, La Crosse Cnty., 1992-96.
DC Office	1406 LHOB20515, 202-225-5506; Fax: 202-225-5739; Web site: www.house.gov/kind
State Offices	Eau Claire, 715-831-9214; La Crosse, 608-782-2558.
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On the rolling land of western Wisconsin, in the knobby hills just east of the Mississippi River, is some of the most beautiful river landscape in the country. This is where Laura Ingalls Wilder's family built the "little house in the big woods" in the 1870s, before the first railroad came steaming up the narrow floodplain alongside the Mississippi River. Today, it is hard to imagine the big woods: The trees have long since been cut and the hillsides are covered with grass grazed by placid dairy cattle. Where pioneers tried to scratch out diversified crops, farmers soon created America's premier dairy region, producing milk, butter and especially cheese. Some Amish communities from Pennsylvania have relocated here in recent years because land is less than half the price and there has been less modernity. But more than half of family dairy farmers have gone out of business since 1980. Cows are more productive, while demand for milk has decreased. And Wisconsin has trouble competing against the European Common Market's hugely subsidized cheese and butter. But other businesses have risen. Dodgeville in Iowa County (which is not on the Iowa border) is the headquarters of Lands' End, the catalog retailer. In the 1980s many communities here lost population, but since 1990 there has been growth, with very rapid growth in St. Croix County, which is part of the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area.

The 3d Congressional District of Wisconsin follows the Mississippi and St. Croix River counties from the southern border of the state to St. Croix County, just east of St. Paul, and extends east two or three counties. This is the nation's number two dairy district, with 6,000 dairy farms, but it is very different in character than the number one district (California's 21st District), which has more milk cows concentrated on just 400 farms. It was settled largely by German and Scandinavian immigrants (Laura's Yankee family moved away as Swedes were moving into the area), and it once voted for LaFollette Progressives. More recently, it has been closely divided between Democrats and Republicans. Western Wisconsin was the one segment of rural America where Al Gore and John Kerry ran even with historic Democratic percentages, which was vital to the narrow victory that each won in this state; Gore carried the district 49%-46% and Kerry 51%-48%. It produced solid margins for other Democrats, Governor Jim Doyle in 2002 and Senator Russ Feingold in 2004. Cuba City, not far from the corner with Illinois and Iowa, calls itself the City of Presidents and features a separate shield for each president; a week before the 2004 election, George W. Bush was the first incumbent president who actually stopped in the tiny town.

The congressman from the 3d District is Ron Kind, a Democrat first elected in 1996. He grew up in a large family in La Crosse, the son of a telephone repairman and a secretary. He went to Harvard on scholarship and played quarterback, and worked as a summer intern for Senator William Proxmire, doing research for his Golden Fleece awards. He attended the London School of Economics and University of Minnesota law school, practiced law in a big firm in Milwaukee, then returned home to La Crosse to work as an assistant prosecutor on rape and sexual abuse cases. Kind started running for Congress soon after Republican Steve Gunderson announced during the 1994 campaign that he would not run again in 1996. Republican former state Senator Jim Harsdorf won the Republican primary after Gunderson rejected pleas to run again even though he was in line to become Agriculture Committee chairman. Harsdorf took hard-edged stands for the balanced budget and Governor Tommy Thompson's "Wisconsin Works" welfare program. Kind talked instead of campaign finance regulation and presented his own balanced budget proposal. Gunderson was neutral in the contest; he didn't agree with Harsdorf's views on civil and human rights and thought him too close to the Christian Coalition. Kind won 52%-48%.

In the House, Kind has compiled a moderate voting record. Like other Wisconsin members, he worked to reform the Federal Milk Marketing Order System, instituted in 1937; it pays higher prices the farther the farmer is from Eau Claire, which is in the northern part of the district, which means that 3d District dairy farmers get the lowest prices in the nation. In 2001, he sponsored the bipartisan amendment on the farm bill to shift $19 billion of commodity support dollars to environmental conservation of idle land. That was defeated 226-200. His Healthy Kids Bill would set aside $10 million for school districts to buy locally grown produce. In September 2004, he charged that the Bush administration was planning to impose a tax on dairy producers or cut price supports after the election; Agriculture officials issued denials.

Kind is a co-founder of the Upper Mississippi River Congressional Task Force. His own home is on the river and was flooded in 2001. With members from Illinois and Iowa, he got the House to pass a bill to establish a water quality monitoring network in the Upper Mississippi River Basin. As co-chairman of the New Democrat Coalition, he said that he wanted to expand access to broadband in rural areas and to make his area "the Silicon Valley of agricultural research." After he voted for the use of force in Iraq, he was criticized by liberals back home; in October 2003, he offered an amendment to cut in half U.S. funding for reconstruction in Iraq and call for more contributions from other nations, but it was defeated 156-267. He sponsored a Library of Congress project for World War II veterans to record their oral histories and deliver personal memorabilia to the Smithsonian Institution.

Kind has been reelected easily since his first victory in 1996. Local union organizers have complained that he has not been sufficiently supportive on trade issues, but they have not put up a primary challenger. In 2004, he had a credible challenge from state senator Dale Schultz, a moderate in the legislature for more than two decades. Schultz ran on the unlikely Republican theme of criticizing Kind as a free trader who had been sending jobs overseas. Kind affirmed his support for trade agreements, but criticized the Bush administration for its failure to enforce their terms. Schultz backed Bush's handling of the war on terror and he promised to do more for agriculture, while Kind emphasized more support for education. Kind won, 56%-43%. He was considered a frontrunner for a seat on Ways and Means, but lost out in January 2005 to Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, who had leverage as the new chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Committees

• Chief Deputy Minority Whip
.
• Budget (16th of 17 D).
• Education & the Workforce (11th of 22 D): 21st Century Competitiveness; Education Reform.
• Resources (11th of 22 D): Fisheries & Oceans; National Parks.

Group Ratings (More Info)
	ADA	ACLU	AFS	LCV	ITIC	NTU	COC	ACU	NTLC	CHC
2004	90	70	100	82	67	13	47	24	9	0	--
2003	95	--	100	95	--	31	38	16	--	--	--

National Journal Ratings (More Info)
	2003 LIB	--	2003 CONS		2004 LIB	--	2004 CONS
Economic	71%	--	27%		66%	--	34%
Social	70%	--	30%		66%	--	33%
Foreign	66%	--	32%		61%	--	39%
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 Y  8. Ban Partial-Birth Abortion N  9. Ban Same-Sex Marriage N 10. Fund Iraq War Y 11. Bar Cuba Embargo Funds Y 12. Intelligence Reorg. Y

Election Results (More Info)
	Candidate	Total Votes	Percent	Expenditures
2004 general	Ron Kind (D)	204,856	56%	$1,186,471
	Dale Schultz (R)	157,866	43%	$531,538
2004 primary	Ron Kind (D)	unopposed
2002 general	Ron Kind (D)	131,038	63%	$554,120
	Bill Arndt (R)	69,955	34%	$12,325
	Other	7,588	3%
Prior winning percentages: 2000 (64%); 1998 (71%); 1996 (52%)

2004 Presidential Vote Kerry (D) 192,297 (51%) Bush (R) 178,367 (48%)

2000 Presidential Vote Gore (D) 155,832 (49%) Bush (R) 144,948 (46%)

For 1992 and 1996 presidential results in the Third 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 + 3
• District Size: 13,849 square miles
• Population in 2000: 670,462; 43.1% urban; 56.9% rural
• Median Household Income: $40,006; 9.8% are below the poverty line
• Occupation: 29.2% blue collar; 53.3% white collar; 17.5% gray collar; 12.9% military veterans
• Race/Ethnic Origin: 96.1% White, 0.5% Black, 1.2% Asian, 0.5% Amer. Indian, 0.0% Hawaiian, 0.7% Two+ races, 0.0% Other, 0.9% Hispanic origin
• Ancestry: 29.7% German, 14.1% Norwegian, 8.5% Irish
• Click here for statewide demographic data.