Colorado: Sixth District

Rep. Tom Tancredo (R)

Tom Tancredo (R) Elected 1998, 5th term up
Born:	12-20-1945, Denver
Home:	Littleton
Education:	U. of N. CO, B.A. 1968
Religion:	Presbyterian
Marital Status:	married (Jackie)
Elected  Office:	CO House of Reps., 1976-81.
Professional Career:	Jr. high teacher, 1968-81; Regional rep., U.S. Dept. of Education, 1981-93; Pres., Independence Inst., 1993-98.
DC Office	1130 LHOB, 20515 202-225-7882 Fax: 202-226-4623 Website: www.house.gov/tancredo
State Offices	Castle Rock:303-688-3430; Centennial:720-283-9772; Littleton:720-283-7575;
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Two generations ago, most people in metro Denver lived in the city itself; at the city limits, the tree-shaded sidewalks gave way to the empty High Plains. Today, more than three-quarters of metro Denver residents live outside the city, some in long-settled suburbs, some in huge new subdivisions raised up in the 1990s and 2000s on bare rolling land with magnificent views of the Rockies. You can see the boundaries to these areas in Littleton, originally a small, long-settled suburb just south of Denver, but now extending to vast new tracts; this is the site of the massacre at Columbine High School in April 1999. Just south of Littleton is Douglas County, which until the 1970s was a sparsely populated patch of the High Plains just east of the Front Range. From 1990 to 2003 it was the fastest-growing county in the United States, as young families moved into 35-acre “ranchettes,” or huge subdivisions around Castle Rock and Parker just south of the Denver Tech Center, and took high-paying telecommunications jobs at local employers Echo Star and AT&T Broadband, now a part of Comcast. Lockheed is attracting scientists to build the Orion space exploration vehicle in Jefferson County. In 2000, Douglas was the nation’s most affluent county in median household income ($84,645) and had the smallest percentage of people living in poverty (1.8%). The rapid growth has continued: From 2000 to 2004, it grew by 35%, making it the third-fastest growing county in the nation over that period. This is Patio Land, as David Brooks has described, with a high-tech economy, a highly educated population with relatively conservative cultural values, family men and women who want to create a safe, comfortable environment for their children with the serenity if not the close personal ties of the traditional small town and the economic vibrancy and creativity of the great metropolis. “The fastest-growing regions of the country tend to have the highest concentrations of children. Young families move away from what they perceive as disorder, vulgarity and danger and move to places like Douglas County,” Brooks wrote in The New York Times.

The 6th Congressional District of Colorado is centered on Littleton and Douglas County. To the west, it includes much of Jefferson County, including part of affluent Evergreen in the mountains. To the east, it includes much of Arapahoe County and, southeast, Elbert County, long empty land but now sprouting new subdivisions on the high plains. After the Colorado Springs-based 5th, this is the state’s second most Republican district.

The congressman from the 6th District is Tom Tancredo (pronounced tan-CRAY-doe), a self-described religious right Republican, who was first elected in a turbulent 1998 campaign. Tancredo grew up on the north side of Denver, taught junior high school civics, and in 1976, at 30, was elected to the state House. He got his political start, he says, when as an eighth-grader he imitated Fidel Castro. In the state legislature, he was part of a group called ‘‘the Crazies,’’ who zeroed out the sales tax on food and utilities, the inheritance tax and the auto safety inspection tax. In 1981, he became head of the regional office of the Education Department, and cut its staff by two-thirds. A lapsed Catholic who began attending an evangelical Presbyterian church in 1990, he became in 1993 head of the Independence Institute, a libertarian think tank in Golden.

When the congressional seat opened in 1998, Tancredo, an energetic and voluble speaker, jumped into the race. He had four opponents in the Republican primary, spanning the ideological spectrum. Tancredo campaigned by walking the district and running radio ads the last 10 days; his big break was an endorsement by former Senator (1979–91) Bill Armstrong, a religious conservative who has stayed politically active. Armstrong’s endorsement was worth 5% of the vote, Tancredo said, and he needed it: He defeated moderate Bill Schroeder 25%-22%. In the general election, Tancredo was smeared by a self-financing 70-year-old Democrat, who ran a TV ad linking Tancredo with a white supremacist militia. But Tancredo won 56%-42%.

Tancredo drew attention from the start. He declined to attend a Clinton White House reception for new members. Then came the shootings at Columbine High School, six blocks from Tancredo’s house. An outcry arose for new gun controls. Tancredo, a Second Amendment supporter, pointed out that Colorado has stronger gun-control laws than the federal government. Gun control measures failed to pass; Tancredo was the only Colorado House member to vote for the National Rifle Association’s bill. In November 2003, he was one of 25 House Republicans to vote against the final version of the Medicare/prescription drug bill, which he said would trigger a “catastrophic fiscal crisis.” His voting record sometimes veers toward the center, especially because of his protectionist views on trade.

Immigration is the chief cause that animates Tancredo, who is himself the grandson of an Italian immigrant. He is the leading voice in Congress for tougher border enforcement and increased immigration regulation, and he founded the Immigration Reform Caucus. In April 2002, in an editorial meeting with The Washington Times, Tancredo earned the enmity of the White House by charging that George W. Bush’s “open door” border policy was a threat to national security and an invitation to terrorism. Tancredo said that Bush strategist Karl Rove called him disloyal and told him, “Don’t ever darken the doorstep of the White House.” But six months later, Tancredo was invited to the White House for the signing of the Sudan Peace Act, which he co-sponsored. While Bush was calling for a legalized guest worker program, Tancredo remained relentless. He opposed proposals to grant regularized status to illegal immigrants who entered the country illegally or overstayed visas and proposed an amendment to the Colorado constitution to deny state services to illegal immigrants. He called for taxes on the checks that immigrants send to their families that have remained south of the border. At the 2004 Republican convention he criticized the platform’s “open-border policy” for pandering to corporate desires for cheap labor. When Bush suggested in March 2005 that the Minuteman Project activists who patrolled the Arizona-Mexico border were “vigilantes,” Tancredo told them, “You are not vigilantes, you are heroes.” He has endorsed primary challengers to GOP incumbents who don’t share his views, and is not likely to win a popularity contest among fellow Republicans; some contend that House leaders’ embrace of his hard line was a factor in their 2006 election setback. He has called Miami “a Third World country,” and said that the Congressional Black Caucus and other race-based groups condone segregation and should be abolished. His book, In Mortal Danger, denounced “the cult of multiculturalism.” Democrats have welcomed the opportunity to make him a face of the Republican party. “I’m all for more and more nuts in their party speaking up,” said Rahm Emanuel, referring to Tancredo. Critics maintain a “Tancredo Watch” blog.

With his controversial views, Tancredo in 2000 was reelected by the slimmer margin of 54%-42%. Redistricting made reelection much easier; he won 67%-30% in 2002. But in 2004 he ran behind George W. Bush. Against Bill Winter, a modestly funded ex-Marine, lawyer and high school football coach, Tancredo won 59%-40% in 2006, a much tougher year for Republicans.

After talking about running for president for two years, spending time in Iowa and New Hampshire and logging many appearances on cable TV—during which he urged more serious candidates in the presidential race to take on the immigration issue—Tancredo declared his presidential candidacy in April 2007. He has worked closely with Bay Buchanan, a political commentator and sister of conservative firebrand and former presidential candidate Patrick Buchanan. Tancredo was critical of Bush, telling the Politico newspaper that the president has been a “disaster in so many ways.” Although he succeeded in pushing immigration to the forefront, Tancredo never broke out of second-tier status among Republicans running for president and he dropped out in December 2007, before the first primary or caucus was held. Several would-be successors were running to replace him in the House, with most of the interest coming from GOP candidates in the heavily Republican district.

Committees

• Foreign Affairs (9th of 23 R)
  Africa & Global Health; Terrorism, Nonproliferation & Trade.
• Natural Resources (7th of 22 R)
  National Parks, Forests & Public Lands.

Presidential Vote

District Demographics (More Info)

• Cook Partisan Voting Index: R +10
• Area size: 4,111 square miles
• Urban Population: 84.7%
• Rural Population: 15.3%
• Population 2000: 614,466
• Population 2005 (est): 725,209
• Median Income: $73,393
• Poverty Status: 2.7%
• Military Veterans: 13.6%
• Race/Ethnic Origin: 87.7% White; 1.9% Black; 2.6% Asian; 0.4% Native Am.; 0.1% Hawaiian; 1.5% Two+ races; 0.1% Other; 5.8% Hispanic Origin;
• Ancestry: 18.9% German%; 10.9% Irish%; 10.5% English%;
• Occupation: Blue collar 13.2%; White collar 77.4%; Gray collar 9.4%;