Rick Renzi
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Rick Renzi (born June 11 1959), American politician, has been a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives since 2003, representing the 1st District of Arizona (map (http://nationalatlas.gov/printable/images/preview/congdist/az01_109.gif)).
He was born in Sierra Vista, Arizona. He was educated at Northern Arizona University with a B.S. in criminal justice in 1980, and the Catholic University with a J.D. in 2002. He was an insurance businessman and a U.S. Department of Defense employee in the Washington, D.C. area before entering the House. Rick Renzi is the son of Eugene Renzi, a retired two star general who is the executive vice president of Mantech International, a company providing information technology services to a number of intelligence and defense-related federal government agencies; over 1/3 of Mantech International's employees have top secret government security clearances. [1] (http://www.spirithelps.com/other_groups.htm)
Rick Renzi is the father of 12 children.
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Issues and positions
While in office, Renzi has been criticized for consistently introducing and voting in favor of bills benefiting his father's defense company [2] (http://www.ourcongress.org/race/az01).
In 2004, he was one of a handful in the House to vote in favor of an amendment to pull the United States out of the United Nations.
Renzi is an opponent of stem cell research. In May 2005, Renzi got into an argument on the House floor with Congressman Mark Kirk (R-IL) which was initially reported as Renzi choking Kirk until the argument was broken up by Congressman J.D. Hayworth (R-AZ), although the offices of all three Congressmen deny this. The argument ensued after Renzi had learned that Kirk and the moderate Republican Main Street Partnership commissioned secret polling in the districts of Renzi and other members of Congress who oppose stem cell research. Renzi claims that he was only yelling at Kirk: "I was yelling at him. I told him it's absolutely unprecedented that Republicans would pay for a push poll to attack another Republican on such a core belief of mine...You're not going to change my view on the issue, as a father of 12." [3] (http://searclub.com/?page=news-article&id=1763)
Renzi is generally a supporter of expanded legal immigration into the United States, and supports expansion of guest worker programs and the H1B visa. He supports increased border enforcement against illegal immigration, however.
During the 2002 election campaign, Renzi proposed that Walnut Canyon National Monument in Northern Arizona be renamed the "National Park of the American Flag" and add an American flag theme to the park including displays of U.S. flags throughout history; this was in response to proposals by local citizens that Walnut Canyon National Monument be expanded and given National Park status. Renzi's proposal was widely ridiculed and he has not promoted it since.
During debates with his Democratic and Libertarian opponents for the U.S. House in 2004, Renzi attacked the environmental movement, naming in particular those who oppose logging as a forest thinning measure and those who support the removal of Glen Canyon Dam.
The 2002 election
Despite having lived in Virginia for over 20 years since graduating from Northern Arizona University, when a new congressional district was created in Arizona he bought a house in Flagstaff, Arizona in 2002 so he could claim Arizona residency and run for the seat. There is no evidence he actually moved into the house, and in 2003 after Renzi was elected to Congress, the bank foreclosed on the home after Renzi missed a series of mortgage payments. During the entire period, Renzi's actual residence continued in a Virginia suburb of Washington, D.C. [4] (http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=11081956&BRD=1817&PAG=461&dept_id=68561&rfi=6)
Widely denounced as a carpetbagger by local activists within his own party, he nonetheless won a hotly contested Republican primary which included several other candidates. The 2002 Democratic primary, also hotly contested, was narrowly won by George Cordova, a party outsider who won over several better-known candidates supported by the Democratic National Committee. Renzi spent $436,590 of his own money on the election, in addition to large donations from Mantech International executives, who were the largest single source of outside money for the campaign. [5] (http://www.opensecrets.org/races/contrib.asp?ID=AZ01&cycle=2002&special=N)
The Renzi campaign was criticized for the heavy use of negative advertising attacking Cordova, which the cash-strapped Cordova campaign was unable to match. The Renzi campaign also made heavy use of automated telephone calls throughout the district with various claims and innuendos about Cordova. [6] (http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=5717182&BRD=1817&PAG=461&dept_id=68561&rfi=6) Renzi claimed most of the negative advertising had been placed by the Republican National Committee without his permission. [7] (http://www.azdailysun.com/non_sec/nav_includes/story.cfm?storyID=52671)
On election day, Rick Renzi defeated George Cordova by a 49%-46% margin, a difference of about 6000 votes.
The 2004 election
In preparation for the 2004 campaign, the Democratic Party in Arizona tapped Paul Babbitt, Coconino County commissioner and the brother of Bruce Babbitt to run for the seat, and pressured all other candidates with the exception of political unknown Bob Donahue out of the primary in order to clear the way for Babbitt to run against Renzi without a costly primary contest. Paul Babbitt's campaign was named a top national priority by most major Democratic fundraisers and liberal weblogs, because a majority of Arizona 1st Congressional District voters are registered Democrats and because Renzi was only able to defeat George Cordova by about 6000 votes in 2002. Unlike the Cordova campaign of two years prior, which received only token support from the national Democratic Party organizations, the Babbitt campaign received major support; nonetheless, the Babbitt campaign was unable to match Renzi's fundraising. [8] (http://www.opensecrets.org/races/summary.asp?id=AZ01&cycle=2004)
The Renzi campaign once again flooded the district with negative advertising attacking Babbitt. On election day, Renzi was re-elected by a 59%-36% margin. Pundits noted a number of reasons why Babbitt performed so poorly in a majority Democratic district, among them the unpopularity of the Babbitt name in some parts of the district, resentment over pressure tactics used by the state Democratic Party to pressure other candidates out of the primary, and Renzi's record of securing congressional appropriations for the district especially on the Navajo Nation. However, the most common complaint was simply that Babbitt ran a poor campaign and was unwilling to commit to a firm position on much of anything, while Renzi merely had to repeat the campaign tactics he had successfully used in 2002.
External link
- Official website (http://www.house.gov/renzi/)