David Dreier

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David Dreier
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from California's 26th district
Incumbent
Assumed office  January 5, 1981
Preceded by	James F. Lloyd
Born	July 5, 1952 (1952-07-05) (age 55) Kansas City, Missouri
Political party	Republican
Spouse	none
Residence	San Dimas, California
Religion	Christian Science

David Timothy Dreier (born July 5, 1952), American politician, has been a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives since January 1981, representing California's 26th congressional district ^[1]. He was first elected to the U.S. House in 1980.

[edit] Early life

Dreier was born and raised in Kansas City, Missouri, where his family continues to be active in real estate development; he is Vice President of Dreier Development Company in Kansas City. He graduated with a B.A. from Claremont Men’s College (now Claremont McKenna College) in 1975 and an M.A. from the Claremont Graduate School in 1976. He was director of corporate relations for Claremont McKenna College before entering the House.

Dreier claims to be a distant relative of Richard Bland Lee, a Democratic congressman from Missouri who served on the first Rules Committee empaneled by the House of Representatives.^[2]

[edit] Political career

Dreier served as chairman of the powerful House Rules Committee from 1999 until 2007. He has also served as chairman of California's Republican Congressional Delegation since 2001. Dreier was a major player in helping elect Arnold Schwarzenegger in California's 2003 recall election, and is a frequent guest on the political talk show circuit. Whenever Dreier recognizes his colleagues to yield time, he usually mentions the hometown of the member, not just the state that member represents as all other representatives do.

Throughout his early Congressional service, Dreier established a record as a strong supporter of tax cuts and of President Reagan's anti-Communist foreign policy. One of the youngest as well as the first Californian Rules Chairman in history, Dreier plays a pivotal role in fashioning legislation promoting Republican Party positions on Social Security, child education, taxes, and national security.

Locally, Dreier is well known for supporting local institutions such as the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the Metro Gold Line, and advocates for transportation improvements such as railroad grade separations and highway expansion. He supported bipartisan efforts to create legislation to remedy the California and the U.S. film industry's "runaway film production" problem.

Dreier has served for many years as a trustee of Claremont McKenna College. According to Roll Call magazine, Dreier has a personal fortune in excess of $7.5 million.^[3]

Dreier is a member of the Republican Main Street Partnership.

Dreier was also involved in proposing the Peace Officer Justice Act. This federal legislation would, in effect, override the death sentences issued by state courts. This legislation was strongly opposed by Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley. ^[4].

[edit] Campaign 2004

Rep. David Dreier's congress photo for the 109th Congress.

In 2004, Dreier faced strong criticism on his stances on illegal immigration from opponent Cynthia Matthews. ^[5] Dreier was accused of not supporting reimbursement of expenses incurred by state and local governments to serve illegal immigrants, supporting increases in the numbers of H1B visas allowed for skilled workers, not acting effectively enough in obtaining the extradition of a suspect who allegedly killed a Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department deputy, and supporting amnesty for illegal immigrants. The immigration attacks were especially damaging.

The National Republican Congressional Committee filed a complaint with the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) against The "John and Ken Show" on Los Angeles station KFI) alleging that the hosts, employees of Clear Channel Communications, were engaging in an illegal contribution to Matthews' campaign. The hosts held regular anti-Dreier rallies at his Glendora field office, had Matthews on frequently to discuss her positions on immigration, and dissected statements made by Dreier to other media outlets. While Dreier was not the originator of the complaint, and disavowed orchestrating the complaint, many political analysts suspected Dreier's involvement as an attempt to muzzle two critical talk radio hosts. The hosts continued the allegedly infringing activity through the election and on February 24, 2006, the FEC declared that the charges were without merit. In an interview on KABC's Doug McIntyre program, Dreier denied the charges regarding immigration. [2]

In spite of outspending his opponent by nearly 30-1 ^[6], having his opponent ostracized by the Democratic Party, and representing a Republican-leaning district, Dreier won his 2004 race with 54 percent of the vote, the lowest incumbent win for any U.S. representative from California ^[7] in the 2004 election and Dreier's worst total since 1980.

[edit] House Majority Leader bid

Congressman David Dreier at the Walnut Family Festival Parade in Walnut, California. Photo by Frederick Nacino

Following the indictment of Tom DeLay on September 28, 2005, Dreier was widely expected to temporarily assume the position of House Majority Leader. ^[8]. Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert favored Dreier for the position, presumably because Dreier has consistently adhered to the views of the Republican leadership and would have been willing to relinquish the title immediately should DeLay be able to return to the Majority Leader position. However, a conference of rank-and-file Republican representatives disapproved of the choice of Dreier in such a senior position largely because many conservative Republican House members believe that Dreier is too politically moderate. According to Dreier spokeswoman Jo Maney, Dreier declined the temporary Majority Leader position because he "would have had to give up his chairmanship of the Rules Committee to move to another position, and that's not something that he wanted to do." ^[9]

The position instead went to then Majority Whip Roy Blunt, though both Dreier and then Deputy Majority Whip Eric Cantor of Virginia shared in some duties. Rep. John Boehner was later elected House Majority Leader.

[edit] Campaign 2006

On October 2, 2005, Dreier announced he would be running for re-election. Flanked by the mayor of the city of San Dimas and the Los Angeles County Sheriff, Dreier said he would campaign on a platform of being tough on illegal immigration, supporting the "war on terror", and supporting harsher penalties for those who commit crimes against law enforcement. La Cañada businessman Sonny Sardo challenged Dreier for his seat in the June 6, 2006, Republican Primary. Dreier received 65 percent of the vote, while Sardo received 27 percent of the vote and Melvin Milton 8 percent of the vote.

Russ Warner and Dreier's former opponent Cynthia Matthews, both Democrats, ran for the right to oppose Dreier in the general election. Matthews won the election with 47 percent of the vote compared to 38 percent for Warner and Hoyt Hilsman with 15 percent of the vote. On November 7, 2006, Dreier defeated Matthews, receiving 57.0 percent of the total votes to her 37.9 percent, with 3.3 percent going to Ted Brown (Libertarian Party) and 1.8 percent to Elliott Graham (American Independent Party).

[edit] Sexual orientation

In the fall of 2004, journalist Doug Ireland claimed to "out" Dreier in print in L.A. Weekly, in its issue of September 24–September 30, 2004. ^[10][11] The L.A. Weekly printed that Dreier has had a romantic relationship with his longtime chief of staff, Brad W. Smith, who collects a $156,600 government salary. Smith collects the highest possible salary allowed by law for a committee staff member^[12] and is reportedly the highest-paid chief of staff working for any House of Representatives committee chair. ("By comparison," wrote Ireland, "the chief of staff to the chair of the House Judiciary Committee makes $126,000, while the chief of staff to the chair of the House Ways and Means Committee makes just $100,696.")^[13][14][15]

The alleged "outing" was a result of Dreier coming under increasing scrutiny from gay rights groups because of his voting record, which includes support of the Defense of Marriage Act, as well as votes against gay adoption,^{[citation needed]} and against inclusion of homosexuals as a protected class in hate crime and employment discrimination legislation.

Dreier's 1998 and 2000 Democratic opponent, Janice Nelson, alleged that his relationship with Smith had been an open secret for many years. His 2004 opponent, Cynthia Matthews, came out of the closet and demanded that Dreier do the same. Dreier did not publicly respond to these charges, which were discussed on local radio programs in his district. At the time, the mainstream U.S. print media did not cover the story (although the controversy was later, in June 2005, addressed in the British press^[16] after it was announced that British prime minister Tony Blair's son Euan would work as an unpaid intern for Dreier's committee during the summer of 2005).

Amid the controversy, Dreier voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment on September 30, 2004. He explained his opposition to the amendment by stating that he felt the Constitution was not the appropriate tool for restricting rights.^{[citation needed]} He also has voted against the Flag Desecration Amendment.

On September 6, 2007, blogger Mike Rogers outed Dreier on Talk of the Nation on NPR. The topic of the program was, "The Ethics of Outing."^[17]

Dreier has yet to publicly comment on his sexual orientation.

[edit] Committee Assignments

• Committee on Rules (Ranking minority member)

[edit] Controversial behavior

Dreier's behavior during his visit to Colombia's Capitolio Nacional on August 29, 2007 caused outrage among the nation's politicians and media. Dreier sat on the podium (literally) during a hearing before the Chamber of Representatives of Colombia, seen by many as a sign of disrespect towards his Colombian counterparts.^[18]

Dreir also publicly supported a provision in the Economic Stimulus Act of 2008 that excludes many US troops and legal immigrants from receiving federal funds and resulted in the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funds that would have flowed into the California economy.^[19]

[edit] References

[edit] 26th District statistics

Main article: California's 26th congressional district

As of 2002, there are 639,088 people in the 26th District of California.

• 35.4% are registered Democratic
• 46.4% are registered Republican
• 5.2% are African American
• 16.7% are Asian-American
• 24.4% are Hispanic

In the 2000 general election, the voters of the 26th District of California voted:

• 43.3% for Al Gore
• 52.5% for George W. Bush

In the 2004 general election:

• 43.7% for John Kerry
• 55.1% for George W. Bush

http://www.ss.ca.gov/elections/sov/2004_general/contents.htm

Median Household Income: $58,968

• 8.4% are below the poverty line

Occupation:

• 17.3% blue collar
• 70.7% white collar

[edit] External links

• U.S. Congressman David Dreier, U.S. House site

• Biography at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
• Voting record maintained by The Washington Post
• Campaign finance reports and data at the Federal Election Commission
• Campaign contributions at OpenSecrets.org
• Biography, voting record, and interest group ratings at Project Vote Smart
• Issue positions and quotes at On The Issues
• Congress.org — David Dreier
• David Dreier for U.S. Congress, Campaign site

[edit] Articles

• Republicans rebuffed congressman in part due to speculation he was gay, congressman and reporters say John Byrne, Raw Story, October 12, 2005
• The Outing Doug Ireland, LA Weekly, September 23, 2004, David Dreier and his straight hypocrisy

[edit] Footnotes