| Lloyd Doggett | |
|---|---|
| Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Texas's 25th district |
|
| Incumbent | |
| Assumed office January 3, 2005 |
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| Preceded by | Chris Bell |
| Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Texas's 10th district |
|
| In office January 3, 1995 – January 3, 2005 |
|
| Preceded by | J. J. Pickle |
| Succeeded by | Michael McCaul |
| Texas Supreme Court Justice | |
| In office 1989–1994 |
|
| Preceded by | Ted Robertson |
| Succeeded by | Priscilla Owen |
| Member of the Texas Senate from the 14th district |
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| In office 1973–1985 |
|
| Preceded by | Charles F. Herring |
| Succeeded by | Gonzalo Barrientos |
| Personal details | |
| Born | October 6, 1946 Austin, Texas |
| Political party | Democratic |
| Spouse(s) | Libby Doggett |
| Residence | Austin, Texas |
| Alma mater | University of Texas |
| Occupation | attorney |
| Religion | Methodist |
Lloyd Alton Doggett II (born October 6, 1946) is the U.S. Representative for Texas's 25th congressional district, serving since 2005. He previously represented Texas's 10th congressional district from 1995 to 2005. He is a member of the Democratic Party. The district covers the state capital, Austin.
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Born in Austin, Doggett received both a Bachelor's degree in business and a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Texas at Austin, where he served as student body president his senior year. While attending Texas, he also joined Lambda Chi Alpha Fraternity.
In 1989 he became both a justice on the Texas Supreme Court and an adjunct professor at the University of Texas School of Law, his alma mater.
His electoral career began in 1973, when he was elected to the Texas State Senate, serving until 1985. He authored the bill creating the Texas Commission on Human Rights, as well as a law outlawing "cop killer" bullets and a "sunset law" requiring periodic review of government agencies.
He first gained notoriety in 1979, as a member of the "Killer Bees" — a group of 12 Democratic state senators who opposed a plan to move the state's presidential primary to March 11. The intent was to give former governor John Connally a leg up on the 1980 Republican nomination. The Killer Bees wanted a closed primary. When this proposal was rejected, they walked out of the chamber and left the Senate two members short of a quorum. The bill was withdrawn five days later.
Doggett was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1994.
Doggett has long supported more open government, and is also a leading advocate for campaign finance reform. On the Ways and Means Committee, he has sought to close many overseas tax shelters. Rep. Doggett has authored legislation to create tax incentives for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles and to create a nationwide Silver Alert system.
Doggett is pro-choice. In 2003 he voted against a bill that would have banned all partial-birth abortions. He was given a 100% by the NARAL,[1] indicating a pro-choice voting record. He voted in favor of a bill to provide federal funding for embryonic stem cell research in 2007.
Doggett is a strong supporter of environmental preservation. He is one of the leading opponents in the House of drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve in Alaska. The League of Conservation Voters gives Doggett a 100%,[2] indicating that Doggett supports the League of Conservation Voter's interpretation of environmental preservation.
In June 2009, Doggett voted in favor of the American Clean Energy and Security Act, a bill that would have established an emissions trading system for American producers of carbon dioxide. Doggett remarked “It has been a difficult and significant decision”. “I just decided that I will have a better chance to make changes later in the process if I acted in good faith now. But don't think this means I'm signing off on the conference report,” Doggett said.[3]
Doggett voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment in the 109th Congress. He voted against HR 4380 and HR 2587, bills that would have banned adoption by same-sex couples.[4] In 1996, Doggett voted for the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), but became a cosponsor of the Respect for Marriage Act, which would repeal DOMA, in 2011.[5][6]
On March 21, 2010, Rep. Lloyd Doggett voted for H.R. 3590 and H.R. 4874, also known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
Doggett supports a guest worker program for illegal immigrants. In 2004, he voted against a bill that would have required hospitals to report illegal immigrants who received hospital treatment to the U.S. Department of Justice. The anti-immigration group FAIR gave him a score of 0% in 2003,[7] indicating that Doggett does not support FAIR's interpretation of comprehensive immigration reform.
Doggett was one of the leading opponents of the authorization of the Iraq War in 2003 and called for a timetable for U.S. troops pulling out of Iraq. On May 24, 2007, Doggett was one of 140 Democrats and 2 Republicans to vote against HR 2206, a bill that would provide emergency supplemental appropriations for funding the war, and in 2009 he was one of only 30 Representatives to vote against HR 2346 which provided funding to continue war.[8]
In 1984 he lost the U.S. Senate election to Phil Gramm by a margin of 59%-41%.
He was elected to the House of Representatives in 1994, and was one of the few Democrats to win an open seat in that year's massive Republican landslide. Running for re-election in 1996, Congressman Doggett defeated a challenger in Republican Teresa Doggett, to whom he is no relation. It marked the second election in a row in which he defeated a black female Republican. In the years following his first re-election, Doggett would consistently win around 85% of the vote, facing only Libertarian opponents. The 10th, which had once been represented by Lyndon Johnson, had long been a liberal Democratic bastion in increasingly Republican Texas.
Redistricting by the Texas Legislature in 2003 split Austin, which had been located entirely or almost entirely in the 10th district for more than a century, among three districts. Through Republican gerrymandering, Doggett's home wound up in a new, heavily Republican 10th district stretching from north central Austin to the Houston suburbs. Most of Doggett's former territory wound up on the 25th district, which consisted of a long tendril stretching from Austin to McAllen on the Mexican border. It was called "the fajita strip" or "the bacon strip" because of its shape.[9] Doggett moved to the newly configured 25th and entered the Democratic primary—the real contest in the heavily Democratic, majority-Hispanic district. Despite claims that Doggett should have deferred to a Latino,[10] Doggett won the primary and went on to victory in November.
On June 28, 2006, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the nearby 23rd District's lines violated the rights of Latino voters. As part of the 2003 redistricting, heavily Democratic and majority-Latino Laredo, Texas had largely been cut out of the 23rd and replaced by several heavily Republican areas near San Antonio. The decision turned on the fact that the 23rd was a protected majority-Latino district—in other words, if the 23rd was ever redrawn to put Latinos in a minority, an acceptable majority-Latino district had to be created in its place. While the new 23rd was 55 percent Latino, only 46 percent of its voting population was Latino. The Court therefore found that the 23rd was not an acceptable Latino-majority district. It also found that the 25th was not compact enough to be an acceptable replacement because the two Latino communities in the district were more than 300 miles apart, creating the impression that it had been deliberately drawn to pick up as many Latinos as possible without regard to compactness.[11]
Due to the size of the 23rd, the ruling forced the redrawing of five districts between El Paso and San Antonio, including the 25th. For the 2006 election, Doggett regained most of his old base in Austin (though not the area around the University of Texas at Austin, which stayed in the 21st), and also picked up several suburbs southeast of the city. He was re-elected, defeating Grant Rostig, Barbara Cunningham and Brian Parrett.
| Year | Subject | Party | Votes | % | Opponent | Party | Votes | % | Opponent | Party | Votes | % | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1994 | Lloyd Doggett | Democratic | 113,738 | 56.31 | Jo Baylor | Republican | 80,382 | 39.22 | Other | 7,866 | 3.89 | ||||
| 1996 | Lloyd Doggett | Democratic | 132,066 | 56.20 | Teresa Doggett | Republican | 97,204 | 41.36 | Other | 5,721 | 2.43 | ||||
| 1998 | Lloyd Doggett | Democratic | 116,127 | 85.21 | Vincent J. May | Libertarian | 20,155 | 14.79 | |||||||
| 2000 | Lloyd Doggett | Democratic | 203,628 | 84.55 | Michael Davis | Libertarian | 37,203 | 15.45 | |||||||
| 2002 | Lloyd Doggett | Democratic | 114,428 | 84.37 | Michele Messina | Libertarian | 21,196 | 15.63 | |||||||
| Year | Subject | Party | Votes | % | Opponent | Party | Votes | % | Opponent | Party | Votes | % | Opponent | Party | Votes | % | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2004 | Lloyd Doggett | Democratic | 108,309 | 67.60 | Rebecca Klein | Republican | 49,252 | 30.74 | James Werner | Libertarian | 2,656 | 1.66 | ||||||||||||
| 2006 | Lloyd Doggett | Democratic | 109,839 | 67.25 | Grant Rostig | Republican | 42,956 | 26.30 | Barbara Cunningham | Libertarian | 6,933 | 4.25 | Brian Parrett | Independent | 3,594 | 2.20 | ||||||||
| 2008 | Lloyd Doggett | Democratic | 191,755 | 65.82 | George Morovich | Republican | 88,693 | 30.44 | Jim Stutsman | Libertarian | 10,848 | 3.72 | ||||||||||||
| 2010 | Lloyd Doggett | Democratic | 99,967 | 52.82 | Donna Campbell | Republican | 84,849 | 44.83 | Jim Stutsman | Libertarian | 4,431 | 2.34 | ||||||||||||
The Sunlight Project estimates his average net worth in 2006 was over $13 million.[13] In 2008, the Sunlight Foundation pointed out that among the 435 members of the U.S. House of Representatives, Doggett has the 11th-highest amount of investment in oil stocks.[14]
In April 2008 while celebrating the upcoming Earth Day Doggett fell off of his bicycle and broke his leg. This accident was similar to a bicycle crash that occurred a year previously in which his friend, the former mayor of Austin Bruce Todd, fell off his bicycle and suffered a serious head injury and several broken bones.[15] [16]
| Texas Senate | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Charles F. Herring |
Texas State Senator from District 14 (Austin) 1973–1985 |
Succeeded by Gonzalo Barrientos |
| Legal offices | ||
| Preceded by Ted Robertson |
Texas Supreme Court Justice, Place 2 1989–1994 |
Succeeded by Priscilla Owen |
| United States House of Representatives | ||
| Preceded by J. J. Pickle |
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Texas's 10th congressional district 1995–2005 |
Succeeded by Michael McCaul |
| Preceded by Chris Bell |
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Texas's 25th congressional district 2005–present |
Incumbent |
| United States order of precedence | ||
| Preceded by Frank Lucas R-Oklahoma |
United States Representatives by seniority 98th |
Succeeded by Mike Doyle D-Pennsylvania |