Rick Renzi

Richard George Renzi
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Arizona's 1st district
In office 2003 - Present
Preceded by	Jeff Flake
Personal details
Political party	Republican

Richard George Renzi (born June 11 1958) is an American politician and has been a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives since 2003, representing the 1st District of Arizona (map).

Background and family

Rick Renzi was born to an Italian-American family [1] in Fort Monmouth, New Jersey. He attended high school in Annandale, Virginia before moving to Sierra Vista, Arizona in 1975, where his father, retired U.S. Army Major General Eugene Renzi (two star general), served at Fort Huachuca. Renzi graduated from Buena High School and was educated at Northern Arizona University with a B.S. in criminal justice in 1980 and The Catholic University of America with a J.D. in 2002. Before entering politics, he was an insurance businessman and a U.S. Department of Defense employee in the Washington, D.C. area.

Renzi's father 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. More than one-third of Mantech International's employees have top secret government security clearances.[2]

Rick and Roberta Renzi are the parents of 12 children.

The 2002 election

When a new congressional district was created in Arizona, Renzi bought a house in Flagstaff, Arizona so he could claim Arizona residency and run for the seat. At that time, Renzi had lived in Virginia for more than 20 years since graduating from Northern Arizona University. 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 to be in the Washington D.C. suburb of Fairfax Virginia. Presently his primary residence appears to be in Fairfax, Virginia. The family, however, owns a small vinyard and ranch in Sonoita, Arizona west of Sierra Vista in Congressional District 8.[3]

Renzi faced a hotly contested Republican primary election, which included several other candidates, all residents of Arizona. He was denounced as a carpetbagger by some activists within his own party but nonetheless won the nomination. The 2002 Democratic primary, also hotly contested, was narrowly won by George Cordova, a party outsider who ran against 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.[4]

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.[5] Renzi claimed most of the negative advertising had been placed by the Republican National Committee without his permission.[6]

During the 2002 election campaign, Renzi proposed that Walnut Canyon National Monument in Northern Arizona be renamed the "National Park of the American Flag" with the addition 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.

On election day, Renzi defeated Cordova by 49 percent to 46 percent, a difference of about 6,000 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 to bow 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 plurality of Arizona 1st Congressional District voters are registered Democrats and because Renzi won so narrowly in 2002. Unlike the Cordova campaign in 2002, which received only token support from the national Democratic Party organizations, the Babbitt campaign received major support; nonetheless, it was unable to match Renzi's fundraising.[7]

During debates with his Democratic and Libertarian opponents, Renzi attacked the environmental movement, naming in particular those who opposed logging as a forest-thinning measure and those who supported the removal of Glen Canyon Dam.

The Renzi campaign again flooded the district with negative advertising, attacking Babbitt. Renzi was reelected by a 59 percent to 36 percent margin. Pundits noted a number of reasons why Babbitt performed so poorly in a plurality Democratic district. Among them were the unpopularity of the Babbitt name in some parts of the district, resentment over pressure tactics used by the state Democratic Party to push 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.

The 2006 election

With the filing deadlines past, Renzi faces no opposition from his own party in the Republican primary. Five Democratic Party challengers are competing in that party's September 12 primary.

Democrat Jack Jackson, Jr., a former state legislator and the director of the state commission on Indian affairs [8] dropped out of the race in March 2006. His departure left the Democrats with no clear frontrunner. Ellen Simon, an attorney and community activist,[9] won the Democratic primary on September 12, 2006. David Schlosser will also be in the November general election, on the Libertarian Party ticket. [10]

Issues and positions

Renzi was named one of the American Legion's "Unsung Heroes" of the 108th Congress. American Legion National Commander John Brieden noted that "The 108th Congress passed a record increase in Department of Veterans Affairs health care funding for the current fiscal year, and it reduced the number of service-disabled military retirees subject to a 'disability tax' on their retired pay." Brieden said "I commend Representative Renzi for taking a leadership role in making that happen." [11]

Renzi and Jon Porter have also introduced legislation that would split the Ninth Circuit court, currently largest circuit in the nation, into three smaller circuits, one of which would contain Arizona. Senator John Ensign has also introduced similar legislation. [12]

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 does, however, strongly support using technology to enforce border security. [13]

In 2004, Renzi was one of a handful of members in the House to vote in favor of an amendment to pull U.S. military support out of the United Nations. He voted, however, in favor of continued U.S. membership in the international organization. In June 2006, Congress accepted an amendment proposed by Renzi which would increase tribal law enforcement funding by $5 million by decreasing spending in international organizations such as the United Nations. Currently, the Navajo Nation has the land mass the size of West Virginia, but only has 1 police officer for every 4000 residents. [14]

Controversies

In September 2006, Renzi was named one of the "20 Most Corrupt Members of Congress" in a report by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington; he was also listed in the first report by the organization in January 2006, when he was one of 13 named members. The organization said "His ethics issues stem from the outside income earned by his administrative assistant and from legislation he sponsored that benefitted his father"

2002 funding violations

In 2004, the Federal Election Commission concluded an audit of Renzi's campaign committee, "Rick Renzi for Congress," and found the committee had illegally financed much of the Congressman's 2002 election campaign. The FEC found that $369,090 of the loans were made using impermissible corporate funds.

Father's company

Renzi has been criticized for consistently introducing and voting in favor of bills benefiting his father's defense company, ManTech International Corp., a Fairfax, Virginia-based defense contractor,[15]. Renzi’s father, Retired Major General Eugene Renzi, is an executive vice president of the firm. ManTech had $467 million in contracts at the Army's Fort Huachuca with options for an additional $1.1 billion between 2004 through 2008. In addition, the company, which has an office in Sierra Vista, Arizona, was the largest contributor to Renzi’s 2002 congressional campaign and the second largest in his 2004 campaign.

In 2003, Renzi sponsored legislation (signed into law in November 2003) that dealt hundreds of millions of dollars to his father’s business while, according to environmentalists, devastating the San Pedro River. The provision exempted the Fort Huachuca, in Sierra Vista, Arizona, from maintaining water levels in the San Pedro River as called for in an agreement made in 2002 with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Renzi claimed he introduced the measure to prevent the closing of the Fort and to promote its enlargement. Neither the fort nor the river is located in Renzi’s Congressional district.

Employment of Patty Roe

In December 2005, Renzi hired Patty Roe, the wife of Jason Roe, the chief of staff of Representative Tom Feeney (R-FL), as his full-time administrative assistant. In that position, she is paid $95,000 per year. Renzi also pays her $5,000 per month ($60,000 per year) as a fundraising consultant (she ran her own consulting business before being hired by Renzi).

To be in compliance with the rules, Roe must be doing all her fundraising work before she clocks in to work as Renzi's administrative assistant, or after she checks out, and she can't make or receive a single fundraising-related call in her House office. Renzi's spokesman Vartan Djihanian said that this is the case: "Whatever fundraising she does," he said, "is on her time."

Roe also received about $30,000 in fundraising fees in 2006 from four other House members: Tom Feeney; Lincoln Diaz-Balart and Mario Diaz-Balart, both of Florida; and Patrick McHenry of North Carolina. Renzi's office said those payments were for services rendered in 2005.

Reported floor fight

Renzi is an opponent of embryonic stem cell research. In May of 2005, he engaged in an argument on the House floor with Congressman Mark Kirk (R-IL) 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 said, "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."

Funds from DeLay's PAC

Renzi also received $30,000 in campaign contributions from former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's ARMPAC. After DeLay was indicted in 2005, Democrats criticized Renzi for not returning the money or donating it to charity. [16]. Republicans have said that the charges against DeLay are politically motivated.

External links

• Official website
• Voting record maintained by the Washington Post