Kentucky: Second District

Rep. Ron Lewis (R)

Ron Lewis (R) Elected May 1994, 7th full term up
Born:	09-14-1946, South Shore, KY
Home:	Cecilia
Education:	U. of KY, B.A. 1969, Morehead St. U., M.A. 1981
Religion:	Southern Baptist
Marital Status:	married (Kayi)
Military Career:	Navy OCS, 1972.
Professional Career:	Heavy Equip. Sales Rep., 1975–80; Baptist Minister, 1980–present; Prof., Watterson Col., 1980–85; Owner, Alpha Christian Bookstore, 1985–94.
DC Office	2418 RHOB, 20515 202-225-3501 Fax: 202-226-2019 Website: www.house.gov/ronlewis
State Offices	Bowling Green:270-842-9896; Elizabethtown:270-765-4360; Owensboro:270-688-8858;
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In the 1770s and 1780s, Americans began settling the limestone-soiled country of central Kentucky, staking out towns like Bardstown and Elizabethtown and starting academies and colleges; they were well-settled when Stephen Foster wrote “My Old Kentucky Home” just before the Civil War. That conflict tore deeply here: This part of Kentucky gave birth to Abraham Lincoln and in the Civil War it lost thousands of soldiers, Union and Confederate; it would suffer disproportionate casualties in the 20th century wars as well. This area is the home of several Kentucky landmarks—Fort Knox, the nation’s gold depository; some of the nation’s largest bourbon distilleries; and Mammoth Cave, the world’s largest accessible cavern, near Bowling Green. And Kentucky culture is more broadly disseminated than one might think: Japanese executives at the five Japanese-owned plants in Bardstown feel at home there because Stephen Foster’s songs, apparently well adapted to Japanese tones, are universally known in Japan. In 2004, a Japanese blue-grass band played at a bluegrass festival in Owensboro.

The 2d Congressional District of Kentucky consists of much of the territory south and southwest of Louisville, starting with fast-growing Spencer County southeast of Louisville and proceeding south to Bowling Green and west along the Ohio River to Owensboro, the home of the International Bluegrass Music Museum and a port with warehouses that receive aluminum alloys to make lightweight engine parts. Owensboro is the home of an annual international barbecue festival where mutton, a throwback to Welsh sheep herders who settled in Western Kentucky, remains a favorite. Much of this is rural and small-town country, where most people have family roots that go back generations and a connection with the past not often found in big metropolitan areas. Civil War loyalties are reflected in the election returns here; Kentucky was deeply split on secession, and a color-coded map of the current 2d District would show various splotches of counties pro-South and splotches pro-Union. For many years, the balance of opinion here favored the Democrats. But in the 1990s, the Civil War gave way to the culture war, and opinion moved toward the Republicans. In 2000 and 2004 this was George W. Bush’s best district in Kentucky.

The congressman from the 2d District is Ron Lewis, a Republican first elected in a May 1994 special election. He decided early in 2008 not to seek reelection in November for an eight term.

Lewis was born in a log cabin and raised in eastern Kentucky; he worked his way through Morehead State as a laborer at Armco Steel. He worked in the highway department, at a state hospital, then served in the Navy. In 1980, he became a Baptist minister; in 1985 he started a Christian bookstore in Elizabethtown, two counties south of Louisville; he was the opposite of a political insider. Then, in March 1994, Democratic Congressman William Natcher died. He was chairman of the Appropriations Committee and a politician of a very old school, so hard-working and conscientious that he never missed a roll call vote in 41 years. Though the district voted for George H.W. Bush in 1992, Democratic leaders assumed they would win: They handpicked former state Senate President Joe Prather. Before the election, Prather even flew to Washington to go apartment hunting. But they failed to account for the national and local conservative trend. The NRCC spent $200,000, while Prather raised campaign money belatedly and asserted that he was quite a different sort of Democrat than Bill Clinton. Lewis won a solid 55%-45% victory.

In the House, Lewis has a solidly conservative voting record and is attentive to local concerns. He backed tobacco buyout proposals, phasing out tobacco price supports and providing a mandatory buyout of tobacco farmers’ entitlements. With a seat on the Ways and Means Committee, Lewis—who doesn’t drink—took up the cause of local distillers and got more than 60 co-sponsors on his bill to reduce the excise tax on liquor by 26%. But by the time the lobbying campaign was in full gear, the budget surplus had disappeared. He cited his own experience as the father of an adopted child to oppose stem-cell research on embryos. Lewis helped Fort Knox survive the 2005 round of base closing by emphasizing its international renown as a former gold depository and by winning $200 million for the Army to spend on housing at what has become mostly a training facility. After the 9th Circuit appeals court ruled that the Pledge of Allegiance was unconstitutional, Lewis sponsored a bill that would allow two-thirds majorities in the House and Senate to override Supreme Court rulings that overturn federal statutes.

His growing seniority has increased his influence in the House and at Ways and Means, where he works on his promises to cut the capital gains tax to 15% and fix the long-term financing of Social Security. Lewis included a provision in a 2006 tax bill that allows songwriters to claim the lower capital gains rate when they sell song catalogs rather than the higher income tax rate. He also introduced legislation to exempt interest income from agricultural property and some housing loans in rural areas, and he sought to extend the New Markets Tax Credit designed to promote investment low income and rural communities. Lewis in 2005 challenged his colleagues to give up their earmarks for district projects and direct federal funds to the rebuilding effort after hurricanes Katrina and Rita. He won praise from conservative groups but found little support from within his own delegation.

In 1994, many Democrats assumed that Lewis’s special election victory was aberrational and that Democratic Owensboro Mayor David Adkisson would win in November. But Lewis projected sincerity, and his strong religious views and opposition to the Clinton tax increase and health care plan were pluses. Lewis won by a resounding 60%-40% margin. In 1998, Lewis reversed his 1994 campaign pledge to serve no more than four full terms, announcing he had changed his mind. Breaking the pledge caused barely a ripple back home.

After largely giving Lewis a pass for a decade, Democrats in 2006 fielded conservative state Representative Mike Weaver, who fit the Democrats’ model for challenging entrenched Republicans. Weaver, a Vietnam veteran and retired Army colonel, was able to talk with authority about national security issues as he advocated gradually handing over control of Iraq to the Iraqis. Weaver emphasized his humble farm roots and moral values, while Lewis countered that Weaver’s election could make the liberal Nancy Pelosi Speaker of the House (Weaver said he would not vote for Pelosi). When the state Democratic party ran an ad criticizing him for abandoning term limits, Lewis responded by admitting he had made a mistake in 1998 when he said he would limit himself to three more terms. Lewis sounded national security themes as he campaigned on energy policy, immigration and border security. He outspent Weaver by more than 2-to-1 and won reelection 55%-45%.

Committees

• Ways & Means (9th of 17 R)
  Social Security; Trade.

Presidential Vote

District Demographics (More Info)

• Cook Partisan Voting Index: R +13
• Area size: 7,669 square miles
• Urban Population: 47.2%
• Rural Population: 52.8%
• Population 2000: 673,224
• Population 2005 (est): 714,748
• Median Income: $35,724
• Poverty Status: 13.3%
• Military Veterans: 13.7%
• Race/Ethnic Origin: 90.6% White; 5.7% Black; 0.7% Asian; 0.2% Native Am.; 0.1% Hawaiian; 1.0% Two+ races; 0.1% Other; 1.7% Hispanic Origin;
• Ancestry: 18.7% USA%; 9.2% German%; 8.5% Irish%;
• Occupation: Blue collar 35.2%; White collar 49.6%; Gray collar 15.1%;