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Richard George 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).
Background and family
Renzi was born and grew up in Sierra Vista, Arizona, where his father, retired U.S. Army Major General Eugene Renzi (two star general), served at Ft. 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 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.
Rick and Roberta Renzi are the parents of 12 children.
The 2002 election
When a new congressional district was created in Arizona, Renzi sought residency and ran for the seat. Renzi had lived in Virginia for over 20 years since graduating from Northern Arizona University.
Renzi faced a hotly contested Republican primary election which included several other candidates. Facing fierce competition, Renzi nonetheless won the nomination. 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.
On election day, Rick Renzi defeated George Cordova by a 49%-46% margin, 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 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 was able to defeat George Cordova by only 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.
Issues and positions
Renzi is an opponent of stem cell research and in May of 2005, he 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."
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.
Ethical Questions
In 2004, the Federal Election Commission concluded an audit of Rep. Renzi's campaign committee, Rick Renzi for Congress, and found that 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.
Renzi also received $30,000 in campaign contributions from former majority leader Tom Delay's ARMPAC. After Delay was indicted, Democrats criticized Renzi for not returning the money or donating it to charity. .
External links
| Arizona's current delegation to the United States Congress | |
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| Senators |
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| Representatives (ordered by district) |
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