Current Position: U.S. Representative (since January 1977)
Credit: Congress Bio Directory
Why He Matters
Skelton has represented Missouri’s overwhelmingly conservative 4th congressional district since 1977 and has spent much of that time on the House Armed Services Committee. Skelton often finds himself in the middle of the road on social and defense issues.
Skelton has pushed presidents from both parties to increase the size of the standing Army and has fought for troop funding. But he has stuck with the Democratic Party on the management of the Iraq war, first calling for more United Nations inspections and consistently opposing troop increases in Iraq.
At a Glance
Current Position: Chair of the House Armed Service Committee (since Nov. 2007)
Career History: Ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee (1998 to 2007); Member of Congress (1977 to present); Member of the Missouri State Senate (1971 to 1977)
Birthday: December 20, 1931
Hometown: Lexington, Missouri
Alma Mater: Wentworth Military Academy, A.A. 1951; University of Edinburgh (United Kingdom), attended 1953; University of Missouri, A.B., 1953 (history), LL.B. 1956
Spouse: Engaged to Patty Martin
Religion: Christian Church
DC Office:2206 Rayburn, 202-225-2876
State/District Office: Blue Springs, 816-228-4242; Jefferson City, 573-635-3499; Lebanon, 417-532-7964; Sedalia, 660-826-2675
Email
Web site
Path to Power
Born Isaac Newton Skelton IV, the Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee has served in the House since 1977. His district includes President Harry Truman’s (D) home county of Barton. Truman was an important figure in Skelton’s life. In 1928, his father met Truman when the future president was a Jackson County judge, and the two became good friends. Skelton’s father took him to Truman’s inauguration in 1952 when Skelton was 17. In 1962, Truman asked Skelton, now a lawyer, to run against Democrat Rep. Bill Randall, but Skelton declined.
Skelton’s father was in the Navy, and military planes flew over his house near what would become Whiteman Air Force Base. It was Skelton’s dream to go to West Point. But when he was a sophomore in high school, he contracted polio and underwent treatment at the same facility where President Franklin Roosevelt (D) was a patient. “It was as if Franklin Roosevelt were there cheering each patient on — through treatments, learning to walk or through surgery,” Skelton said.
Instead of going to West Point, Skelton went to Wentworth Military Junior College, where he would visit the track team in his wheelchair and tell each runner to do his best. During the offseason, treatment allowed him to walk and eventually to run, and the next year he convinced the track coach to let him run on the team.
Skelton attended University of Missouri, where he earned an A.B. in history and an LL.B and began practicing as a lawyer. After deciding not to run for the House in 1962, he spent six years in the Missouri state senate before winning Rep. Randall’s seat in 1976. He was endorsed by Truman’s widow and won 56 percent of the vote. He has easily won re-election since.
He was appointed to the House Armed Services Committee in 1981 and became the Democrats’ ranking member in 1998. In 2005, on a trip to Iraq, the car in which he was riding flipped over and he was taken to the hospital with minor injuries.
The Issues
Skelton is a conservative Democrat in a conservative district, and many say that when he retires, a Republican will take his place. In 2004, President George W. Bush carried the district 64 to 35 percent, yet Skelton won 66-32, the biggest difference between the president and a representative in any congressional district in America.
The biography on his official web site never uses the word Democrat.
On social issues, he tends to vote with his constituents, opposing abortion in most cases, supporting a Constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage and voting to repeal the semi-automatic assault-style weapons ban. In the 110th Congress, he voted with the Democrats 95.8 percent of the time.But on votes that pitted most Democrats against Republicans in the 109th Congress — as opposed to all votes, many of which Democrats and Republicans agreed — that number was 75 percent.
Iraq War
It is military issues, not social ones, that make Skelton tick. He supported Rep. John Spratt’s (D-S.C.) failed resolution that would have required more U.N. inspections before going to war, but when that failed, he voted to give the President the authority to go to war, fearing weapons of mass destruction. Still, he warned the president that toppling Saddam Hussein’s regime would be easy compared with stabilizing the country afterward. “I have no doubt that our military would decisively defeat Iraq’s forces and remove Saddam,” he wrote in The Hill in 2002. "But like the proverbial dog chasing the car down the road, we must consider what we would do after we caught it.”
He has since opposed the troop surge, and he sponsored a bill to set a timeline for troop withdrawal from Iraq. “The time for a troop increase was about 3 ½ years ago, when we initially went into Iraq,” Skelton said. “If we had done that, I don’t think we would be in the situation we are today.”
Military Issues
Skelton is a student of military history and often quotes Sun Tzu and other great military minds. On his web site, he has his “National Security Book List,” a running list of books officers, congressmen and anyone interested in the military should read. He is a proponent of a strong national defense, and he has pushed for more troop readiness. He has called for more troops in the Army since 1995 and criticized the Bush administration’s handling of the Iraq war because he says it leaves the military flat-footed in case of an emergency. He has consistently brought in money for Whiteman Air Force Base, which is in his district.
The Economy
Skelton voted for the $700 billion bailout of Wall Street, and came under fire from his opponent, Jeff Parnell. “If we did nothing, there would be a serious recession if not a depression,” Skelton said.
The Network
Because of his polio, Skelton has a difficult time getting to work. For years, he rode in with Rep.
Richard Gephardt (D-Mo.), and later he got rides with late Rep. Bill Emerson (R-Mo.) and his wife Rep. Jo Ann Emerson, who currently represents the 8th Congressional District of Missouri. John J. Pollard III, Skelton’s chief of staff from 1993 to 1998, is a lobbyist for Tighe, Patton et al.
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