Current Position: U.S. Representative (since January 2001)
Credit: Congress Bio Directory
Why He Matters
Graves is the rare Republican who emerged from the 2008 election season with his political standing enhanced. In a year of GOP losses nationwide, he decisively beat back a challenge from a well-funded Democrat, Kansas City Mayor Kay Barnes. And after just eight years in the House, he rose to become ranking member of the House Small Business Committee, giving him a larger platform to boost his political profile.
A lifelong Missouri resident, Graves grew up in a farming family and began his electoral career in the state legislature during the 1990s, where he made waves for staging a five-hour filibuster against a desegregation bill.
Graves first ran for Congress in 2000, gaining the support of national Republicans to defeat the son of an incumbent Democratic congresswoman, Pat Danner. Over the years he has developed a reputation as a hard-nosed and even ruthless campaigner; his ads linked his 2006 opponent to pornography and attacked Barnes in 2008 for her “San Francisco values,” citing her stance on same-sex marriage and abortion rights.
Graves has built a conservative House record on most issues, and particularly on immigration, where he favors shutting down legal immigration until the borders are fully secured. In recent years, the GOP congressman found himself in the middle of an intra-party feud in Missouri that culminated when Sen.
Christopher “Kit” Bond (R-Mo.) apologized for his office’s role in the 2006 firing of Rep. Graves’ brother, Todd, as a U.S. attorney.
At a Glance
Current Position: U.S. Representative (since January 2001)
Career History: Missouri state Senate (1994-2000); Missouri House of Representatives (1992-1994)
Birthday: Nov. 7, 1963
Hometown: Tarkio, Mo.
Alma Mater: University of Missouri, B.S., 1986
Spouse: Leslie
Religion: Baptist
Committees: Agriculture; Small Business; Transportation and Infrastructure
DC Office: 1415 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
(202) 225-7041
State/District Office: Liberty, (816) 792-3976; St. Joseph, (816) 233-9818
Email
Web site
Path to Power
Born in 1963, Graves grew up on his family’s farm in the small town of Tarkio in the northwest corner of Missouri. He attended public schools and then the University of Missouri, where he majored in plant science before returning to the farm in Tarkio after his graduation in 1986. Though his father was active in local politics as a member of the school board, Graves has said he didn’t aspire to go into politics. But he told the Kansas City Star in 2008 that he was driven to run for office by his anger over tax increases and government spending.
Missouri Legislature
Graves won his first campaign in 1992, defeating a Democratic incumbent for a seat in the Missouri state House. He served a single term before winning a seat in the state Senate in 1994.
In the Missouri Senate, Graves initially maintained a low profile, proposing bills to reform auto-inspection rules and to increase prisoner-work requirements. But that reputation changed in 1998, when he surprised his colleagues by staging a five-hour, old-fashioned filibuster to protest a desegregation bill that he criticized as unfair to rural schools.
Holding the chamber floor well into the evening on the penultimate day of the legislative session, Graves stood at his desk reading academic papers and lists of graduating seniors from the school rolls. The filibuster was unsuccessful as the bill eventually passed, but Graves’ performance, considered out of character for a lawmaker described as soft-spoken, drew notice. “The only time he ever stood up to speak was to introduce a guest,” a fellow senator, David Klarich, said at the time.
Run for Congress
Graves’ first run for Congress in 2000 began abruptly. In late May, incumbent Rep. Pat Danner (D-Mo.) quit the race just 22 minutes before the withdrawal deadline
After scrambling to enter the race in an extended filing window, Graves picked up the support of then-House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), then-Majority Leader Richard Armey (R-Texas), and other top Republicans who had chosen him over a more moderate Republican,Teresa Loar.
Campaigning as a conservative,Graves used a steep fundraising advantage to defeat Loar in a hard-fought primary. He faced the incumbent’s son, Steve Danner, in the general election, and attacked him as a “tax-and-spend liberal” despite Danner’s effort to run as a conservative Democrat. Graves held off Danner in November, winning 51 percent to 47 percent.
Campaign Tactics
Though described as genial personally, Graves has drawn criticism for his hard-hitting campaign tactics from a long line of former opponents. At the center of these charges is Graves’ former chief of staff and political consultant, Jeffrey Roe, who took credit for having campaign staffers sift through an opponent’s trash for an unpaid hospital bill and authored a television ad that said another opponent “worked for Penthouse” based on the fact that she sold ads for the company that owned the pornographic magazine. Roe defended his work – “Politics ain’t beanbag,” he told a newspaper – and Graves defended his aide, calling him in 2007 “my No. 1 person.”
U.S. Attorney Scandal
Roe’s reputation also put Graves in the crossfire in a political spat between the offices of Todd Graves, the congressman’s brother and a former U.S. attorney in Missouri, and Christopher “Kit” Bond, the state’s Republican senior senator.
In January 2006, Todd Graves was abruptly fired as a federal prosecutor, and a report by the Justice Department’s inspector general two years later found that Bond’s office had pushed for his ouster. The effort to have Todd Graves fired was, according to the report, at least in part in retaliation for the U.S. attorney’s refusal to persuade Rep. Graves, himself embroiled in a dispute with Bond, to fire Roe.
The inspector general report concluded that it “appears that no one considered whether Graves was an effective U.S. attorney before seeking his removal.” The flap was part of the broader U.S. attorney firings scandal that was linked to political interference by the White House in the Justice Department. In October 2008, Bond apologized to Graves for his office’s role in the firing, though he denied any personal involvement.
The Issues
With few exceptions, Graves is known as a loyal Republican vote with conservative leanings. He has voted with his party 98.2% of the time in the 111th Congress .
He is ardently opposed to abortion rights, against same-sex marriage and supportive of the death penalty. Graves supported the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, despite criticism from Democratic opponents in his recent campaigns. On energy, he has joined many Republicans in pushing for expanded domestic oil drilling as a way of decreasing the nation’s dependence on foreign energy sources. He also strongly opposes a cap-and-trade program to reduce carbon emissions; he voted against the House cap-and-trade bill in June 2009, calling it a “national energy tax” that would “devastate rural America.”
The Economy
Graves opposed the $700 billion Wall Street bailout in October 2008, saying that while he supported protections for the bank accounts and retirement savings of taxpayers, the legislation as written would “only encourage the behavior that put our economy in the position it is in now.”
The congressman was also critical of the $787 economic stimulus package that passed in February 2009. “I am appalled that Congress has passed along billions of dollars of debt to our children in legislation that will have little to no effect on our economy,” he said after the House approved the bill.
Graves has long pushed for lower taxes. Though he supported both major tax cuts under President George W. Bush, he urged the president in 2003 to lower the tax rates for income and capital gains even further, and he has pushed for the elimination of the alternative minimum tax altogether.
Immigration
Graves has taken a hard-line stance against illegal immigration, which he cited in 2007 as the “No. 1 issue” heading into his re-election campaign against challenger Kay Barnes.
Beginning in 2003, Graves called for suspending legal immigration until U.S. borders are fully secured and background check or face-to-face interviews were required with anyone entering the country. His position has drawn sharp criticism from immigrant groups, but the lawmaker has cited the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, as reason for curtailing immigration.
In 2007, Graves opposed the comprehensive immigration reform bill championed by President George W. Bush, excoriating it as amounting to amnesty for undocumented immigrants. He has also chafed at plans for a “virtual” electronic fence along the U.S.-Mexico border, saying that nothing less than a physical barrier would be adequate.
Education
Education is the area in which Graves has broken most forcefully with Republican doctrine. A product of public schools, Graves has long resisted pressure from the national party and the former Bush administration to support private school vouchers. “This district isn't a school-voucher district,” he told the Kansas City Star in 2008, explaining his stance.
His opposition to vouchers has helped win him the endorsement of the Missouri chapter of the National Education Association, a rarity for Republicans. The group praised him, saying he “always puts children and schools ahead of party.” Graves also cites as a key accomplishment his language requiring that 95% of funding for No Child Left Behind be spent in the classroom.
The Network
Graves won his seat in the House thanks to hefty support from the Republican leadership at the time, including House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) and Majority Leader Richard Armey (R-Texas).
His ties to the leadership were so close that his 2000 opponents suggested he would be beholden to the GOP leadership if elected. Graves is also close with fellow Missouri Rep. Roy Blunt (R), who as a former House GOP whip tapped Graves for a spot on the leadership team and helped him rise up the ranks of the Small Business Committee.
