Jo Ann Emerson

Jo Ann Emerson
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Missouri's 8th district
Incumbent
Assumed office  November 5, 1996
Preceded by	Bill Emerson
Born	September 16, 1950 (1950-09-16) (age 59) Bethesda, Maryland
Political party	Republican
Spouse(s)	Bill Emerson (1975-1996) Ron Gladney (2000-present)
Residence	Cape Girardeau, Missouri
Alma mater	Ohio Wesleyan University
Occupation	association executive
Religion	Presbyterian

Jo Ann Emerson (born September 16, 1950) is an American politician from the U.S. state of Missouri currently serving her seventh term in the U.S. House of Representatives. She represents Missouri's 8th congressional district (map) which consists of Southeast and South Central Missouri and includes the Bootheel, the Lead Belt and the Ozarks. Emerson is a member of the Republican Party.

Emerson has four local offices located in the district: one in Cape Girardeau, Rolla, Farmington, and West Plains.

Biography

Emerson was born in Bethesda, Maryland and graduated from Ohio Wesleyan University. She married then-lobbyist and future U.S. Representative Bill Emerson, a Republican from Cape Girardeau, on June 22, 1975. He was 12 years her senior. They had two daughters; Jo Ann also has five stepdaughters and a stepson. Bill was elected to the U.S. Congress in 1980 from Missouri's 10th Congressional District and, subsequent to redistricting, was reelected in 1982 from the 8th District. He handily retained his seat through 1994, his final election, before succumbing to cancer on June 22, 1996. The Bill Emerson Memorial Bridge, which links Missouri to Illinois across the Mississippi River, was dedicated to commemorate his efforts to obtain federal funding for its construction.

As of 2007, Emerson was one of four incumbents in the U.S. House of Representatives to be elected to their seats following the deaths of their husbands, along with Mary Bono (R-California), Lois Capps (D-California) and Doris Matsui (D-California). Following Bill's death, Jo Ann married Ron Gladney in 2000. From this marriage she gained a stepdaughter and a stepson.

Political career

When her husband Bill died in 1996, Jo Ann announced she would run for his vacant seat. However, Missouri state law prohibited her from filing in the Republican primary for the general election. In November, Jo Ann Emerson competed in two elections on the same day. She ran as an independent against Democrat Emily Firebaugh and Republican Richard Kline in the general election and as a Republican against Firebaugh in the special election to finish the last two months of her late husband's term. She won both elections easily and has been reelected seven times without serious difficulty. She is the first Republican woman elected to the U.S. Congress from Missouri. She served the last two months of her husband's term as an independent caucusing with the Republicans before officially becoming a Republican at the start of the new Congress in 1997. She was briefly the first Independent elected to federal office in Missouri in 122 years.^[1]

Emerson's voting record has been mostly conservative, though it has become more centrist in recent years. She has a lifetime rating of 83 from the American Conservative Union. During the 110th Congress, Emerson voted with the Democrats on several issues including Medicare prescription-drug negotiations, raising the minimum wage, funding embryonic stem cell research and on new budget rules during the Democrats' 100-Hour Plan. ^[2] She is considered by mainstream standards to be a moderate Republican. National Journal recently ranked Emerson as the most moderate and least conservative Republican member of Missouri's U.S. House delegation. ^[3]

Bipartisanship

Emerson, whose voting record in Congress has established her as one of the more moderate Republicans, has a history of bipartisanship while in the U.S. House of Representatives. Her 2006 campaign advertisement summed up her career in Congress:

Some people like to play games in Washington, but I'm not one of them. If we don't listen to each other, we'll never get anywhere. I don't care if you're [a] Republican or Democrat; I represent everyone. I speak my mind, vote my conscience and think about how each decision affects us back home. I'll take ideas from Southern Missouri to Congress because those are the values our country needs: little common sense straight from the Heartland.

On May 24, 2005, Emerson was one of 50 Republicans to vote in favor of overturning President George W. Bush's ban on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. She cast her "yea" vote the day after her mother-in-law died from Alzheimer's Disease, one of the illnesses for which scientists believe they can create better treatments from stem cell research.

On July 12, 2007, Emerson was one of only four Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives who voted to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq by April 2008.^[4]

On September 15, 2009, Emerson was one of seven House Republicans to vote in favor of the Democrats' proposed resolution to admonish and censure U.S. Representative Joe Wilson (R-South Carolina) for inappropriately shouting "You lie!" in the middle of President Barack Obama's joint address to the U.S. Congress on health care reform.

These votes have earned her some heat from conservatives and Republicans in the district but at the same time has garnered her much praise from moderates and Democrats for her willingness to reach across the aisle and live up to her campaign promise of being bipartisan. Her margins of victory in the district have always been higher than those of GOP presidential candidates George W. Bush and John McCain as well as Republican gubernatorial candidates Kenny Hulshof, Matt Blunt and Jim Talent.

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Controversial letter from Congresswoman Emerson

Mild controversy has surrounded a letter (dated February 15, 2006) sent to a constituent, Bill Jones, in response to an inquiry about congressional testimony given by oil executives. An unknown individual slipped in the sentence "I think you're an asshole" at the close of the letter. Representative Emerson stated that "there is no excuse for this inappropriate letter having been sent and every apology has been made to the individual who received it." She denied any knowledge of this odd addition to the letter, and an investigation is currently underway. ^[5]

Committee Assignments

• Committee on Appropriations
  • Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies
  • Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development
  • Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government (Ranking Member)

Other Membership

• Vice President of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly
  • Vice Chair of the Subcommittee on Democratic Governance
• Vice Chair of the Center Aisle Caucus
• Honorary and Life Trustee of Westminster College
• Co-Chair of the Board of Directors for the Congressional Hunger Center
• Founding Member of the Bipartisan Congressional Retreat

Electoral History

See also

• United States House of Representatives elections in Missouri, 2008

References

External links

• U.S. Congressman Jo Ann Emerson official site

• Biography at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
• Voting record maintained by The Washington Post
• Campaign finance reports and data at the Federal Election Commission
• Campaign contributions at OpenSecrets.org
• Biography, voting record, and interest group ratings at Project Vote Smart
• Issue positions and quotes at On The Issues
• Profile at SourceWatch Congresspedia
• Jo Ann Emerson official campaign site