Tom Tancredo - Republican

 

Tom Tancredo was born December 20, 1945 in Denver, Colorado. He is a graduate of the University of Northern Colorado as of 1969, with a degree in political science, and became a history professor at Drake Junior High School in Denver, in 1976. Beginning a career in politics at an early age, he was already actively involved with conservative groups such as Young Americans for Freedom, and organized many vocal groups and political action committees criticizing government policy on issues regarding race, bilingual education, and immigration. He has stated that one of his chief concerns is "the struggle to preserve our national identity, against the tide of illegal immigrants flooding the United States.".

He won a seat in the Colorado House of Representatives in 1976, where he served two terms from 1977 to 1981, while retaining his position as a high-school history professor. Then in 1981, he was appointed by President Reagan to be the Department of Education regional representative for Denver. He remained at this position from 1981 until 1992, and then in 1993 became President of a conservative think tank called the Independence Institute and based in Golden, Colorado. He was to remain at this position until joining Congress.

In 1999, he joined Congress in the United States House of Representatives, as the Representative of the 6th Congressional District of Colorado. While serving in this position, he has sponsored the Sudan Peace Act which became law in 2002, and introduced the Mass Immigration Reduction Act, repeatedly in 1999, 2001, and 2003, although so far it has not passed. An anti-choice candidate by nature, he voted in favor of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, and in favor of legislation requiring parental notification when a minor seeks an abortion. He has called for the repeal of Roe v. Wade. He has also founded the Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus.

Unusual for the second-generation descendant of Italian immigrants, he has been perhaps the most outstanding voice against conceding a single square foot of U.S. soil to anything but natural citizens who speak English. This has carried to the point where he came down heavily on the Denver Public Library merely for purchasing reading materials written in Spanish and supporting Spanish-speaking students. He has also criticized President George Bush because he feels his many measures to control immigration have not been enough, in part over concern about terrorists. He has described himself as being a person not wanted at the White House because of his hard-line beliefs.

In 2004, he founded the Team America political action committee whose purpose was to donate to any congressional candidate who opposed immigration to the same degree he did, however due to campaign finance laws he had to disband the effort. According to one quote posted on the website of the home page of the U. S. Border Control organization, he is quoted as saying that immigrants "need to be found before it is too late. They're coming here to kill you, and you, and me, and my grandchildren."

In 2005, Tancredo sponsored legislation to eliminate H-1B visas for temporary workers, stated that he opposed to amnesty for illegal aliens, worked to eliminate the automatic granting of citizenship to the babies of illegal aliens, and sponsored of a successful amendment to a Department of Homeland Security appropriations bill that would withhold federal emergency services funds from sanctuary cities.

Tom Tancredo has announced his bid for the United States Presidential election as of 2005. His campaign is simply: "Secure the borders. Deport those who don't belong. Make sure they never come back.", with little to no focus on anything else. It is difficult to define what sort of voter base he would appeal to - certainly he is neo-Conservative, but he is so extreme as to carry himself past all hard-line right-wingers into fanatical Independent candidate territory. If there were such a thing as an "Archie Bunker party", he might find support with them.