Trent Franks

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Trent Franks
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Arizona's 2nd district
Incumbent
Assumed office  January 3, 2003
Preceded by	Bob Stump
Born	June 19, 1957 (1957-06-19) (age 52) Uravan, Colorado
Political party	Republican
Spouse	Josephine Franks
Residence	Glendale, Arizona
Alma mater	Ottawa University
Occupation	oil executive, political researcher
Religion	Baptist

Trent Franks (born June 19, 1957), American politician, has been a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives since 2003, representing Arizona's 2nd congressional district (map). The district takes in the entire northwestern corner of the state, including Kingman and Lake Havasu City, but most of its vote is cast in the Phoenix suburbs. Franks has been married to Josephine since 1980. On August 4, 2008, a surrogate with donor eggs gave birth to their twins. They are members of the Baptist Church.

He was born in Uravan, Colorado, a company town. Franks is a former member of the Arizona House of Representatives. While in the House, he served as vice-chairman of the House Commerce Committee and Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Child Protection and Family Preservation.

In January 1987, Franks was appointed by the Governor to head the Arizona Governor's Office for Children, which is a Cabinet level division of the Governor's office responsible for overseeing and coordinating state policy and programs for Arizona's children.

Franks worked for and later became president of Liberty Petroleum Corporation, a small oil exploration company. He also served four and a half years as the Executive Director of the Arizona Family Research Institute, a nonprofit organization associated with James Dobson's Focus on the Family for the purpose of advocating public policy to protect children and families in Arizona. As executive director, he authored a bill to give a state income tax credit to help pay for private school tuition.

In the 1994 primary for the 4th District of Arizona, Franks was defeated by John Shadegg who went on to become a colleague in Congress.

When 3rd District Congressman Bob Stump decided to retire after 13 terms, Franks entered the race to succeed him. The district had been renumbered the 2nd after redistricting gave Arizona two additional seats. He defeated Stump's chief of staff, Lisa Atkins, whom Stump had endorsed as his successor. In 2004, he faced unusually strong primary competition from the more moderate Rick Murphy, but defeated him winning 65% of the primary vote, setting him on track for reelection.

Trent Franks is currently Chairman of the Children's Hope Scholarship Foundation and a Republican Member of The United States Congress. He serves on the Judiciary Committee and the Armed Services Committee. Franks is also a member of the Republican Study Committee, House Working Group on Judicial Accountability, House Working Group on Waste, Fraud and Abuse, the Congressional Hispanic Conference, the Republican Liberty Caucus, the DUI Caucus, the Human Rights Caucus, the India Caucus, the Refugee Caucus, and the Education Freedom Caucus. Franks has also been active with Operation Smile.

Franks has a 100% rating from the Club for Growth.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Committee Assignments

• Committee on Armed Services
  • Subcommittee on Readiness
  • Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations
  • Subcommittee on Strategic Forces
• Committee on the Judiciary
  • Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties
  • Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law (Ranking Member)

[edit] Issues

Franks is a staunch advocate of a federal prohibition of online poker. In 2006, he cosponsored H.R. 4411, the Goodlatte-Leach Internet Gambling Prohibition Act^[1] and H.R. 4777, the Internet Gambling Prohibition Act.^[2]

During the 2008 campaign, Franks stated that he is a skeptic of global warming.^[3]

[edit] Electoral history

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• U.S. Congressman Trent Franks official House 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
• Trent Franks for U.S. Congress official campaign site
• Resolution on India's untouchables in US Congress Rediff', May 3, 2007