Alabama's 5th congressional district

Infobox U.S. congressional district
state = Alabama
district number = 5


image width = 300
image caption =
representative = Bud Cramer
party = Democratic
english area =4,689
metric area =
percent urban =59.4
percent rural = 40.6
population = 635,300
population year = 2000
median income = 38,054
percent white = 77.7
percent black = 16.9
percent asian = 1
percent native american = 0.9
percent hispanic = 2
percent other race = 1.5
percent blue collar = 29.6
percent white collar = 57.1
percent gray collar = 13.3
cpvi = R+6

Alabama's Fifth Congressional District is a U.S. congressional district in Alabama, which elects a representative to the United States House of Representatives. It encompasses the counties of Colbert, Lauderdale, Lawrence, Limestone, Madison and Jackson. It also includes parts of Morgan County.

It is currently represented by Democrat Bud Cramer.

Character

Two major economic projects have lastingly impacted the 5th district and have indelibly dictated the politics of North Alabama for most of the 20th century. Before 1933, the Northern Alabama counties were characteristically poor, white and rural. The Tennessee Valley Authority's (TVA) arrival changed much of that, slowly transforming the demographic towards technical and engineering employees. The second major project were the space and rocketry programs - such as Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, where the first large U.S. Ballistic missiles were developed. Additionally, NASA built the Marshall Space Flight Center in the Huntsville-Decatur area during the 1960s. In the late 1950s Northern Alabama came to be dominated by the high-tech and engineering industries, a trend which has continued up to the present. In recent years, the United Launch Alliance has located its research center in Decatur. As a result, Huntsville has become the third largest and fastest growing metropolitan area in Alabama.

Thus the politics of the 5th district have been dominated over the past 70 or so years by liberal economics and disinterest in social issues - the hallmarks of the New Deal Democratic tradition in Northern Alabama. However, the democratic stranglehold on this district has slowly loosened over the past two decades with the onset of civil rights and later traditional values as important political issues in the area. As such, the region has increasingly voted for Republican presidential candidates since the defeat of Jimmy Carter, although it is yet to send a Republican to congress. In the mid-1990s it was a seriously contested seat, with longtime incumbent Bud Cramer winning by a narrow 50% vote in 1994. Since then, however, Cramer has taken over 70% of the vote in every election since 1998 and he ran unopposed in the Democratic landslide year of 2006. Government spending and New Deal-esque economics is still the other big issue in this district, and every successful candidate for the seat since the 1930s has been most interested in garnering government contracts and continued financial support for federal programs in the region. George W. Bush won 60% of the vote in this district in 2004.

Representation

Election results

2004

2006

Robert E. Cramer went unopposed for the 2006 election.