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Highlights & Quotes Heather Wilson has represented the 1st Congressional District of New Mexico since June 23, 1998.

Wilson is the first woman veteran in U.S. history to serve in Congress. A graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy (1982), she was a Rhodes Scholar and earned her masters and doctoral degrees in international relations from Oxford University in England. After leaving the Air Force in 1989, she served as Director for European Defense Policy and Arms Control on the National Security Council staff at the White House under President George H.W. Bush. In 1991 Wilson founded Keystone International Inc. to work with senior executives in large American defense and scientific corporations with business development and program planning work in the United States and Russia.

Wilson serves on the House Energy and Commerce (http://energycommerce.house.gov/) and Armed Services Committees (http://www.house.gov/hasc/). She is also the chairperson of the powerful Subcommittee on National Security of the Republican House Policy Committee (http://policy.house.gov/nsfa/).

She has close ties to the radical right wing and has won the Bush administration's high regard. Vice President Dick Cheney and President George W. Bush have spoken at fundraisers for Wilson.

As chair of the National Security Subcommittee of the House Policy Committee, Wilson contributed to shaping an increasingly militarist foreign policy of the Bush administration. The committee's February 2003 report Differentiation and Defense: An Agenda for the Nuclear Weapons Program (http://cox.house.gov/files/nuclear_report.pdf), for example, helped to push nuclear policy towards research and development of small "bunker busting" nuclear weapons, an agenda already outlined in the Bush administration's Nuclear Posture Review, which was leaked to the media in January 2002.

Under her leadership, the subcommittee also helped develop the House Policy Statement on Missile Defense. This policy statement suggested that the president was correct to withdraw from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Defense Treaty with the Soviet Union and endorsed the Bush administration's plans for global missile defense projects.

On key votes in 2003 (as defined by the organizations themselves), Wilson voted the position of the Christian Coalition 76% of the time (92% of the time in 2002); 62% of the time shared the position of the Eagle Forum (73% in 2002); and 72% of the time for the positions of American Conservative Union (73% in 2002).

She routinely receives scores of 0 from the American Civil Liberties Union, Peace Action, and the Human Rights Campaign. In 2002 she received a 9% score from the League of Conservation Voters.

Campaign Finance

Wilson receives large amounts of money from the very industries she is supposed to be regulating, especially defense contractors and the energy and natural resource industries. In the 2002 election cycle Wilson was the 6 th highest recipient of contributions from the defense industry among House members. For the 2004 election cycle she is 16 th as of February 14, 2004. Her top contributors include Lockheed Martin, the nation's largest military contractor. (1)

She is also the 18 th highest among House members for contributions from the energy and natural resources sector, and ranks 23 among all candidates who receive contributions from energy and natural resource PACs. Most of those funds come from electric utility and oil and gas-related PACs. (2)

In 2002 Wilson received $1,000 from the American Dream Political Action Committee, run by Austin, TX Republican Henry Bonilla. The PAC, which was aimed at supporting ethnic minority Republican candidates, was found to have spent a mere 10% of its resources on donations to candidates and the executive director was found to have embezzled much of the PAC's money. Nearly half of the $10,500 in donations in 2002, or $5,000, went to Bonilla, and only one other donation went to a minority Republican congressional candidate: Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, a Cuban American from Florida. Wilson was one of the other three recipients, none of whom were minorities. (The other congressional donations went to Rep. Steve Buyer, a white attorney from Indiana; and Rep. Jeb Hensarling, a non-minority Dallas businessman). (3)

Data from the Center for Responsive Politics reveals that as of December 31, 2003 Wilson had raised $1.1 million as of February 2, 2004 for the 2004 election cycle with nearly $750,000 cash on hand.(4)

By sector, the combination of individual and PAC donors to her campaign were: (4)

Sector

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