Twenty-three Lutherans in the 108^th Congress

Chicago (ELCA)-FI — There are 23 Lutherans — 12 Democrats and 11 Republicans — in the 108th Congress of the United States, according to the Lutheran Office for Governmental Affairs (LOGA), Washington, D.C., the federal public policy advocacy office of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). LOGA is a program of the ELCA Division for Church in Society.

Ten of the 19 Lutherans in the U.S. House are Republicans; nine are Democrats. Three of the four Lutherans in the U.S. Senate are Democrats; one is a Republican.

The four Lutherans in the U.S. Senate are Conrad Burns (R-Mont.), Byron L. Dorgan (D-N.D.), Ernest F. "Fritz" Hollings (D-S.C.) and Tim Johnson (D-S.D.).

The 19 Lutherans in the U.S. House of Representatives are Douglas K. Bereuter (R-Neb. 1st), Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio 13th), Lois Capps (D-Calif. 23rd), John R. Carter (R-Texas 31st), Norman D. Dicks (D-Wash. 6th), Darlene Hooley (D-Ore. 5th), William J. Janklow (R-S.D. at large), Ron Kind (D-Wis. 3rd), Tom Latham (R-Iowa 5th), Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif. 16th), Jim Nussle (R-Iowa 2nd), Doug Ose (R-Calif. 3rd), Michael Oxley (R-Ohio 4th), Collin C. Peterson (D-Minn. 7th), Thomas E. Petri (R-Wis. 6th), Martin Olav Sabo (D-Minn. 5th), John M. Shimkus (R-Ill. 19th), Bill Shuster (R-Pa. 9th) and Charles W. Stenholm (D-Texas 17th).

All are members of the ELCA, except Bereuter and Shimkus who are members of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, and Kind who is a member of the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod.

Twenty Lutherans in Congress were identified at the beginning of its 107th term. U.S. Rep. Floyd D. Spence (R-S.C. 2nd) died in August 2001. Senators Burns and Johnson and all other representatives won re-election in November balloting. Representatives Capps and Shimkus were elected to renumbered districts.

Four Lutherans new to LOGA's list are Representatives Carter, Janklow, Lofgren and Shuster. Carter and Janklow are new members of the House. Carter retired from the bench after serving 20 years as a district judge in Williamson County, Texas. Janklow served four terms as governor of South Dakota. Lofgren was first elected to the House in 1994. Shuster was first elected to Congress in May 2001 in a special election.