| Info | Congressman Sanford Bishop is serving his fifth two-year term in the U.S. House of Representatives from Georgia's Second Congressional District. He represents 31 middle and south Georgia counties in the realigned Second District. They are Baker, Brooks, Calhoun, Chattahoochee, Clay, Colquitt, Cook, Crisp, Decatur, Dougherty, Early, Grady, Lee, Lowndes, Macon, Marion, Miller, Mitchell, Quitman, Randolph, Seminole, Schley, Stewart, Sumter, Taylor, Terrell, Thomas, Tift, Turner, Webster, and Worth counties.
In his years of public service, Congressman Bishop has always been committed to helping achieve a higher, better quality of life for all citizens by promoting jobs and a stronger, more diversified economy; a better educated population; safe and secure communities, free of crime and drugs; a cleaner environment; affordable and accessible health care; and a strong national defense, all within the context of a balanced budget. He has been a principal sponsor and author of several measures that have been enacted into law, including the current Peanut Program, and has helped bring more than $680 million in federal grants, appropriations and contracts into the Second District for a wide range of purposes, including economic development; flood relief; crime and drug abuse abatement; highways and transportation; housing; health care; education; environment; agriculture and defense.
He was first elected to Congress in 1992, after serving in the Georgia House of Representatives from 1977 to 1990 and the Georgia Senate from 1991-1992.
The Congressman is a member of the Agriculture Committee and the
Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence making sure that he has his constituent's and the country's interests at heart.
As a member of the 16-member Intelligence Committee, he has oversight responsibility of the country's intelligence operations, including those conducted by the Central Intelligence Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, and Federal Bureau of Investigation.
On the Intelligence Committee, he is the Ranking Democrat on the Intelligence Committee's Subcommittee on Technical and Tactical Intelligence, which provides oversight and budgetary authority for agencies providing imagery intelligence, signals intelligence, spaceborne information collection; airborne collection, and intelligence from all strategic and tactical military assets. He also serves on the Intelligence Policy and National Security Subcommittee, which focuses on national intelligence and security policies, objectives, and priorities. In addiiton, Congressman Bishop was recently appointed to the Human Intelligence, Analysis, and Counterintelligence Subcommittee, which provides oversight, scientific and technical analysis, and budgetary authority for all federal agencies involved in overt and covert human intelligence and counterintelligence operations.
On the Agriculture Committee, he serves on two subcommittees. One is the General Farm Commodiites and Risk Management Subcommittee, which deals with programs and markets relating to cotton, cotton seed, wheat, feed grains, soybeans, oilseeds, rice, dry benas, peas, lentils, the Commodity Credit Corporation, crop insurance, commodity exchanges, and biotechnology. The other is the Specialty Crops and Foreign Agriculture Programs Subcommittee, which deals with peanuts, sugar, tobacco, honey and bees, marketing orders related to such commodities, foreign agricultural assistance, and trade promotion programs.
He also serves as a permanent member of the House Veterans' Affairs Committee. Although technically on leave from the Veterans' Affairs Committee while serving on the Intelligence Committee, he continues to attend and participate in the Veterans' Affairs Committee hearings and deliberations.
Congressman Bishop holds a number of leadership positions. Most recently, he has been selected to serve as Chairman of the Working Group on Defense of Physical Infrastructure and Natural Resources, a Democratic House task force to maximize homeland security. He is also a Democratic Whip at-large; co-chairman of the Forestry 2000 Task Force, promoting sound forestry policy; co-chairman of the House Peanut Caucus, promoting sound policy for growers, agri-businesses, and consumers; member of the "Blue Dog" Coalition, an organization of fiscally-conservative House Democrats, where he serves on the coalition's Defense and Healthcare Task Forces; and a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, Rural Health Care Coalition, Congressional Rural Caucus, National Guard and Reserve Components Caucus, Congressional Air Power Caucus, Depot Caucus, Public Pension Reform Caucus, Congressional Children's Working Group, Law Enforcement Caucus, National Security Caucus, Impact Aid Coalition, Vietnam Era Veterans in Congress, Congressional Arts Caucus, Congressional Sportsmen's Caucus, Congressional Fire Services Caucus, Federal Government Service Caucus, and the Council on Foreign Relations, a privately-funded research and educational organization.
He has held other leadership positions at the community, state and national levels, including serving as Georgia's representative on the Southern Growth Policies Board and on the Governor's Advisory Council on Drug Abuse.
Congressman Bishop has emerged as a leader among fiscally-conservative Democrats in Congress.
He is a cosponsor of Constitutional amendments to require balanced federal budgets, to protect the U.S. flag against acts of desecration, and to clarify the law to allow prayer in public places. He is a leading supporter of welfare reform that includes job-training, child care and other essential services to enable recipients to move from welfare to the workplace. He has helped author and sponsor specific plans to achieve a balanced budget while maintaining the country's safety-net programs such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, educational initiatives, anti-crime and anti-drug efforts, nutritional and housing assistance, veterans' services, and agricultural programs. He is a cosponsor of a number of bills to strengthen the veterans' healthcare and other veterans' programs. With four military installations directly impacting the area he represents, he has worked for responsible levels of funding to maintain military readiness and quality-of-life needs for uniformed and civilian personnel, and has played a key supporting role in protecting Georgia bases during the base closure and realignment process.
He helped draft and enact a number of farm and rural development programs, including the 1996 Farm Bill. He co-authored the plan on which the Farm Bill's market-oriented, no-net-cost peanut program is based. He has authored and cosponsored a number of other measures, including eligibility reform for the veterans' health care system and a bill to fully establish the Jimmy Carter Historical Site in Plains, and the National Prisoners of War Musuem in Andersonville, which have passed, and a work-incentive bill for low-income housing occupants and a bill to crack down on underage tobacco sales and use, which have been under consideration.
Congressman Bishop, a resident of Albany, GA., was born February 4, 1947 in Mobile, Alabama, the son of the late Sanford D. Bishop, Sr., the first president of Bishop State Community College, and Mrs. Minnie S. Bishop, a librarian. He graduated from Morehouse College in 1968 and received a Doctor of Law Degree from Emory University in 1971. He served in the U.S. Army, completed basic training at Fort Benning, Georgia, entered Advanced Reserve Officers Training, and received an Honorable Discharge in 1971. He resided in Columbus, Georgia, from 1972 to 1996, where he was the primary partner in the law firm of Bishop and Buckner, P.C. He is an Eagle Scout The Boy Scouts of America, a 32nd Degree Mason, a Shriner, and a member of the Mount Zion Baptist Church of Albany, Georgia. Congressman Sanford Bishop is married to Vivian Creighton Bishop of Columbus, GA., where she is elected to the position of Clerk of the Municipal Court. They have one daughter, Aayesha Owens.
He has received numerous awards, including the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award from the Boy Scouts of America, given to Eagle Scouts for distinguished career achievement; Man of the Year Award from the Men's Progressive Club of Columbus, Georgia; Friend of the Children Award from the Child Advocacy Coalition; and commendations from the National Federation of Independent Business, Georgia Association of Educators, Georgia Municipal Association, Georgia School Bus Drivers Association, Georgia Council for the Arts, the Fraternal Order of Police, and the American Legion.
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