Pete Stark

Pete Stark is a United States Politician from California. He represents California's 13th Congressional District, which includes Alameda County.

He is very liberal and is the only openly Atheist member of Congress. He is 77 years old.

Early Life
Stark was born in Wisconsin in 1931. He got his degree in 1953 and joined the Airforce in 1955. He left it in 1957 and went to Haas School of Business and Berkeley. He graduated in 1960 and loved the bay area so much that he decided to settle in the area.

In 1963 he founded a small bank. It grew and became a 100 million dollar company.

Stark grew a Republican but left the party because of his opposition to the Vietnam War. He even placed a giant peace sign on the headquarters of his bank.

Career in Congress
] In 1972 he ran against ten term incumbent George Paul Miller. He won by almost 34 points. Since then he has been reelected every time and his closest race was in 1974 when he won with 5 points more then his opponent. he almost always carries over 60 percent of the vote. In 2008 he was reelected with 74 percent of the vote, namely due to the fact that his enemy was a Republican and thus lacked common sense.

Stark is a rather unspoken Liberal in the senate but he does take tough stances on HEalth Care and the Iraq War. This is shown by statements he made in 2007 when debating a Republican on the House floor.

"Republicans sure don't care about finding $200 billion to fight the illegal war in Iraq. Where are you going to get that money? Are you going to tell us lies like you're telling us today? Is that how you're going to fund the war? You don't have money to fund the war or children. But you're going to spend it to blow up innocent people if we can get enough kids to grow old enough for you to send to Iraq to get their heads blown off for the President's amusement."

Pete Stark refused to apologize until for fives days,although he had made another statement before

"I may have dishonored the commander in chief(George Bush, but I think he’s done pretty well to dishonor himself without any help from me."

He is seen as very pro free health care. He,along with future President Barack Obama was a very early opponent of the Iraq War.

"Well then, who will pay? School kids will pay. There'll be no money to keep them from being left behind — way behind. Seniors will pay. They'll pay big time as the Republicans privatize Social Security and rob the Trust Fund to pay for the capricious war. Medicare will be curtailed and drugs will be more unaffordable. And there won't be any money for a drug benefit because Bush will spend it all on the war. Working folks will pay through loss of job security and bargaining rights. Our grandchildren will pay through the degradation of our air and water quality. And the entire nation will pay as Bush continues to destroy civil rights, woman's rights and religious freedom in a rush to phony patriotism and to courting the messianic Pharisees of the religious right."

He has been very critical of President Bush as well as Republicans and Conservatives in general.

Atheism
Another thing that makes Stark unique is that he is the only openly Atheist member of congress. Others have abstained from answer questions about their belief, raising questions over what they believed in but Stark has come straight out with it.