• Congressman representing the 4th District of Arizona, downtown Phoenix
• Member of the Progressive Caucus

Ed Pastor is a Democratic Member of Congress who represents the Fourth District of Arizona, downtown Phoenix. It was gerrymandered to be one of Arizona's two Hispanic districts, and its population is 58 percent Latino.

Pastor was born in June 1943 in Claypool, a small iron-mining town 70 miles east of Phoenix. He graduated from Arizona State University (ASU) in 1966, became a high-school chemistry teacher, and then returned to ASU to earn a law degree in 1974.

In 1975 Pastor worked as an assistant to Arizona Governor Raul Castro. In 1976 he was elected to the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, where he served three terms as a county executive.

In 1991, 68-year-old Morris Udall injured himself in a fall and retired after 30 years as a Democrat in Congress. In the ensuing special election to fill Udall’s vacant seat in the House of Representatives, Pastor won with 56 percent of the vote. He has been re-elected by large margins in every congressional election since then.

Pastor belongs to the Progressive Caucus in the House of Representatives. Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) consistently rates his voting record as 95 to 100 percent on the left side of legislation. He is also a member of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.

During his legislative career, Pastor has voted:

• against the development of a national missile defense system;
• against the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2001;
• against the post-9/11 anti-terrorism measure known as the Patriot Act;
• against allowing the U.S. government to use electronic surveillance to investigate suspected terrorist operatives;
• against a bill permitting the government to combat potential terrorist threats by monitoring foreign electronic communications which are routed through the United States;
• against an October 2002 joint resolution authorizing U.S. military action in Iraq;
• against the establishment of military commissions to try enemy combatants captured in the war on terror;
• in favor of withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq immediately and by a preordained date;
• against President Bush’s 2007 decision to deploy some 21,500 additional U.S. soldiers in an effort to quell the violent insurgents in Iraq;
• in favor of a proposal to expedite the transfer of all prisoners in the Guantanamo Bay detention center;
• against requiring hospitals to report (to the federal government) illegal aliens who receive emergency medical treatment;
• against the Real ID Act, which proposed to set minimal security requirements for state driver licenses and identification cards;
• against separate proposals calling for the construction of some 700 miles of fencing to prevent illegal immigration along America's southern border;
• against a proposal to grant state and local officials the authority to investigate, identify, and arrest illegal immigrants;
• against major tax cut proposals in September 1998, February 2000, March 2000, July 2000, May 2001, May 2003, October 2004, and May 2006;
• against separate welfare reform bills designed to move people off the welfare rolls and into paying jobs;
• in favor of prohibiting oil and gas exploration in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR);
• against a proposal to fund offshore oil exploration along the Outer Continental Shelf.
• against a 1998 proposal to institute school vouchers in Washington, DC;
• against a 1998 bill to end racial preferences in college admissions;
• against a 2002 proposal to grant amnesty to immigrants who had been living in the United States since 1999 or before; and
• against a 2003 bill to prohibit lawsuits against gun manufacturers and sellers when a criminal misuses a firearm