Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Ross Getting Ready For Congress

In ways, getting ready for Washington has been harder than the campaign, according to Congressman-elect Mike Ross.

Ross, who unseated Republican incumbent Jay Dickey in the Nov. 7, General Election, has, since the election, been working to make the transition a smooth one.

Unlike Dickey, though, Ross has no plans to sleep on a couch in his Washington, D.C. office. Instead, he has found a small apartment near the Capitol building.

It is here he will stay while Congress is in session, but this will only be three-days-a-week, for about 30 weeks. The rest of the time Ross will be working in the Fourth Congressional District, seeing what his constituents need and trying to help them when he returns to Washington.

But getting there, he said, took a lot of hard work from a lot of people.

The odyssey began 17 months ago when Ross decided to run against Dickey for Congress.

At the time, he said, he was known by 16 percent of the people in the Fourth Congressional District, and there were those who said Ross had no chance at all because he was from a small town.

The "experts" also said Ross would lose because his campaign headquarters was set up in Prescott, his hometown. Setting up shop in a small town, it was said, would hurt the campaign.

However, he proved the "experts" wrong, running from the old Prescott Motors building on Highway 67 and building his platform using small town ideas and ethics.

He spent 17 months visiting people in the district's 26 counties, getting his message out, stumping and listening to the voters.

Still he was told he couldn't win because he was from a small town, even though the majority of towns in the district have populations less than 10,000.

The largest cities in the Fourth District are Pine Bluff, Hot Springs, El Dorado and Texarkana.

As the campaign wore on and the polls showed Ross closing in on Dickey, the negative ads began circulating.

Ross said $5.4 million was spent against him in the negative advertising campaign, with Dickey outspending him 2:1 overall.

"This was the most expensive race in Arkansas history, to my knowledge," he said.

In the end, though, Ross beat the odds and is the Congressman-elect.

Shortly after the election he went to Washington, D.C., for a freshman orientation session. "I'd never been in the House gallery before, and had only seen it on C-Span," he said. "I was humbled by it.

"It reminded me this is all about serving the people and doing right by them. It's a responsibility I take seriously."

Ross was one of six challengers to unseat incumbents nationwide, and was the only Democrat to beat a Republican.

Regardless of his win, the GOP will remain the majority party in the House. This, Ross said, will make it hard for the minority party to get legislation on the floor.

But, he continued, he will try to help people while in Washington by proposing legislation, and working to improve the legislation proposed by others. This can be done with addendums and riders to bills presented.

What Ross considers most important is working with the constituents at home.

He called the win a victory for the district's children, their education, future, seniors, veterans and working families, and these are the people he will be fighting for in Congress.

"I'll be one of 435 congressmen," he said, "and when I go to Washington, I'll have the people of the district at heart. I'll do my best to represent them in a way they will approve of. "

During his trip to Washington, Ross was assigned an office on Capitol Hill. His office will be 514 in the Cannon Building. "If anyone is coming to Washington," he said, "they need to let me know and I'll make sure they get the real tour."

While Ross has a new job in the nation's Capitol, home will still be Prescott for him and his family.

Holly, his wife, will remain the owner of Holly's Health Mart, and their children will continue going to school in Prescott."This is home," he said. "It always has been and always will be. The majority of members of Congress commute, and so will I. My time will be balanced in the district, and I'll be here all I can. Nothing will change for us as a family, I'll just be out of town a few nights a week."

He said the campaign was harder on his family than him, especially when the negative ads began.

When not voting, Ross plans on spending his time in the district, traveling around and finding out what's important to his constituents.

To help, he will have offices in Pine Bluff, El Dorado, Hot Springs and Prescott. Ross made a pledge to open an office in El Dorado during the campaign. A congressional office had been there until 1995, when Dickey closed it.

Now, Ross is working to put his Washington staff together. Several will be from his campaign staff, but he's also looking for anyone in the state who has experience on Capitol Hill.

When all is said and done, he will have four offices in the district and one in Washington. Ross said there will be an overall staff of 16 when everything has been set up.

Oddly enough, Ross was glad to get the Prescott Motors building as his campaign office. It seems there is a family history there.

His mother and father, Francis and Gene Ross, both worked there at the same time. She was a bookkeeper and he a salesman. This is where they met, with the rest being history. "If it weren't for Prescott Motors I wouldn't be here," he said.

Ross's mother suffered from polio when she was a year old, he said, and it was doubtful she could have children.

"The fact she gave birth to me," he said, has given me the sense of being all I can be, and to help people."

The helping, he said, has come in the form of public service, which is a calling, he added.

"If you're in it for the right reasons, you can help people with their problems. The fact I won renewed my faith people can be involved."

Being a congressman isn't a glamourous job, Ross said. "I have 700,000 bosses. People will be coming to me because they have no other place to turn to get their problems solved. I want to be there to help."

Ross' term as state senator will officially end Dec. 31, 2000. He will be out of public service a grand total of 2 = days before being sworn in Jan. 3, 2001.

When he takes office as congressman, Ross said for those who supported Dickey he wants to earn their respect and promised to work his heart out for them.

"The campaign's behind us and we need to work together to build the best future for Arkansans and Americans possible.

"I'm a conservative south Arkansas Democrat with small town values. The values I learned growing up in Prescott, Emmet and Hope, is what I'll take to Washington. It's what I still believe."