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KHOU is the CBS-affiliated television station in Houston, Texas. Serving Greater Houston, it is owned by the Belo Corporation and broadcasts on digital and PSIP channel 11. The studio is near downtown along Allen Parkway in the Neartown neighborhood^[1][2] and its 602 m (1,975 ft) high guyed mast transmitter is located at an antenna farm located in unincorporated northeastern Fort Bend County near Missouri City, along with all other Houston broadcast stations.

History[link]

KHOU signed on as KGUL-TV (as in gulf or as in "seagull" ), licensed to Galveston, on March 23, 1953 by Paul Taft of the Taft Broadcasting Co.^[3] (not related to Taft Broadcasting Company of Cincinnati, Ohio). It was the second television station to launch in the Houston area after KPRC-TV. One of the original investors in the station was actor James Stewart, along with a small group of other Galveston investors.

In 1956, the original owners sold Channel 11 to the Whitney Corporation (later Corinthian Broadcasting) of Indianapolis, which became a subsidiary of Dun & Bradstreet in 1971. In June 1959, it changed its calls to KHOU and moved the city of license to Houston. The FCC license listed both the Houston and Galveston service areas for a time. On April 24, 1960, the station moved to its present location just outside downtown Houston on Allen Parkway. To this date, KHOU is the only TV station in Houston to have its primary studios close to the downtown area.

In 1984, D&B sold the Corinthian stations to Belo. In 1998, it was the first station in the market to sign on with a high-definition signal. The KHOU studios were flooded during Tropical Storm Allison in 2001, resulting in damage to much of the station, including its newsroom. The flooding was so bad, the station had to shut down and air a feed from the station's doppler radar for roughly 90 minutes.

In 2002, the Houston Texans began play in the National Football League, playing in the American Football Conference South Division. As part of the AFC, all afternoon road games (and home games against AFC opponents) are aired on CBS, and so they air locally on KHOU. The Texans are one of two teams never to have been blacked out at home, the other being the Baltimore Ravens.

During Hurricane Ike, which hit the Texas Gulf Coast the weekend of September 12–14, 2008, KHOU's coverage was distributed nationwide via DirecTV and XM Satellite Radio, as well as a live feed on the station's Web site.

Since the June 12, 2009 digital transition, KHOU-DT moved to channel 11, and then by the following week, the station dropped the -TV suffix like most Belo stations.

Digital television[link]

The station's digital signal is multiplexed:

The station announced on July 12, 2011, that it would carry the new Bounce TV digital network on one of its subchannels when it launches in September.^[4] The station had announced earlier it would carry the .2 Network on one of its digital subchannels.

Analog-to-digital conversion[link]

KHOU ended programming on its analog signal, on VHF channel 11, on June 12, 2009, as part of the DTV transition in the United States. ^[5] The station then moved back to channel 11 for its post-transition operations. ^[6]

Programming[link]

KHOU has been one of the top-rated CBS affiliates in Texas for over 20 years, aided by a strong programming lineup featuring popular syndicated shows like The Doctors, Jeopardy!, Wheel of Fortune and The Insider.

Preemptions[link]

KHOU has hosted Houston's annual Thanksgiving Day parade, the H-E-B Holiday Parade (formerly the Bank United/Washington Mutual Thanksgiving Day Parade) for well over a decade. As a result, KHOU pre-empts the CBS Thanksgiving Day Parade.

It airs The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson a half an hour later than the network schedule at 12:05 a.m. Episodes of The Insider air in the Late Late Show's normal network timeslot instead at 11:37 p.m. In addition, KHOU exercises CBS's seldom-used option to air The Young and the Restless at 11:00 a.m., a half-hour before most CBS affiliates air the show.

Newscasts[link]

KHOU Studios and Offices in Neartown Houston

KHOU has been widely regarded as a stepping stone for television news anchors reporters, as many of its reporters have gone on to assignments with national networks. The station's best known former staff are former CBS Evening News anchor Dan Rather, NBC News Correspondent Dennis Murphy and newswomen Linda Ellerbee and Jessica Savitch. In sports, there was Jim Nantz, a sports anchor/reporter, now with CBS Sports and Ron Franklin, a sports anchor now with ESPN.

Beginning in the late 1980s, KHOU hired several high-profile people to its news team. The most notable was Neil Frank, the former director of the National Hurricane Center, who was tapped by the station to be the chief meteorologist starting in July 1987. In another key move, the station also hired former KTRK anchor Sylvan Rodriguez away from his job at the West Coast bureau of ABC News to anchor the station's early evening newscasts. KHOU also began to use the "Spirit of Texas" slogan and TM Productions' "Spirit" music package (also used at sister station WFAA in Dallas), and incorporated a redesigned logo.

In January 1989, KHOU revamped the look of its newscasts, with an image campaign that included full-page ads in the Houston Chronicle and Houston Post, as well as an on-air promotional campaign that focused more on ordinary citizens throughout Greater Houston than on its news team. With the lead news team of anchors Steve Smith and Marlene McClinton, chief meteorologist Dr. Neil Frank and sports director Giff Nielsen, along with a new set, graphics and theme music, KHOU began to mount a serious challenge to the other Houston newscasts, leading to a competitive ratings race during the 1990s.

If any year proved to be a breakout year for KHOU, it was 1999. During the May sweeps of that year, KHOU reached number one in several timeslots, unseating KTRK at midday, 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. The station's ratings boost also included an exclusive interview with Serbian and Yugoslavian President Slobodan Milosevic during the Kosovo War just a month before Milosevic's indictment. This news came despite the retirement of longtime anchor Steve Smith, anchor Sylvan Rodriguez's eventually fatal bout with pancreatic cancer and the abrupt resignation of fellow anchor Marlene McClinton during one of the station's newscasts.

On February 4, 2007, following CBS' coverage of Super Bowl XLI, KHOU aired its first newscasts in high definition (HD), branding themselves as 11 News HD, and heavily promotiong the technology.

On September 7, 2009, KHOU-TV launched Houston's third morning newscast to begin at 4:30 a.m., "First Look." The newscast is anchored by former KIAH (channel 39) anchor Sherry Williams, with meteorologist David Paul. Despite being the last station in the Houston market to launch its early-morning newscast, KHOU was the first station in the market to send a news release announcing its intentions to do so. In a race to capture the lucrative insomniac/very early commuter market, all three major network affiliates in Houston launched 4:30 a.m. newscasts within three weeks of each other in the late summer of 2009.

In March 2011, KHOU started using a new set of on-air HD visual graphics, which also incorporated a new logo and new newscast title, "KHOU 11 News." This new graphics replaces their old yellow-red-white-and-blue HD graphics, which were also created by the Giant Octopus design group. On July 13, 2011 KHOU announced that it would debut a new half-hour 4 p.m. newscast on August 1, 2011; the newscast is the third newscast in the Houston market in that timeslot, as KPRC debuted their 4 p.m. newscast in 1996 and KTRK debuted a 4 p.m. newscast in 2001.^[7]

KHOU's is currently second place in the Houston market behind KTRK. However they rank well among middle aged (35-55) and suburban audiences. This is noted as currently as of 2011, KHOU is the only station that focuses traffic in the suburbs in addition to the Houston freeways.

[edit] KHOU 11 News I-Team

KHOU also has gained a reputation for its investigative news team, the 11 News Defenders, which has uncovered numerous stories, the most notable being its 2000 investigation into defective tire designs by Firestone. That investigation led to the mandatory recall of Wilderness AT, Firestone ATX and ATX II tires, as well as numerous lawsuits. The defective tires resulted in a number of deaths, including that of Stephen Gauvain, a reporter for rival ABC affiliate KTRK.

Another investigative report in the early 2000s by former reporter Anna Werner led to the shutdown of the Houston Police Department's crime lab. The 11 News Defenders unit has also exposed allegations of dropout rate fraud in the Houston Independent School District, which resulted in the dismissal of several HISD officials. The unit was briefly rebranded to the name "11 News Investigates" on July 24, 2006, when KHOU unveiled a new look on its newscasts. The name was switched back to "Defenders" in 2008 to distinguish the unit after several local stations in the market also began using the "Investigates" label. In 2010, the station's investigative team was rebranded the "11 News I-Team." In 2011, it became the "KHOU 11 News I-Team."

News/station presentation[link]

Newscast titles[link]

• The News with Ron Stone (1953-1968)
• Newswatch 11 (1968-1974)
• Newswatch 11 Houston (1974-1975)
• News 11 (1975–1979)
• NewsCenter 11 (1979–1984)^[8]
• 11 News (1984–1987 and 1991–2011)^[9]
• Channel 11 News (1987–1989)^[10]
• KHOU 11 News (1989–1991 and 2011-present)^[11][12]

Station slogans[link]

• "Houston's Way of Looking at the World" (1980–1983)
• "The Spirit of Texas" (1987–2011; used as primary slogan starting in 1999)^[13]
• "It's Time To Choose. 11 News." (1999–2002; news slogan)
• "We Go There" (2002–2005; news slogan)
• "Make Sense of Your World" (2006–2008)
• "Standing By You" (2008-2011; used after Hurricane Ike)
• "KHOU Stands For Houston" (2011–present)

This film, television or video-related list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it with reliably sourced additions.

On-air staff[link]

[edit] Current on-air staff^[14]

Anchors

• Vicente Arenas - Saturdays at 6, Sundays at 5:30 and weekends at 10 p.m.; also weekday reporter
• Len Cannon - weekdays at 4 and weeknights at 6 p.m.
• Shern-Min Chow - weekdays at 4 p.m.; also weeknight reporter
• Greg Hurst - weeknights at 5, 6 and 10 p.m.
• Lisa Hernandez - weeknights at 5 and 10 p.m.^[15][16]
• Lily Jang - weekday mornings KHOU 11 News This Morning (4:30-7 a.m.)^[17]
• Rekha Muddaraj - Saturdays at 6, Sundays at 5:30 and weekends at 10 p.m.; also weekday reporter^[18]
• Ron Trevino - weekday mornings KHOU 11 News This Morning (4:30-7 a.m.) and noon
• Sherry Williams - Saturday mornings "KHOU 11 News Saturday Morning" (7-9 a.m.); also reporter

Weather team

• Gene Norman (AMS Certified Broadcast Meteorologist Seal of Approval) - chief meteorologist; weeknights at 5, 6 and 10 p.m.
• Mario Gomez (AMS Seal of Approval) - meteorologist; Saturday mornings, Saturdays at 6 p.m., Sundays at 5:30 and weekends at 10 p.m.; also fill-in meteorologist
• David Paul (AMS Certified Broadcast Meteorologist Seal of Approval) - meteorologist; weekday mornings KHOU 11 News This Morning (4:30-7 a.m.)
• Chita Johnson (AMS Seal of Approval, NWA member) - meteorologist; weekdays at noon and 4 p.m.

Sports team

• Butch Alsandor - sports director; weeknights at 6 and 10 p.m.
• Matt Musil - sports anchor; Saturdays at 6, Sundays at 5:30 and weekends at 10 p.m.
• Daniel Gotera - sports reporter; also fill-in sports anchor

Reporters

• Malini Basu - general assignment reporter)^[19]
• Tiffany Craig - general assignment reporter
• Jeremy Desel - general assignment reporter
• Leigh Frillici - general assignment reporter
• Andrew Horansky - general assignment reporter^[20]
• Drew Karedes - general assignment reporter
• Angela Kocherga - Mexico City bureau reporter
• Jeff McShan - general assignment reporter
• Doug Miller - general assignment reporter
• Scott Noll - investigative reporter^[21]
• Rucks Russell - general assignment reporter
• Kevin Reece - general assignment reporter
• Jeremy Rogalski - investigative reporter
• Larry Seward - general assignment reporter^[22]
• Prof. Gerald Treece - legal analyst
• Tim Wetzel - general assignment reporter^[23]
• Katherine Whaley - weekday morning traffic reporter
• Brad Woodard - general assignment reporter
• Courtney Zubowski - general assignment reporter; also weekend fill-in anchor

Great Day Houston

• Deborah Duncan - host

Notable former on-air staff[link]

• "Utah" Carl Beach - host and performer of local music show (1953–1967)
• Lisa Chavarria - former general assignment reporter (2010–2012; now at WFLD in Chicago)
• Steve Edwards - anchor/talk show host (1972–1975; now at KTTV in Los Angeles)
• Linda Ellerbee - reporter (mid-1970s; later with NBC News, now host of Nickelodeon's Nick News)
• Dave Fehling - former general assignment reporter (also weekend fill-in anchor) (1989–2011; now at NPR)
• Dr. Neil Frank - chief meteorologist (1987–2008; now retired; returns periodically for special weather events)
• Ron Franklin - sports director (1970s; now with ESPN)
• Mark Greenblatt - former investigative reporter (1986–2012; now with ABC News)
• Gabe Gutierrez - former general assignment reporter (2010–2012; now with NBC News)
• Christine Haas - anchor (2008-2012; now at KNSD in San Diego)^[24]
• Dennis Murphy - reporter/assignment editor (1975–1978; now with NBC News)
• Jim Nantz - sports anchor/reporter (1981–1983; now with CBS Sports)
• Chau Nguyen - anchor/reporter (2003–2007)
• Lucy Noland - 5 and 10 p.m. anchor (2007-2011; now at KNBC in Los Angeles)
• Giff Nielsen - sports director (1984–2009)
• Dan Patrick - sports anchor (1980s; later conservative talk show host KSEV-AM; now Republican State Senator from Houston)
• Dan Rather - anchor/reporter (early 1960s; former anchor of CBS Evening News)
• Sylvan Rodriguez - noon and 6 p.m. anchor (1987–1999; died April 6, 2000 of pancreatic cancer)
• Rick Sanchez - reporter (1986–1988; formerly with CNN)
• Alex Sanz - government reporter (2007–2011; now at WPTV in West Palm Beach, FL)
• Jessica Savitch - anchor/reporter (1971–1972; later KYW-TV and NBC News, deceased)
• Janet Shamlian - anchor/reporter (1987–1995; now NBC News))
• Ron Stone - 6 and 10 p.m. anchor (1961–1972; later KPRC-TV, deceased)
• Allison Triarsi - weekday reporter (2008–2012; now at WFAA in Dallas/Fort Worth)

References[link]

External links[link]

Houston portal

• Official website (Mobile)
• Query the FCC's TV station database for KHOU
• BIAfn's Media Web Database -- Information on KHOU-TV

Ron Paul
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Texas's 14th district
Incumbent
Assumed office January 3, 1997
Preceded by	Greg Laughlin
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Texas's 22nd district
In office January 3, 1979 – January 3, 1985
Preceded by	Robert Gammage
Succeeded by	Tom DeLay
In office April 3, 1976 – January 3, 1977
Preceded by	Robert Casey
Succeeded by	Robert Gammage
Personal details
Born	Ronald Ernest Paul (1935-08-20) August 20, 1935 (age 76) Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Political party	Republican Party (1976–1988, 1988–present)
Other political affiliations	Libertarian Party (1988 election)
Spouse(s)	Carol Wells
Children	Ronnie Lori Rand Robert Joy
Alma mater	Gettysburg College (B.S.) Duke University (M.D.)
Religion	Southern Baptist
Signature
Website	Congressional website Campaign website
Military service
Service/branch	United States Air Force Texas Air National Guard
Years of service	1963–1965 1965–1968
Rank	Captain[1]
This article is part of a series about Ron Paul 2012 presidential campaign 2008 presidential campaign 1988 presidential campaign Political positions · Electoral history List of legislation sponsored by Ron Paul Ron Paul newsletters Ron Paul bibliography

Ronald Ernest "Ron" Paul (born August 20, 1935) is an American politician who has been the U.S. Representative for Texas's 14th congressional district, which includes Galveston, since 1997, and a three-time candidate for President of the United States, as a Libertarian in 1988 and as a Republican in 2008 and currently 2012. He is an outspoken critic of American foreign and monetary policies, including the Military–industrial complex and the Federal Reserve, and is known for his libertarian-leaning views, often differing from his own party on certain issues.

A native of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Paul is a graduate of Gettysburg College and Duke University School of Medicine, where he earned his medical degree. He served as a medical officer in the United States Air Force from 1963 until 1968. He worked as an obstetrician-gynecologist from the 1960s to the 1980s, delivering more than 4,000 babies. He became the first Representative in history to serve concurrently with a child in the Senate when his son Rand Paul was elected to the United States Senate for Kentucky in 2010.^[2]

Ron Paul has been an active writer and publisher since the late 1970s, when he created the first of several newsletters bearing his name. He has published many books, beginning with The Case for Gold (1982) and including Liberty Defined: 50 Essential Issues That Affect Our Freedom (2011), End The Fed (2009), The Revolution: A Manifesto (2008), Pillars of Prosperity (2008), and A Foreign Policy of Freedom: Peace, Commerce, and Honest Friendship (2007). Paul has been characterized as the "intellectual godfather" of the Tea Party movement.^[3][4]

On July 12, 2011, Paul announced that he would forego seeking another term in Congress in order to focus on his presidential bid.^[5] On May 14, 2012, Paul announced that he would not be competing in any other Presidential primaries, though he is still competing for delegates in states where the primary election have already been held.^[6]

Early life, education, and medical career[link]

Ronald Ernest Paul was born on August 20, 1935, in Pittsburgh,^[7] the son of Howard Caspar Paul, who ran a small dairy company, and Margaret (née Dumont) Paul. His paternal great-grandparents emigrated from Germany, and his mother was of German and Irish ancestry.^[8][9]

As a junior at suburban Dormont High School, he was the 220-yard dash state champion.^[10] He graduated from Gettysburg College with a B.S. degree in Biology in 1957.^[10]

Paul earned a Doctor of Medicine degree from Duke University's School of Medicine in 1961, and completed his medical internship at the Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit and his residency in obstetrics and gynecology at Magee-Womens Hospital in Pittsburgh.^[11] Paul served as a flight surgeon in the United States Air Force from 1963 to 1965 and then in the United States Air National Guard from 1965 to 1968.^[12]

Paul and his wife then relocated to Texas, where he began a private practice in obstetrics and gynecology.^[13] He refused to accept Medicaid or Medicare payments, but routinely lowered fees for patients who could not afford to pay.^[14][15]

Early congressional career (1976–1985)[link]

While still a medical resident in the 1960s, Paul was influenced by Friedrich Hayek's The Road to Serfdom, which caused him to read many publications by Ludwig von Mises and Ayn Rand. He came to know economists Hans Sennholz and Murray Rothbard well, and credits to them his interest in the study of economics.^[16]

When President Richard Nixon "closed the gold window" by ending American participation in the Bretton Woods System, thus ending U.S. dollar's loose association with gold^[16] on August 15, 1971, Paul decided to enter politics^[17] and became a Republican candidate for the United States Congress.^[18]

Elections[link]

In 1974, incumbent Robert R. Casey defeated him for the 22nd district. President Gerald Ford later appointed Casey to direct the Federal Maritime Commission, and Paul won an April 1976 special election to the vacant office.^[19] Paul lost the next regular election to Democrat Robert Gammage by fewer than 300 votes (0.2%), but defeated Gammage in a 1978 rematch, and was reelected in 1980 and 1982.^[20] Gammage underestimated Paul's popularity among local mothers: "I had real difficulty down in Brazoria County, where he practiced, because he'd delivered half the babies in the county. There were only two obstetricians in the county, and the other one was his partner."^[21]

Tenure[link]

Paul has served in Congress three different periods: first from 1976 to 1977, after he won a special election, then from 1979 to 1985, and finally since 1997.

In his early years, Paul served on the House Banking Committee, where he blamed the Federal Reserve for inflation and spoke against the banking mismanagement that resulted in the savings and loan crisis.^[22][8] Paul argued for a return to the gold standard maintained by the US from 1873-1933, and with Senator Jesse Helms convinced the Congress to study the issue.^[16] He spoke against the reinstatement of registration for the military draft in 1980, in opposition to President Jimmy Carter and the majority of his fellow Republican members of Congress.^[23]

During his first term, Paul founded the Foundation for Rational Economics and Education (FREE), a non-profit "think tank" dedicated to promoting principles of limited government and free-market economics.^[24]

Paul proposed term-limit legislation multiple times, while himself serving four terms in the House of Representatives.^[23] In 1984, he decided to retire from the House in order to run for the U.S. Senate, complaining in his House farewell address that "Special interests have replaced the concern that the Founders had for general welfare.... It's difficult for one who loves true liberty and utterly detests the power of the state to come to Washington for a period of time and not leave a true cynic."^[25][26] (On Paul's departure from the House, his congressional seat was assumed by former state representative Tom DeLay, who would eventually become Speaker of the House.)^[27]

Committee assignments[link]

• House Banking Committee

1984 U.S. Senate election[link]

In 1984, Paul campaigned for the U.S. Senate, but lost the Republican primary to Phil Gramm, who had switched parties the previous year from Democrat to Republican.^[28] Another candidate of the senatorial primary was Henry Grover, a conservative former state legislator who had lost the 1972 gubernatorial general election to the Democrat Dolph Briscoe, Jr.

Inter-congressional years[link]

1985–1997[link]

Following the loss of the 1984 senate race, Paul returned to his obstetrics practice and took part in a number of other business ventures.^[8][29] Along with his former congressional chief of staff, Lew Rockwell, Paul founded a for-profit enterprise, Ron Paul & Associates, Inc. (RP&A) in 1984, with Paul serving as president, Rockwell as vice president, Paul's wife Carol as secretary, and daughter Lori Pyeatt as treasurer.^[30] The company published a variety of political and investment-oriented newsletters including Ron Paul Freedom Report and Ron Paul Survival Report, and by 1993 was generating revenues in excess of $900,000.^[31][32]

Paul also co-owned a mail-order coin dealership, Ron Paul Coins, for twelve years with Burt Blumert, who continued to operate the dealership after Paul resumed office in 1996.^[33][34] Paul spoke multiple times at the American Numismatic Association's 1988 convention.^[33] He worked with his Foundation for Rational Economics and Education on such projects as establishing the National Endowment for Liberty, producing the At Issue public policy series that was broadcast on the Discovery Channel and CNBC,^[24] and continuing publication of newsletters.

1988 presidential campaign[link]

Paul resigned from the Republican Party in 1987 and launched a bid for the presidency running on the Libertarian Party ticket. At the 1987 Libertarian National Convention, the party was split between a Conservative and Liberal wing. Paul represented the conservative wing, which was successful in fundraising, while the liberal wing claimed to have received ten times more (and more favorable) press coverage.^{[citation needed]} Paul argued, "Pro-life libertarians have a vital task to perform: to persuade the many abortion-supporting libertarians of the contradiction between abortion and individual liberty; and to sever the mistaken connection in many minds between individual freedom and the 'right' to extinguish individual life."^[35][36]

In the 1988 presidential election, Paul was on the ballot in 46 States,^[37] scoring third in the popular vote with 432,179 votes (0.5%).^[38] Paul was kept off the ballot in Missouri, and received votes there only when written in, due to what the St. Louis Post-Dispatch termed a "technicality".^[39]

According to Paul, his presidential campaign was about more than obtaining office; he sought to promote his libertarian ideas, often to school and university groups regardless of vote eligibility. He said, "We're just as interested in the future generation as this election. These kids will vote eventually, and maybe, just maybe, they'll go home and talk to their parents."^[37]

Paul considered campaigning for President during 1992,^[40] but instead chose to endorse Pat Buchanan that year, and served as an adviser to Buchanan's Republican presidential primary campaign against incumbent President George H. W. Bush.^[41]

Later congressional career (1997–present)[link]

An earlier congressional portrait of Paul

Elections[link]

1996 campaign

During 1996, Paul was re-elected to Congress after a difficult campaign. The Republican National Committee endorsed incumbent Greg Laughlin in the primary; Paul won with assistance from baseball pitcher, constituent, and friend Nolan Ryan, tax activist and publisher Steve Forbes^[8] and conservative commentator Pat Buchanan (both of whom had had presidential campaigns that year). Paul narrowly defeated Democratic attorney Charles "Lefty" Morris in the fall election, despite Morris' criticism over controversial statements in several newsletters that Ron Paul published.

1998–present

In 1998 and 2000, Paul defeated Loy Sneary, a Democratic Bay City, Texas, rice farmer and former Matagorda County judge.^[17] In the 2008 Republican primary,^[42] he defeated Friendswood city councilman Chris Peden,^[43] with over 70 percent of the vote^[44] and ran unopposed in the general election.^[45] In the 2010 Republican primary, Paul defeated three opponents with 80 percent of the vote.^[46]

On July 12, 2011, Paul announced that he would not seek re-election to the House in order to pursue the 2012 presidential election.^[47][48]

Tenure[link]

Legislation

Of the 620 bills that Paul had sponsored through December 2011, over a period of more than 22 years in Congress, only one had been signed into law – a lifetime success rate of less than 0.3%.^[49] The sole measure authored by Paul that was ultimately enacted allowed for a federal customhouse to be sold to a local historic preservation society (H.R. 2121 in 2009).^[49]

By amending other legislation, he has helped prohibit funding for national identification numbers, funding for federal teacher certification,^[17] International Criminal Court jurisdiction over the U.S. military, American participation with any U.N. global tax, and surveillance of peaceful First Amendment activities by citizens.^[50]

Affiliations

Paul was honorary chairman of, and is a member of the Republican Liberty Caucus, a political action committee that describes its goal as electing "liberty-minded, limited-government individuals".^[51] He is an initiating member of the Congressional Rural Caucus, which deals with agricultural and rural issues, and the 140-member Congressional Wildlife Refuge Caucus.^[52]

Committee assignments[link]

Rep. Paul serves on the following committee and subcommittees.^[53]

• Committee on Financial Services
  • Subcommittee on Domestic Monetary Policy and Technology (Chairman)
  • Subcommittee on International Monetary Policy and Trade
• Committee on Foreign Affairs
  • Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations

With the election of the 112th Congress, and a resulting GOP majority in the House, Paul became the chairman of the Subcommittee on Domestic Monetary Policy and Technology starting in January 2011.^[54]

2008 presidential campaign[link]

Ron Paul being interviewed the day of the New Hampshire primary in Manchester

2008 Republican primary campaign[link]

Paul formally declared his candidacy for the 2008 Republican nomination on March 12, 2007, on C-SPAN.^[55] Few major politicians endorsed him, and his campaign was largely ignored by traditional media.^[56] However, he attracted an intensely loyal grassroots following, in large part energized by "iconoclastic white men"^[57] interacting through internet social media.^[58][59][60] In May 2007, shortly after the first televised primary debates, the blogs search engine site Technorati.com listed Paul's name as the term most frequently searched for;^[58] and Paul's campaign claimed that Paul had more YouTube channel subscribers than Barack Obama or any other candidate for president.^[61] For a candidate who had had relatively low national name recognition prior to entering the race, Paul did surprisingly well in fundraising, taking in more money than any other Republican candidate in the fourth quarter of 2007, as the primary season headed into the Iowa caucuses.^[62][63]

Despite benefiting from large numbers of campaign contributions from individual donors,^[64] and the efforts of tech-savvy supporters determined to keep his name a frequent topic of discussion on the internet,^[58] over the course of the campaign Paul was unable to translate the enthusiasm of his core supporters into large enough numbers of actual primary votes to unseat his rivals.

Paul came in 5th place in both the January 4 Iowa caucuses (10% of votes cast)^[65] and the January 8 New Hampshire primary (8%).^[66] With the exception of the Nevada caucuses January 19, where he came in 2nd (14%) behind Romney (51%), he did little better through the rest of January: Michigan 4th (6%), South Carolina 5th (4%), Florida 5th (3%). On SuperTuesday, February 5, he placed 4th in almost every state, generally taking in a mere 3–6% of the votes (although he did better in the mountain states of North Dakota (21%, 3rd place) and Montana (25%, 2nd place).^[67][68]

By March, front-runner John McCain had secured enough pledged delegates to guarantee that he would win the nomination, and Romney and Huckabee had both formally withdrawn from the race. Paul, who had won no state primaries, knew that it was now mathematically impossible for him to win the nomination, as he had captured only 20^[69] – 40 pledged delegates compared to more than 1,191 for McCain, yet he refused to concede the race and said that it was unlikely that he would ultimately endorse McCain.^[70][71][72] Over the next few weeks, Paul's supporters clashed with establishment Republicans at several county and state party conventions over state party rules, the party platforms, and selection of delegates for the national convention.^[73][74][75] In one of the more dramatic moments, Nevada's state party leaders, outmaneuvered by Paul supporters at the state nominating convention, resorted to the highly unusual measure of prematurely and abruptly shutting down the convention before selecting national delegates, with a plan to reconvene at a later date.^[76][77]

On June 12, 2008, Paul finally withdrew his bid for the Republican nomination. He later said that one of the reasons he did not run in the general election as a third-party candidate, after losing the primary election, was that, as a concession to gain ballot access in certain states, he had signed legally-binding agreements to not run a third-party campaign if he lost the primary.^[78] Some of the $4 million remaining campaign contributions was invested into the new political action and advocacy group called Ron Paul's Campaign for Liberty.^[79]

Refusal to endorse the Republican candidate[link]

At a September 10, 2008, press conference, Paul announced his general support of four third-party candidates: Cynthia McKinney (Green Party); Bob Barr (Libertarian Party); Chuck Baldwin (Constitution Party); and Ralph Nader (independent). He said that each of them had pledged to adhere to a policy of balancing budgets, bringing the troops home, defending privacy and personal liberties, and investigating the Federal Reserve. Paul also said that under no circumstances would he be endorsing either of the two dominant parties' candidates (McCain – Republican Party, or Obama – Democratic Party) because there were no real differences between them, and because neither of them, if elected, would seek to make the fundamental changes in governance that were necessary. He urged instead that, rather than contribute to the “charade” that the two-party election system had become, the voters support the third-party candidates as a protest vote, to force change in the election process.^[80][81] Later that same day, Paul gave a televised interview with Nader saying much the same again.^[82]

Two weeks later, "shocked and disappointed" that Bob Barr (the Libertarian candidate) had pulled out of attending the press conference at the last minute and had admonished Paul for remaining neutral and failing to say which specific candidate Paul would vote for in the general election, Paul released a statement saying that he had decided to endorse Chuck Baldwin, the Constitution Party candidate, for president.^[83]

In the November 2008 general election, Paul received 41,905 votes despite not actively campaigning.^[84][85]

2012 presidential campaign[link]

Ron Paul during his 2012 presidential election campaign in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Paul is a candidate for the Republican Party nomination for President of the United States in the 2012 election.

He won several early straw polls for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination ^[86] and in late April, 2011, he formed an official exploratory committee.^[87][88] He participated in the first Republican presidential debate on May 5, 2011.^[89] and on May 13, 2011, Paul formally announced his candidacy in an interview on ABC's Good Morning America.^[90] He placed second in the 2011 Ames Straw Poll, missing first by 0.9%.^[91]

In December 2011, with Ron Paul's increased support, the controversy over allegedly racist and homophobic statements in several Ron Paul newsletters in the 1980s and early 1990s once again gained media attention.^[92] During this time Paul supporters asserted that he was continually ignored by the media despite his significant support, citing examples of where television news shows would fail to mention Paul in discussions of the Republican presidential hopefuls even when he was polling second.^{[93][94][95][96]}

Paul came in third in the Iowa Republican Caucus held on January 3, 2012. Out of a turnout of 121,503 votes, Paul took 26,036 (21%) of the certified votes. Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney finished in a virtual tie for first place with 25% each.^[97] In the New Hampshire Primary held on January 10, 2012, Paul received 23% of the votes and came in second after Romney's 39%.^[98]

Ron Paul's results then declined, despite the withdrawal of candidates Michele Bachmann, Jon Huntsman and Rick Perry. He had fourth place finishes in the next two primaries, on January 21st in South Carolina (with 13% of the vote^[99]) and on January 31st in Florida (where he received 7% of the vote.^{[100][101][102]})

On February 4, Paul finished third in Nevada with 18.8% of the vote.^[103] Three non-binding primaries were held on February 7th; Paul took 3rd place in Colorado^[104] and Missouri^[105] with 13% and 12% of the vote respectively. He fared better in Minnesota^[106] with 27%, finishing second to Rick Santorum.

On May 14, Paul's campaign announced that due to lack of funds he would no longer actively campaign for votes in the 11 remaining primary states, including Texas and California, that had not yet voted.^[6][107] He would, however, continue to seek to win delegates for the national party convention in the states that had already voted.

Political party identification[link]

Throughout his entire tenure in Congress, Paul has represented his district as a member of the Republican Party. However, he has frequently taken positions in direct opposition to the other members and the leadership of the party, and he has sometimes publicly questioned whether he really belonged in the party.

He had been a lifelong supporter of the Republican Party by the time he entered politics in the mid 1970s.^[108] He was one of the first elected officials in the nation to support Ronald Reagan's presidential campaign,^[109] and he actively campaigned for Reagan in 1976 and 1980.^[110] After Reagan's election in 1980, Paul quickly became disillusioned with the Reagan administration's policies. He later recalled being the only Republican to vote against Reagan budget proposals in 1981,^[111][112] aghast that "in 1977, Jimmy Carter proposed a budget with a $38 billion deficit, and every Republican in the House voted against it. In 1981, Reagan proposed a budget with a $45 billion deficit – which turned out to be $113 billion – and Republicans were cheering his great victory. They were living in a storybook land."^[109] He expressed his disgust with the political culture of both major parties in a speech delivered in 1984 upon resigning from the House of Representatives to prepare for a (failed) run for the Senate, and he eventually apologized to his Libertarian friends for having supported Reagan.^[111]