Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.)

In 2004, as a forerunner to a Mississippi-wide vote that said marriage may only be between a man and a woman, Thompson voted as a House member for a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, which failed.

Homeland Security

Since its inception in 2002, the House Homeland Security Committee has held only primary oversight along with other committees over the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). In 2009, Thompson said he is working on granting his committee exclusive oversight of the department. A former volunteer firefighter, Thompson has also been an advocate for the needs and inclusion of first responders in disaster and national security threats.

In January 2007, within 100 hours becoming the panel's ch, he called for enacting nearly all of the Sept. 11 Commission's recommendations, including distributing grants based on risk rather than formulas and scanning all incoming cargo at U.S. ports for nuclear material by 2012. The bill was passed eight months later with changes that allowed for a deadline extension for complete port scanning. Thompson said the bill was a compromise that he didn't think "weakened our systems of protection."

FEMA

Coming from a state harshly hit by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Thompson has paid particular interest to FEMA. Following the natural disaster, Thompson became a vocal critic of the agency, slamming FEMA for its slow-moving bureaucracy and pushing for probes into the agency's contracts.,

In 2006, amidst calls from the Senate for rebuilding FEMA, Thompson along with then-committee Chairman Peter T. King (R-N.Y.) sponsored legislation granting the agency more autonomy while still under DHS's jurisdiction. The issue of restructuring FEMA arose again in 2008, when Thompson supported a Bush administration overhaul to set guidelines during disasters coordinating federal, state and local responders.

The Economy

Even after leaving the Agriculture Committee in 2004, Thompson has continued to influence rural issues.

In 2008, Thompson helped shepherd to passage a $300-billion agriculture bill, with a large enough margin to avoid a George W. Bush veto. The bill included provisions geared towards his rural and poor district such as protecting cotton subsidies, assisting disaster-stricken farms and increasing food-stamp benefits.

The 2008 farm bill also gave black farmers who were excluded from government subsidies in 1999 a second chance to receive payments from a discrimination settlement compensating those who were systematically denied loans and other help from the Department of Agriculture. Speaking as a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, Thompson said black lawmakers would not pass an agriculture bill without that provision.

Thompson voted against both versions of the fall 2008 bank bailouts, contending the final version did not help homeowners, open up lines of credit or do enough to eliminate golden parachutes for corporate executives.He was a proponent of Obama's $787 billion stimulus package that passed in February 2009.

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