U.S. Rep. Ike Skelton (D-MO) has represented Missouri's Fourth Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives since 1977. His district includes Missouri's state capital, Jefferson City, and much of the Ozark region of the state. The northernmost part of the Fourth District includes Ray County, located north of the Missouri River. The southernmost point of the district is Webster County, only 30 miles from the Arkansas border.
Skelton, a native of Lexington, is a graduate of Wentworth Military Academy and the University of Missouri at Columbia where he received A.B. and L.L.B. degrees. He was named as a member of Phi Beta Kappa and the Law Review. Prior to his election to Congress, Skelton served as Lafayette County Prosecuting Attorney and as a Missouri State Senator.
A leader in the House on defense issues, Skelton is the Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. Skelton's district is home to Fort Leonard Wood, Whiteman Air Force Base, and the Missouri National Guard Training Center. Skelton was instrumental in bringing the Army Engineer School to Fort Leonard Wood and the B-2 Stealth bomber to Whiteman.
As most of the Fourth Congressional District is comprised of small towns and farming communities, Skelton looks after the needs of rural America. He is a former chairman of the Small Business Subcommittee on Procurement, Tourism and Rural Development and the Congressional Rural Caucus.
Skelton is an Eagle Scout, a member of Sigma Chi social fraternity, a Lions Club member, and vice chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation. Skelton is an elder of the First Christian Church in Lexington. He and his late wife Susie have three sons.
Throughout my time in Congress, repeated efforts have been made to improve the federal acquisition process – some successful, some not. In recent years the problems in DOD’s acquisition system have been particularly severe. Significant reforms are once again needed, in part because the acquisition system must change as DOD’s needs change. To take a fresh look at this problem, the House Armed Services Committee recently formed a Panel on Defense Acquisition Reform. Led by Chairman Robert Andrews (D-NJ) and Ranking Member Mike Conaway (R-TX), the panel will examine the defense acquisition system and possible ways to improve the system’s… Read more
I am currently reading The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944, part two of Rick Atkinson’s “Liberation Trilogy.” I am also reading American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House, by Jon Meacham, and The Collapse of the Third Republic: An Inquiry into the Fall of France in 1940, by William Shirer. A few years ago, I put together a National Security Book List, which includes my recommended reading to all officers of the Armed Forces, to Members of Congress, and to those interested in national security issues. The fifty books on my list cover the… Read more
Whatever the flaws with the recently-signed SOFA, and there are many, one positive was that the Bush Administration, after years of resistance, finally accepted the necessity of a timeline for the redeployment of U.S. troops out of Iraq. This long overdue acceptance is necessary to relieve the strain on U.S. forces, to free up some of those forces for service in Afghanistan, and to allow the U.S. to maintain ready forces as a strategic hedge in case of unforeseen conflicts. Having said that, while I am hopeful that the vast majority of troops are out of Iraq within 16 months,… Read more
While I'm reluctant to predict a particular crisis that might confront the new President and our country in the near future, we must expect and prepare for such challenges. In my 32 years in Congress, the United States has been involved in 12 military contingencies, some of them major in scope, almost all unexpected. I recently assembled a list of the top defense challenges the next administration must address, which is posted on the House Armed ServicesCommittee website.… Read more
Related Link: http://armedservices.house.gov/
