Ben Erdreich
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Benjamin (Ben) Erdreich is a former United States congressman from Alabama. He was born December 9, 1938 in Birmingham, Alabama to an upper-middle class family. Erdreich attended Yale University, earning his law degree. After graduating from college, he spent two years in the United States Army, beforing setting up a private law practice. He also spent one year 1963 as the editor of the Alabama Law Review.
Between 1970 and 1974, Erdreich served two terms as a Democrat in the Alabama House of Representatives. He then was elected as Jefferson County Commissioner, serving until 1982. That year, he was elected to Congress from the Birmingham-based 6th District, defeating a one-term Republican incumbent. Erdreich was the first Democrat to represent the 6th since 1965; it had been one of five districts to fall to the Republicans during Barry Goldwater's sweep of the state in that year's presidential election. Erdreich was reelected four times, rarely facing serious opposition.
In 1993, however, Erdreich's district was significantly redrawn as a result of a federal Justice Department directive to create a majority-black district. The state legislature shifted most of Birmingham's black residents to the 7th District. In the process, it drew most of the whiter and wealthier portions of Tuscaloosa into the 6th. Erdreich now found himself in one of the Republican districts in the nation, with a population that was almost 97% white. Despite outspending his opponent, state Republican Party chairman Spencer Bachus, almost 2 to 1, Erdreich could not overcome the new partisan lean of the district and lost by seven points.
Erdreich is one of only a small number of Jewish politicians to ever be elected to federal office in the Deep South. He was known for his bipartisian work in Congress. Erderich is currently involved with urban renewal in Birmingham.
