When Harold Sr. decided not to seek a twelfth term in Congress in 1996, Harold Jr. entered the race and became the favorite in the Democratic primary, which was widely regarded as the real contest in the heavily Democratic, Black-majority 9th district. Ford arranged his schedule for his last semester of law school so he would not have Monday or Friday classes and would be able to fly home to Memphis for an extended weekend each week to continue his campaign. As was expected, he easily won the Democratic
primary, followed by his election in November. Taking office at the age of twenty-six, he was one of the
youngest members of Congress in US history, the youngest in the 105th and 106th Congresses. He was also the first member of Congress born in the 1970s and, alongside
Adam Smith of
Washington, one of the first members of
Generation X to serve in Congress. He was reelected four times without substantive
Republican opposition by an average of eighty percent of the vote. In 2000, Ford was the
keynote speaker for the
2000 Democratic National Convention, supporting then
Vice President Al Gore for the Democratic nomination for
President. On 4 November 1999, Ford voted in favor of the
Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act,. This act repealed much of the
Glass–Steagall Act of 1933, which had been enacted to prevent any one organization from acting as any combination of an investment bank, a commercial bank, and an insurance company. The resulting repeal allowed many banks and insurance companies to invest money in various
securities that was raised from savings and checking bank accounts or insurance policies. Several economists, notably
Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, point to the repeal of Glass–Steagall as helping to create the conditions of the
2008 financial crisis. On October 10, 2002, he was among the eighty-one House Democrats who voted in favor of authorizing the
invasion of Iraq. After the Democrats lost seven Congressional seats in the
2002 elections, Ford announced his candidacy for House Democratic Leader, challenging then-
House Minority Whip Nancy Pelosi, arguing that current leadership was ineffective. Ford was defeated but exceeded initial expectations in the amount of support he received. Although his name was mentioned as a possible Democratic vice presidential candidate in 2004, he was ineligible for the office due to his age (four months shy of thirty-five on
Inauguration Day 2005). A June 7, 2005, article in
The Washington Times reported that from 1998 to 2003, Ford took sixty-one privately funded trips but did not file travel disclosure forms with the House clerk for the trips, as required by the chamber's ethics rules until August 2003. Ford's office called the late filings a "mere oversight", since Ford had filed the required financial disclosure statements for the trips at the time they occurred. In November 2005, when Ohio Republican Congresswoman
Jean Schmidt implied that Pennsylvania Democrat
John Murtha was a "coward" in response to Murtha's proposal for a withdrawal of American forces from
Iraq, Ford charged across the House floor to the Republican side during the resulting uproar in the chamber, shouting "Say it to Murtha!" (or "Say Murtha's name!" depending on the source) while waving his finger at Schmidt. He had to be restrained by fellow Democrat
Dave Obey of
Wisconsin. Like many Democrats, Ford believed Schmidt's remarks (which she later withdrew) were an unwarranted "cheap shot" against Murtha, a veteran of the
Marine Corps. He supported the Republican effort to intercede in the
Terri Schiavo case. He opposed President
George W. Bush's energy proposals (including oil drilling in
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge), demonstrated support for
adoption rights of
same-sex couples, is in favor of federal funding of
embryonic stem cell research, supported
universal healthcare coverage, opposed the
death penalty and indicated a willingness to reform
drug policy. In addition, Ford sat on the
House Budget Committee and the
House Committee on Financial Services. He also served on the Transformation Advisory Group, a group of political, military and academic leaders who worked with the
Department of Defense to assess the needs of the armed forces. Ford was a member of the
New Democrat Coalition, the
Congressional Black Caucus and the
Blue Dog Coalition. In 2006, Ford did not run for re-election to the House of Representatives, due to his
campaign for the
United States Senate in Tennessee. Although he won the Democratic primary, he lost the general election by a margin of 2.7%. His younger brother, Jake Ford, ran for the
9th district seat as an Independent, but lost to Democrat
Steve Cohen. ==2006 United States Senate campaign==