Not 48 hours after he stood on the House floor to be sworn in to the 3rd Congressional District office, Rep. Charlie Melancon got word from half a world away of a tragedy that would reverberate in the swath of southeast Louisiana he now represented.

A Democrat from Napoleonville, Melancon had managed an exceedingly narrow victory in a runoff against Billy Tauzin III, the heavily financed and well-connected Republican son of the man who occupied the seat for 24 years.

But the luster of his win and his fancy new title seemed to dull immediately, Melancon said, with news that six Louisiana National Guardsmen died Jan. 6, 2005. A roadside bomb tore apart their Humvee north of Baghdad, marking the deadliest attack for a single National Guard unit at that point in the 2-year-old war.

"We were still on a high from winning an election that people said we couldn't win," Melancon said. "And when that happened, the reality of the war in Iraq and just the reality of the world that's out there kind of sunk in real quick.

"I came back down and started thinking about what we needed to do and where we needed to go."

The casualties became just the first blow to the largely rural district during Melancon's first year in Congress. Before he could gather 10 months of experience on Capitol Hill, the 3rd District would be hit again, once on each end, by two of the country's most damaging hurricanes.

Now, as Melancon campaigns for another term in Washington, his constituents have a voting record with which to judge him and, perhaps more important, evidence of his response to crippling disasters and his ability to pump resources into the district and follow up on residents' individual requests for aid.

Steering the middle course

Melancon, 59, still calls his birthplace of Napoleonville his hometown. He got a taste of politics working for Edwin Edwards' 1971 campaign for governor and eventually ran for and won a seat in the state House in 1987. After resigning from the Legislature in 1993, Melancon took the helm at the American Sugar Cane League, researching and lobbying on behalf of farmers and agriculture workers. In February 2004, he announced his bid for the seat that Rep. Billy Tauzin Jr., R-Chackbay, was vacating and eked out a close victory.

He entered Congress as a member of the minority Democratic Party and a Louisiana delegation that had little seniority after heavyweights Tauzin and Democratic Sen. John Breaux retired. Melancon joined the Blue Dog Democrats, a coalition of fiscally conservative members of his party, and started voting on issues in a style that he characterizes as centrist.

"I kind of get caught in between," Melancon said. "My party isn't always happy with me because I don't vote with them down the line. And the other party isn't happy with me because I don't vote with them down the line."

That other party includes state Sen. Craig Romero, R-New Iberia, who missed the 2004 runoff in the 3rd District by less than one percentage point and is back running against Melancon this year.

By the October congressional recess this year, Melancon had voted with Democrats 80 percent of the time and with Republicans 62 percent on the more than 1,000 votes cast in the 109th Congress, including issues that received a consensus of both parties.

In rankings by special-interest groups, Melancon's first-term voting record received a mix of praise from conservative and liberal groups. He scored 50 percent with the Gun Owners of America, 62 percent with the conservative Family Research Council and 70 percent with the progressive National Committee for an Effective Congress. He received more overt support from unions, such as the National Education Association, the Service Employees International Union and the AFL-CIO, and derision from Planned Parenthood and the Humane Society of the United States.

"His style is more, 'Let's try to build a common ground and legislate from the middle,' rather than, 'Let's push my viewpoint first,' " said state Rep. Reggie Dupre of Montegut, a fellow Democrat who said he knows Melancon well but endorsed state Rep. Damon Baldone, D-Houma, in the 2004 congressional primary. "He tries to be as objective as possible."

Dupre said it's much trickier to negotiate in Washington than in Baton Rouge, where parties don't determine which bills are heard.

"You're forced, especially as a freshman House member, no matter what party you're in, the party leadership wants to try to tell you what you have to do," Dupre said. "There's a fine line between keeping your independence and representing your district, and having effectiveness."

The demographics of the 3rd District haven't made that tightrope walk any easier in Melancon's first term. Though 60 percent of the district's registered voters are Democrats, 58 percent of the district voted to re-elect President Bush in 2004, and pollsters say a significant share carry conservative ideals common in Southern districts that long ago switched to Republican majorities.

Keeping a low profile

As he did as a state representative more than a decade earlier, Melancon the congressman set to work drafting bills for consideration. None saw the light of day, a lesson Melancon said he learned after a handful of attempts.

"If the majority party doesn't agree with what you want done or is not willing to help you, you're not going to get your bill heard in a committee ever," he said. "I introduced five or six pieces of legislation, but it came back to me as, 'Don't plan on moving them.' "

Melancon said it simply taught him the value of building support behind the scenes.

"You can get more things done quietly rather than trying to be a press hog or trying to get credit for stuff," he said. "That's the way I operate."

To that end, Melancon said he started forging relationships with politicians on committees that held the fate of legislation he considered important, such as expanding offshore oil and gas drilling, the subject of a field hearing of the House Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources in Port Fourchon on Aug. 13, 2005.

Sixteen days later, Hurricane Katrina left St. Bernard and Plaquemines parishes, the eastern end of the 3rd District, underwater. The storm would eventually give new urgency to a campaign for using offshore oil royalties as a source of money to restore the state's eroding coast.

Diving into action

Melancon had evacuated to his daughter's Baton Rouge condominium ahead of Katrina. He spent the better part of the first week after the storm visiting deluged sections of the district to ask what local leaders most needed.

"He showed up right away and asked if there was anything we needed," said Plaquemines Parish President Benny Rousselle, who backed Charmaine Caccioppi during the 2004 congressional primary and is supporting Melancon this time.

Melancon routed requests through the Federal Emergency Management Agency but quickly realized he wasn't getting results. Tractor trailers loaded with food and water that his office sent to the Crescent City Connection toll plaza to await airlift sat there for days, Melancon said, because someone incorrectly reported the items already delivered.

So he concentrated on lining up those in need with direct aid from donors, such as a California philanthropist who chartered jets to ferry medical supplies into the region.

Not a month later, the west end of the district, untouched by Katrina, was slammed by Hurricane Rita.

Melancon's job for both storms soon switched from attempting on-the-ground relief to mustering support on the House floor for spending packages that the region needed in order to rebound.

Sitting in limbo

With new fervor, the Louisiana delegation latched on to an expansion of drilling beyond the continental shelf as a major way to pay for long-term hurricane protection projects in southeast Louisiana.

Melancon waited several weeks to sign on to the version pushed by Rep. Bobby Jindal, R-Kenner. He said he was lining up support among Democrats, some of whom he feared would dismiss it outright for environmental reasons.

"The Democrats are the reason we haven't had an energy bill . . . and that's my party," Melancon said. "So I've got to keep my party from whipping against it, which if they whip against it, we wouldn't even have a House version."

The House eventually approved a bill that would lift a 25-year-old drilling moratorium off the U.S. coast and generate $9 billion in oil royalties for Louisiana in a decade. It scaled back the state's share by about $1 billion over a previous version that would have given 75 percent of oil and gas produced within 12 miles of shore to states, compared with the successful bill's award of 25 percent of coastal states' royalties in the next five years, increasing to 50 percent in a decade.

"The bill that we got in the House is very generous," Melancon said. "I knew from the beginning, when I first read it, that we'd never get close to those kind of numbers and things that we asked for. But there are some elements in there that are good that can be put together, tied together with the Senate bill."

Nevertheless, the two chambers could not reach a compromise before the October recess, leaving Melancon to return to campaign without what he surely would have touted as a victory for southeast Louisiana had it passed. Melancon said he is confident Congress will make progress when it returns after the Nov. 7 election.

On that day, said Pearson Cross, assistant professor of political science at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, voters likely will be looking to Melancon's record in the past two years, not Romero's possible record, when deciding whom to send to Washington.

"This election is a referendum on Melancon and the job that he's done in Congress, and it's less a referendum on who will do a better job, Melancon or Romero. It boils down to: 'Is Melancon, in your opinion, representing the district well and paying attention to your issues?' "