Rep. Mac Thornberry

ac Thornberry is the soft-spoken, self-deprecating kind of Texan. Celebrated for having introduced a bill, months before 9/

, to create a unified federal homeland-security agency, Thornberry downplays his own leadership. "When the Hart-Rudman Commission, in January 200

, said our No.

concern is homeland security, it really struck a chord with me, and so I just borrowed their proposal," he said-adding, with understatement, that "it really took September

to focus attention."
Commission Co-chair Warren Rudman speaks of the 45-year-old Thornberry's role with an avuncular pride: "The young congressman from Texas, he's terrific," Rudman said. "He was really out front."
Thornberry has been out front before: He struggled to reform the Energy Department's sprawling security bureaucracy before the

999 Chinese espionage scandals broke the political logjam and led to the creation of a specialized National Nuclear Security Administration within DOE. He is also involved with the "transformation" of the conventional military. With a major airbase, military contractors, and a nuclear weapons facility in his district, Thornberry naturally focuses on security issues-but what is unusual is his approach. "You try to work on what's important and do your homework, because you never know when circumstances"-like the Wen Ho Lee uproar with Energy, or 9/

itself-"will allow you to make a big leap."
But one leap did not get us all the way, he emphasizes. The Homeland Security Department "was created … to bring together 22 agencies from around the government into one seamless unit," Thornberry said. "But that integration has been incredibly slow. Too much of the time, you have the same old agencies in the same stovepiped system. I'm a little frustrated by the lack of speed."
Raised on a family ranch in Donley County, Thornberry holds degrees from Texas Tech and the University of Texas Law School.