Scott Garrett

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E. Scott Garrett (born July 9, 1959 in Englewood, New Jersey) is a member of the United States House of Representatives. He is a Republican and has represented New Jersey's Fifth Congressional District seat since January 2003 (map).

Prior to being elected to the House, Garrett served in the New Jersey General Assembly (the lower house of the New Jersey Legislature) from 1990 to 2002 representing the 24th legislative district, which covers all of Sussex County and several municipalities in Morris and Hunterdon counties.

Garrett earned a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) degree from Montclair State University in 1981 and a Juris Doctor (J.D.) from Rutgers School of Law in (Camden) in 1984.

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Election history

Garrett unsuccessfully ran for Congress in 1998 and 2000 against incumbent Congresswoman Marge Roukema in the Republican primary. Both times he received 48% of the vote.[1] He received support from several groups who saw Roukema, a leading moderate Republican, as a Republican in Name Only (RINO).

In 2002, Roukema did not seek reelection and Garrett won a contested five-way primary with 45% of the vote over State Assemblyman David C. Russo (26%) and State Senator Gerald Cardinale (25%), who had received Roukema's endorsement.<ref>[2]</ref>

In the 2002 general election, Garrett faced Democrat Anne Sumers, a former Republican, in the general election. Roukema didn't endorse Garrett in the general election; in fact, she suggested that with Garrett as the Republican nominee, there was a chance that the district could have gone Democratic. This was very unusual for an incumbent of the same party, even though Garrett and Roukema had faced each other in bruising primaries in past years. However, she didn't endorse Sumers either, even though part of Sumers' strategy was to portray herself as a "Roukema Republican" and win support in Roukema's old Bergen County base (Bergen County is the biggest county in the 5th). Sumers' chances decreased significantly after she made several ill-advised comments about the U.S.-Taliban conflict on an Internet message board. The race essentially ended at that point, and Garrett won in a rout (60% to 38%[3]).

Garrett was reelected almost as easily in 2004 with 58% of the vote. He declined to debate Anne Wolfe, his Democratic opponent, several times.

In the House of Representatives, Garrett serves as a member of both the House Budget Committee and the House Financial Services Committee.

Garrett has a very conservative voting record, which is unusual for Republicans from New Jersey. He received perfect 100 ratings from the American Conservative Union in both 2003 and 2004, the highest of any congressman from the Northeast. He is considered to be even more conservative than the best-known conservative in the New Jersey Republican Party, former Jersey City mayor and two-time gubernatorial candidate Bret Schundler.

Garrett led a drive to demand the immediate resignation of Governor Jim McGreevey after he admitted to an extramarital affair with a male state employee. McGreevey announced that he would stay in office until November 15, 2004. Had McGreevey resigned before September 8, 2004, there would have been a special election at the same time as that year's presidential election. A petition on Garrett's campaign web site demanding a special election received 10,000 responses, but it is unknown how many signatories were actually from New Jersey.

He was one of several House conservatives who joined Democrats in opposing the Medicare Modernization Act in 2003.

In 2006, Garrett faces a Republican primary rival, Michael J. Cino of Bergen County. Paul Aronsohn, a former employee of the U.S. State Department during the Clinton Administration, is seeking the Democratic nomination.

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