Republicans Face Tough Job Market
Roll Call Staff
At the time, Margolies-Mezvinsky’s lineup of staffers included Amy Walter, who is now the editor of the Hotline.
Retiring Rep. Tom Reynolds (N.Y.), the former chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, also is staying mum on what his future entails — but it’s not for a lack of offers, he said.
“I haven’t ruled out anything, I haven’t ruled in anything,” said Reynolds, who also sits on the powerful House Ways and Means Committee. “I don’t actually know what I want to do yet — that’s how free I am about it all.”
Regardless of their political stripes, recruiting firms and lobbying shops say Reynolds, LaHood and other Republicans with in-demand policy expertise should have no trouble eventually finding work. In addition to tax and other economic-policy-writing expertise, former Members with knowledge of health care, energy and environmental issues are generating the most interest.
Their expected baseline salary: $400,000.
“For Republicans, I haven’t had a lot of resistance at the firms to talking with them,” a recruiter told Roll Call. “It depends on the individual candidates and what they did in Congress.”
But it’s what some departing — and otherwise qualified — GOP Members did outside of normal working hours in Congress that may make boards of directors hesitant to make an offer.
Of the more than 40 Republican House Members who are either retiring or were defeated this cycle, at least seven potential top recruits will leave Congress with significant ethical or personal baggage: Reps. Tom Feeney (Fla.), Randy Kuhl (N.Y.), Heather Wilson (N.M.), John Doolittle (Calif.), Vito Fossella (N.Y.), Rick Renzi (Ariz.) and Jerry Weller (Ill.).
Feeney, whose 2003 trip to Scotland with jailed lobbyist Jack Abramoff contributed to his defeat at the polls, sits on the Financial Services panel, while Kuhl, who allegedly pulled two shotguns on his wife more than a decade ago, sits on the Agriculture panel.
Wilson, who sits on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, acknowledged asking a U.S. attorney to follow up on politically charged voter fraud cases two years ago. Meanwhile, Doolittle, whose Virginia house was raided by the FBI last year, sat on the House Appropriations panel until he was stripped of his committee assignments.
Fossella, who sits on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, awaits sentencing on drunken-driving charges, an arrest that also first exposed the married Member’s long-term affair and love child.
On Friday, the Justice Department lodged new charges against Renzi, who once sat on the House Financial Services Committee, for racketeering and tax fraud. Earlier this year, he was indicted on 35 additional corruption charges. And Weller, who announced his retirement in late 2007 after a local newspaper explored his questionable Central American land deals, sits on the Ways and Means panel.
But regardless of why retiring GOP Members may be slow to find work — save for incarceration — one former Member joked that they will all land on their feet.
“Republicans take care of their own,” the ex-lawmaker said.
Correction: Dec. 8, 2008
The article incorrectly stated that Jake Tapper was a staffer for Rep. Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky (D-Pa.) when she lost re-election in 1994. Tapper left Margolies-Mezvinsky’s office before the election.
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