David Jolly

Early life

Jolly was born in Dunedin, Florida. He received his B.A. degree from Emory University in 1994 and his J.D. degree from the George Mason University School of Law in 2001.

Career

He worked for U.S. Representative Bill Young full-time from 1995 to 2006 in various positions, with a brief break for six months in 2001 when he worked at a Washington securities firm. In 2002, Jolly became Young's general counsel and held that position until he left in 2006. He served as the personal attorney for Young's family as well.

In 2007, Jolly joined Washington, D.C. firm Van Scoyoc Associates as a lobbyist and in 2011, he left Van Scoyoc to open his own firm, Three Bridges Advisors. He made political donations to both Republicans (about $36,000) and Democrats (about $30,000) during his time as a lobbyist. Jolly had his name removed from the Lobby Registry to run for the vacant House seat.

As of January 2014, he still worked as a lobbyist but his main job was as a vice president of the Clearwater-based investment company Boston Finance Group.

Jolly and his first wife bought a condo in Indian Shores, Florida, in 2005 and a house in Washington, D.C. in 2007. His divorce from his wife Carrie was finalized on January 16, 2014, and Jolly married Laura Donahoe on July 3, 2015.

Political career

Jolly formerly opposed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act But stated on an interview with MSNBC that during unemployment he had a new appreciation for its use as a "safety net". He is pro-life. Speaking about firearms policy, Jolly said: "I do believe the Second Amendment is a fundamental right, but I don't believe it's beyond the reach of regulation, and I believe it's appropriate to look at regulations that ultimately keep the guns out of the hands of criminals." He supports the Balanced Budget Amendment, and says he would have voted to raise the debt limit in early 2014.

Jolly supports sending special operations forces overseas, securing the border, increasing the vetting process for legal immigrants, and increasing surveillance of suspected domestic terrorists. In February 2014, Jolly introduced the Naval Station Guantanamo Bay Protection Act.

Jolly pushed to extend the ban on oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. In January 2015, Jolly announced plans to introduce a bill that would extend the reforms of the federal flood insurance program. In July 2015, Jolly introduced the Veterans Health Care Freedom Act. Jolly encouraged the U.S. House to extend the Treasure Island beach re-nourishment project.

On July 21, 2014, Jolly announced his support for the legality of same-sex marriage, stating: "I believe in a form of limited government that protects personal liberty. To me, that means that the sanctity of one’s marriage should be defined by their faith and by their church, not by their state." He said "As a matter of my Christian faith, I believe in traditional marriage."

On August 29, 2015, Jolly attended a concert as "guest of honor" and a fundraiser as a "special guest" that were hosted by the Church of Scientology, which is based inside his congressional district in Clearwater, Florida.

In April 2016, Jolly's United States Senate campaign spokesperson Sarah Bascom confirmed that the campaign had made edits to his Wikipedia page to remove information about Jolly, including references to the Church of Scientology and his lobbying activities, alleging that it presented a "public negative narrative" against him, and accused an unnamed rival campaign of adding "propaganda" to the article. Jolly called it "a careless staff mistake" and said that he stands by his record and wants the public to be fully informed.

Jolly was ranked as the 48th most bipartisan member of the U.S. House of Representatives during the 114th United States Congress (and the fourth most bipartisan member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Florida) in the Bipartisan Index created by The Lugar Center and the McCourt School of Public Policy that ranks members of the United States Congress by their degree of bipartisanship (by measuring the frequency each member's bills attract co-sponsors from the opposite party and each member's co-sponsorship of bills by members of the opposite party).

Committee assignments

2014 special election

On January 14, 2014, Jolly won the Republican nomination over Mark Bircher and Kathleen Peters, winning a plurality of 45% of the vote. Jolly faced Democratic nominee Alex Sink and a libertarian candidate, Lucas Overby, in the special election. The race received national attention as possibly forecasting the mid-term elections that were coming in November of that year and became the most expensive Congressional race in history, with around $11M spent, $9M of it by outside groups. During the campaign there was friction between the National Republican Congressional Committee and Jolly; the RNC thought Jolly's campaign was inept, and Jolly criticized the negative ads run by the RNC. and voters were generally unhappy with the overwhelming number of attack ads on both sides.

Jolly won the election on March 11, 2014 with 48.4% of the vote after being behind in the early tallies; he was sworn into office on March 13.

2014 general election

Jolly ran for reelection to his first full term in November 2014. He was unopposed in the Republican primary, and no Democrat ran against him in the general election; his only challenger was Lucas Overby, the Libertarian nominee who came in third in the special election one year prior. Jolly defeated Overby with 75% of the vote.

2016 U.S. Senate election

On July 20, 2015, Jolly announced that he was giving up his seat to run for the United States Senate seat being vacated by Marco Rubio, who was not running for reelection due to his bid for the U.S. presidency. As of August 2015, it appeared that Jolly would face several opponents in the August 30, 2016 Republican primary election, including U.S. Representative Ron DeSantis and Lieutenant Governor of Florida Carlos López-Cantera. However, on June 17, 2016, after Rubio reversed his decision, Jolly withdrew from the Senate race to run for re-election to the House, citing "unfinished business."

2016 general election

In his bid for a second full term, Jolly faced former Florida governor Charlie Crist, a St. Petersburg resident. He found himself in a district that had been made significantly more Democratic after a court threw out Florida's original congressional map. Notably, it absorbed a heavily Democratic portion of southern Pinellas County, including almost all of St. Petersburg. Previously, some of the more Democratic portions of St. Petersburg had been in the Tampa-based 14th District.

Ultimately, Jolly lost to Crist by 51.9% to 48.1%. Jolly's defeat ended a 62-year hold on this St. Petersburg-based district by the GOP. William Cramer won the seat for the Republicans in 1954, handing it to Young in 1970. The district had changed numbers seven times during this period, from the 1st (1955-1963) to the 12th (1963-1967) to the 8th (1967-1973, 1983-1993) to the 6th (1973-1983) to the 10th (1993-2013) to the 13th (2013-present).

Electoral history

Florida's 13th Congressional District election, 2014