The new congressman from the 2nd District is Tim Griffin, a Republican who won the 2010 election to succeed retiring Democratic Rep. Vic Snyder. Read More

The new congressman from the 2nd District is Tim Griffin, a Republican who won the 2010 election to succeed retiring Democratic Rep. Vic Snyder.

Griffin, the son of a Baptist minister and a teacher, was born in Charlotte, N.C., and grew up in Magnolia, Ark., near the Louisiana border. He graduated cum laude from Hendrix College, north of Little Rock, and Tulane University Law School, and later studied at Oxford University. Griffin spent the past 14 years as a judge advocate in the Army and served in Mosul, Iraq. In 2003, Shannon Boozman, the daughter of Rep. John Boozman, R-Ark., set Griffin up on a blind date with Elizabeth, a sorority sister from the University of Arkansas. Two years later, they married.

In the late 1990s Griffin worked for Independent Counsel David Barrett in his investigation of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Henry Cisneros, a Democrat. Griffin then became an investigator for the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee under then-Chairman Dan Burton, R-Ind. He later worked for the Republican National Committee, helping with George W. Bush’s recount effort in Florida during the 2000 election and doing opposition research for Bush’s 2004 campaign. When Bush won a second term, Griffin became a deputy to Karl Rove, the president’s top political operative.

Griffin gained national attention in early 2007, shortly after Bush fired nine U.S. attorneys, including Bud Cummins of the Eastern District of Arkansas, an action that Democrats charged was politically motivated. Paul McNulty, a Bush deputy attorney general, later acknowledged that Cummins had not been fired over performance. Griffin was picked as Cummins’ successor, but the state’s senators, Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor, both Democrats, refused to support his nomination. Bush appointed him anyway. Griffin resigned after six months, saying that the Bush administration had “mishandled” his appointment and that partisan senators were uninterested in giving him a fair hearing. A special prosecutor said in July that no criminal charges would be filed over the firings.

After leaving government, Griffin ran his law firm and a public affairs business. He considered challenging Lincoln in 2010 but eventually decided to run against Snyder, who, he contended, had not properly represented the Republican-leaning district’s views because Snyder supported President Obama’s agenda. His road to Congress was a sign of just how deep the dissatisfaction with Democrats was in red states in 2010. Despite his notoriety from the 2006 firings, Griffin had an easy path to victory. Well-connected in Republican circles, Griffin had no trouble raising money, and he mostly avoided being tagged as a Washington insider.

In the May Republican primary, Griffin outraised opponent Scott Wallace, a restaurant owner, nearly 7-to-1 and won with 62% of the vote. That set up a general-election matchup with state Sen. Joyce Elliott, a former public-school teacher who was forced to spend most of her money on a Democratic primary battle against state House Speaker Robbie Wills. Griffin defeated Elliott, 58% to 38%.