The congressman from the 16th District is Tom Rooney, a Republican elected in 2008. Read More

The congressman from the 16th District is Tom Rooney, a Republican elected in 2008.

The grandson of Pittsburgh Steelers founding owner Art Rooney, he was born in Philadelphia and was a water boy for the team. (The Steelers were his largest single campaign contributor between 2008 and 2010.) When he was 14, his father moved to Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., where his family owned the Palm Beach Kennel Club, a racetrack and gambling business. Rooney briefly attended Syracuse University, where he earned a spot as a tight end and deep snapper for the Orangemen. But with no desire for a professional football career, Rooney transferred to the smaller Washington and Jefferson College just outside Pittsburgh, where he played both football and golf. He was a staff assistant for former Republican Sen. Connie Mack of Florida for a brief period, and then got a law degree from the University of Miami, where he met his wife, Tara. After graduation, Rooney was a special assistant U.S. attorney at Fort Hood in Texas, and later taught constitutional and criminal law at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. When Republican Charlie Crist became the Florida attorney general, he hired Rooney as an assistant attorney general in 2004. After leaving the attorney general’s office, he headed a home for abused children and, in 2006, entered private law practice in Stuart.

The two occupants of the 16th District seat before Rooney had been forced from office by scandal. In 2006, Democrat Tim Mahoney won the seat after Republican incumbent Mark Foley resigned amid allegations that he had sent sexually explicit messages to male congressional pages. Then in 2008, Mahoney looked to be headed for an easy re-election until ABC News broke the story that he had paid a former aide $121,000 to keep quiet about their affair after he ended the relationship and fired her. By that time, Rooney was already in the race and his campaign immediately picked up momentum as Mahoney’s political problems deepened. He became the obvious choice for scandal-fatigued voters in the district.

In the primary, Rooney had secured endorsements from Mack and Crist, who had since become governor. The governor’s endorsement riled the other two candidates, state Rep. Gayle Harrell and former Palm Beach Gardens City Councilman Hal Valeche, who pointed to the campaign contributions Crist had received from Rooney’s family. Rooney won the primary by only 1,011 votes over Harrell, 36.7%-34.9%. Harrell won pluralities in Martin and St. Lucie counties, but Rooney’s decisive victory in Charlotte County put him over the top.

In the general election campaign, Rooney portrayed Mahoney as too liberal for the district. But Mahoney far outpaced him in fundraising, and was ahead in most polls throughout the fall. The race changed course abruptly when the news of Mahoney’s extramarital affair and subsequent offer of hush money broke on Oct. 13. Mahoney then admitted to having “multiple affairs” while in Congress, but asserted he had done nothing to violate his oath of office. Rooney shot up nearly 25 points in the polls. Still, Mahoney declined to end his bid for re-election, even after Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called for an Ethics Committee investigation into the payment. Mahoney’s financial contributions quickly dried up. Rooney won easily won with 60% of the vote.

In the House, Rooney has shown a repeated willingness to cross party lines, joining with fellow freshman Rep. Michael McMahon, a New York Democrat, in taking up the cause of improving mental health in the military. They got a provision into the fiscal 2010 defense authorization bill requiring confidential one-on-one screening for all returning Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. Later that year, they introduced a measure to give participants in the military’s Tricare program direct access to mental health counseling without a referral. Rooney also joined with Democrat Rick Larsen of Washington on a bill to increase penalties for violent, gang-related crimes. And he was one of several Judiciary Committee Republicans in 2009 who opposed federal antitrust protections shielding health insurance companies from investigations into price-fixing and other practices.

But Rooney’s bipartisanship has its limits. When Judiciary members approved a bill in April 2009 expanding federal hate-crime protections to gays and lesbians, he sought to add military personnel and veterans to the list of protected groups. That led to an angry rebuke from Florida Democrat Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and his amendment was defeated. He joined the Agriculture Committee in mid-2010 and became an outspoken critic of efforts to lift the ban on travel and food sales to Cuba. He has taken a strong stand against illegal immigration and introduced a bill in 2010 to require incarcerated illegal immigrants to be deported as soon as they are released from jail.

In 2010, Democrats initially had high hopes that St. Lucie County Commissioner Chris Craft would make a strong run at Rooney. But Craft dropped out in March, leaving the Democratic race between two entrants without political experience. Democrat Jim Horn, an Army veteran and business consultant, won the August primary. But he could not come close to competing with Rooney, who sailed to re-election with 67% of the vote. Rooney’s brother, Brian, had less success in his own bid for the Michigan 7th District seat held by Democrat Mark Schauer; Brian Rooney lost in the GOP primary to former Rep. Tim Walberg, who ultimately reclaimed the seat.