New Jersey GOP Rep. Scott Garrett
According to Bloomberg Politics, GOP Rep. Scott Garrett is
actually paying a price for his retrograde views on gays: Major Wall Street donors, including Goldman Sachs, have reportedly stopped giving to the congressman, and the so-called "Big Four" accounting firms cancelled a fundraiser that had been planned on his behalf.
As chair of a Financial Services subcommittee that oversees capital markets, Garrett had grown accustomed to heavy-duty corporate support over the years. Indeed, says Bloomberg, Garrett's position is known as the "ATM" because it "almost guarantees endless streams of cash from the financial firms that have business before the panel." (Yay for democracy!) But he made headlines (the bad kind) a few weeks ago when he insisted that he hadn't paid his dues to the NRCC because the committee supports gay candidates. In 2015, that ain't a good look, even for the GOP.
And not only has this hurt Garrett, it's also helped his Democratic opponent, Microsoft executive Josh Gottheimer. Steve Elmendorf, a top Democratic lobbyist, decided to host a high-dollar fundraiser in DC this week for Gottheimer, who's already shown he can rake in the bucks. If Garret's bigotry-fueled parsimony turns out, at long last, to lead to his undoing, it won't be a moment too soon.