Thomas M. Reynolds (born September 3, 1950) is an American politician from the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sove ...

of New York, formerly representing the state's 27th and 26th Congressional districts in the

United States House of Representatives The United States House of Representatives, often referred to as the House of Representatives, the U.S. House, or simply the House, is the lower chamber of the United States Congress, with the Senate being the upper chamber. Together they ...

. Reynolds was chairman of the

National Republican Congressional Committee The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) is the Republican Hill committee which works to elect Republicans to the United States House of Representatives. The NRCC was formed in 1866, when the Republican caucuses of the House and ...

, the official Republican House campaign organization, for the 2006 election cycle. He retired amid scandal at the end of the 110th Congress. He was cleared of any wrongdoing by the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct. Chris Lee was elected to succeed him.

Early life

Reynolds was born in

Bellefonte, Pennsylvania Bellefonte is a borough in, and the county seat of, Centre County in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. It is approximately twelve miles northeast of State College and is part of the State College, Pennsylvania Metropolitan Statistical Area. The bor ...

, and graduated from the Springville-Griffith Institute. He served in the New York Air National Guard from 1970-76. He entered politics as a

Republican Republican can refer to: Political ideology * An advocate of a republic, a type of government that is not a monarchy or dictatorship, and is usually associated with the rule of law. ** Republicanism, the ideology in support of republics or agains ...

, and was elected to the Concord, New York, town board in 1974, and to the Erie County legislature in 1982. He was a member of the New York State Assembly (147th D.) from 1989 to 1998, sitting in the 188th,

189th 189th may refer to: *189th (Canadien-Français) Battalion, CEF, a unit in the Canadian Expeditionary Force during the First World War *189th Airlift Squadron, a unit of the Idaho Air National Guard that flies the C-130 Hercules *189th Airlift Wing, ...

, 190th, 191st and 192nd New York State Legislatures. He was Minority Leader from June 1995 to March 1998.

U.S. House of Representatives

1998 election

Reynolds ran for the House in 1998 after

Bill Paxon Leon William Paxon (born April 29, 1954) is an American lobbyist and former member of the United States House of Representatives from New York. Early life Paxon was born in Akron, New York, near Buffalo. At the age of 15, Paxon volunteered fo ...

was forced out of his leadership role in the House Republican leadership ranks because of his role in a coup attempt against Newt Gingrich. Paxon endorsed Reynolds, who had managed several of his past campaigns, as his successor. There was controversy because Reynolds did not live in Paxon's district; his Springville home was in the neighboring district of fellow Republican Jack Quinn, who was running for his own reelection. Reynolds would not move into the district until eight months after the election when he purchased a home in

Clarence Clarence may refer to: Places Australia * Clarence County, New South Wales, a Cadastral division * Clarence, New South Wales, a place near Lithgow * Clarence River (New South Wales) * Clarence Strait (Northern Territory) * City of Clarence, a l ...

, near Amherst, one of the larger towns in the seven-county district.

Committee assignments

* Ways and Means Committee ** Subcommittee on Select Revenue Measures ** Subcommittee on Trade

Political positions

Reynolds had a

conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in ...

voting record in Congress. His 83 percent rating from the

American Conservative Union The American Conservative Union (ACU) is an American political organization that advocates for conservative policies, ranks politicians based on their level of conservatism, and organizes the Conservative Political Action Conference. Founded on ...

tied him with Peter T. King of Long Island as the third-most conservative among the state's 29 Representatives as of the 110th Congress. Only Representatives Randy Kuhl (92%) and Vito Fossella (84%) received higher ratings. Reynolds is on record as a member of the

American Legislative Exchange Council The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is a nonprofit organization of conservative state legislators and private sector representatives who draft and share model legislation for distribution among state governments in the United State ...

(ALEC).

Re-elections

In the 2000 round of redistricting, a

special master In the law of the United States, a special master is generally a subordinate official appointed by a judge to ensure judicial orders are followed, or in the alternative, to hear evidence on behalf of the judge and make recommendations to the jud ...

proposed a plan that would have made his district slightly more Democratic. Although Republicans would have still held a plurality, the plan would have left Reynolds vulnerable to a primary with a moderate Republican. According to one political strategist, Reynolds and his allies in Washington wanted a district that would let him vote "like a Southern conservative". With the help of Vice President Dick Cheney, Reynolds pressured the state legislature to

gerrymander In representative democracies, gerrymandering (, originally ) is the political manipulation of electoral district boundaries with the intent to create undue advantage for a party, group, or socioeconomic class within the constituency. The m ...

his district so that it closely resembled his former territory. He was handily reelected from this reconfigured district in 2002. In 2004, his opponent was millionaire industrialist Jack Davis. Reynolds won by 12 points, an unusually close margin given that he had won with 72% of the vote two years earlier. In 2006 Reynolds again defeated Davis by 4% of the vote amid the Mark Foley page scandal.

Retirement and lobbying career

On March 20, 2008, Reynolds announced he would not run for a sixth term: "it was time to take up new challenges". Aside from fallout from the scandal regarding U.S. Representative

Mark Foley Mark Adam Foley (born September 8, 1954) is an American former politician who served as a member of the United States House of Representatives. He served from 1995 until 2006, representing the 16th District of Florida as a member of the Republic ...

(R-FL), another factor was thought to be revelations that a former NRCC treasurer had embezzled hundreds of thousands of dollars from the committee treasury while Reynolds chaired it. According to the '' New York Daily News'' political reporter Elizabeth Benjamin, the NRCC was never independently audited during Reynolds' three-year tenure as its chairman. Reynolds was the 29th Republican incumbent to announce he would not run again in 2008. Despite the perception that Reynolds had the district redrawn to protect him, it is actually a somewhat marginal district on paper; it has a

Cook Partisan Voting Index The Cook Partisan Voting Index, abbreviated Cook PVI, CPVI, or PVI, is a measurement of how strongly a United States congressional district or U.S. state leans toward the Democratic or Republican Party, compared to the nation as a whole, based ...

of R+3. In 2017, Reynolds joined Washington, D.C. lobbying firm Holland and Knight as a senior policy advisor.

National Republican Congressional Committee

Reynolds served as chairman of the

from 2003 to 2006. During the 2004 House elections the Republicans gained three seats to increase their majority to 232. The 2006 House election saw a Republican loss of 30 seats, losing the majority to the Democrats.

2006 House page scandal

Rodney Alexander Rodney McKinnie Alexander (born December 5, 1946) is an American politician and member of the Republican Party who served as the Secretary of the Louisiana Department of Veterans Affairs from September 30, 2013, until June 3, 2014. Previously he w ...

(R-

Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is borde ...

), the sponsor of a House page (from his district) who received e-mails from Representative

, told reporters that he learned of the e-mails from the page's family in November 2005. Alexander said the family did not want the matter pursued. Alexander said he passed information that Foley had appeared overly friendly first to Majority Leader John Boehner, and later to Reynolds, chairman of the

Carl Forti Carl Forti (born June 29, 1972) is an American Republican Party strategist who is the political director of Karl Rove's American Crossroads Super PAC. He was political director for Mitt Romney in 2008. Prior to joining American Crossroads, Forti ...

, a spokesman for the GOP campaign organization, said Reynolds also was told by Alexander that the parents did not want to pursue the matter and that they did not want a large-scale investigation. Reynolds later issued a statement that he had spoken with House Speaker Dennis Hastert about the matter early in 2006. According to ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

'', "Republican insiders said Reynolds spoke out because he was angry that Hastert appeared willing to let him take the blame for the party leadership's silence." Hastert did not "explicitly recall" that conversation but said he did not dispute it. On October 2, Reynolds held a

press conference A press conference or news conference is a media event in which notable individuals or organizations invite journalists to hear them speak and ask questions. Press conferences are often held by politicians, corporations, non-governmental organ ...

on the matter, from Buffalo at

Daemen College Daemen University is a private university in Amherst, New York and Brooklyn, New York. Formerly Daemen College and Rosary Hill College, the now-nondenominational school was founded by the Sisters of St. Francis in 1947. As of fall 2020, 2,536 s ...

while surrounded by numerous children of his adult supporters. He said he took the Foley matter to his "supervisor" as soon as he found out about it. Reynolds claimed that he had no knowledge of any sexual conversations or e-mails between Foley and the page until after it was disclosed in the media. Soon after, he made a televised campaign advertisement stating that he had had no knowledge of the depth of Foley's transgressions until afterwards. In December 2006, Reynolds was largely exonerated by the Republican-controlled House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, which probed the Foley case. The ''

Rochester Democrat and Chronicle The ''Democrat and Chronicle'' is a daily newspaper serving the greater Rochester, New York, area. At 245 East Main Street in downtown Rochester, the ''Democrat and Chronicle'' operates under the ownership of Gannett. The paper's production fac ...

'' reported in its December 9 edition that "Rep. Tom Reynolds told the truth when he said he told House Speaker Dennis Hastert about ex-Rep. Mark Foley's questionable e-mails to congressional pages, the House ethics committee has concluded", while the Associated Press reported "the House ethics committee on Friday cleared Rep. Thomas Reynolds and his ex-chief of staff Kirk Fordham of wrongdoing in the congressional page scandal." On page 76 of its report, the committee reported they had uncovered that "the communications directors for both the House Democratic Caucus and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee also had copies of the e-mails in the fall of 2005", months prior to Reynolds' knowledge of the incident. During the 2006 campaign, Republicans charged that Democrats had prior knowledge of Foley's inappropriate e-mails with a House page. Democrats, including DCCC Chairman

Rahm Emanuel Rahm Israel Emanuel (; born November 29, 1959) is an American politician and diplomat who is the current United States Ambassador to Japan. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served two terms as the 55th Mayor of Chicago from 2011 ...

, denied the accusation.