Dennis Shulman for U.S. Congress: Sensible Leadership for New Jersey’s 5th District

July 17th, 2008

Since putting their former lobbyist on the government payroll as his Chief of Staff, Garrett has taken three contributions totaling $7,500 from disgraced Countrywide Financial

New Jersey — The Shulman for Congress campaign today called upon Scott Garrett to return his recent contributions from Countrywide Financial, the disgraced company that is at the center of the nation’s financial meltdown.

The contribution of $2,500 on June 3rd to Garrett from the Countrywide Financial Corporation PAC was revealed on Garrett’s latest FEC report. This contribution brings to $7,500 the amount raised by Garrett from Countrywide Financial in the three months since he hired Amy Smith to serve as his chief of staff at taxpayer expense. Amy Smith earned her lobbying firm nearly $400,000 from Countrywide Financial when she served as one of their key lobbyists while Countrywide was seeking the very policies that led to the current financial and housing crisis.

“Countrywide Financial is at the center of the housing-mortgage crisis which has helped throw our economy into recession - a crisis that Garrett until recently termed fear mongering,” said Shulman. “Garrett sits on the Housing Subcommittee of the House Financial Services Committee, and yet he is entirely in the pocket of the industry he is supposed to regulate in the public interest.”

“Garrett claimed this winter that `under 2 percent of the entire housing market segment is having a problem. The rest of the economy is good and the rest of the housing market is doing good,’ so it is no surprise that he is this out of touch with what is wrong in his office.”

“We in Northern New Jersey deserve a member of Congress devoted to the homeowners who live here, not the Washington, D.C. special interests who bankroll his campaign. We know that Garrett is determined to continue his twenty year career as a politician, but there should be limits on what he is willing to do to hold onto office. When elected to Congress, I will reject all special interest money from corporate interests with business in front of my committee.“

The Bergen Record noted, in endorsing Shulman in his primary, that “[w]e also appreciated Shulman’s emphasis on ethics. If elected, he said he would not accept contributions from industries regulated by his House committees.”

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