BIOGRAPHY
Updated Aug. 8, 2008

In the current 110^th Congress, Congressman Jim Saxton is a 13-term member of the U.S. House of Representatives for New Jersey's Third Congressional District, having first been sworn in to serve in the 96^th Congress (1982-1984) in a special election to fill the seat of U.S. Rep. Edwin B. Forsythe, who died in office.

Rising Seniority in House Committees

Mr. Saxton, 65, has risen in seniority. In January 2007 House GOP Leader John Boehner appointed him as Ranking Member to the Joint Economic Committee (JEC) of the House and U.S. Senate (he was also Chairman 1997-1998, 2001-2002 and 2004-2006). He sits on the House Armed Services Committee's (HASC) Air and Land Forces Subcommittee as the designated Ranking Republican. He also is a senior member of the Terrorism and Unconventional Threats Subcommittee (he founded the subcommittee in 2002 and chaired the HASC Military Construction Subcommittee 2001-2006). He is also a senior Member of the House Natural Resources Committee and its Fisheries, Wildlife and Oceans Subcommittee, of which he was Chairman 1994-2000, Vice Chairman 2000-2006).

He is the highest-ranking Republican House member on the JEC; the second-ranking Republican on the Resources Committee among approximately 60 members; and the second-ranking Republican of about 60 who sit on HASC. He also sits on the Merchant Marine Panel.

Tapped to Head House Anti-Terrorism Role

In 2000, because of his 15-year campaign to bring terrorism issues to the attention of Congress, Congressman Saxton was selected by the Speaker of the House to be the Chairman of the first House Special Oversight Panel on Terrorism, which addressed threats to the United States and its allies from terrorism and from weapons of mass destruction, such as bio-terrorism and cyber-terrorism. That post was a springboard for Mr. Saxton to finally convince House leaders to create the new House terrorism subcommittee (a part of the Armed Services Committee) in the wake of 9/11, in early 2002. Mr. Saxton was immediately selected by House leaders to chair the subcommittee (from 2002-2006), which oversees a budget of over $30 billion annually to fund U.S. Special Forces, including Green Berets, Navy SEALS, Army Rangers, the Defense Advance Research Projects Agency and other high-tech research initiatives.

NJ-03... From the Shore to the Delaware

Congressman Saxton has fashioned a legislative agenda as diverse as the Third District, which reaches from the banks of the Delaware River to the shores of Long Beach Island. The district includes nearly half of the federally protected, 1.1 million-acre Pinelands National Reserve, vast farmlands, over 35 miles of shoreline, barrier islands, three large bays, rivers, estuaries. His record in striving for clean water, clean air, coastal protection, wildlife protection and open space has established the congressman as a leading conservationist in the Congress.

The district has been home to 65-square miles of Army, Navy and Air Forces bases, and a high-tech hub in the greater Moorestown, N.J. area that primarily performs defense-related work.

Thus, the two committees upon which he serves in the House, the Natural Resources Committee and the Armed Services Committee, are perfectly geared to the Third District.

Mr. Saxton has a reputation as a tireless legislator who responds promptly and conclusively to his constituency regarding issues of importance to the district.

Mr. Saxton's Biggest Victories

MEDICARE FUNDING - In one of the most significant accomplishments of his career, in 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008, Mr. Saxton initiated a campaign to bring up to $42 million in ANNUAL Medicare reimbursements to South Jersey hospitals. Every hospital in Ocean, Burlington, Mercer and Camden counties benefited, as did the majority of hospitals across New Jersey. Congressman Saxton, joined by Congressman LoBiondo of Ventnor, rectified an unfair reimbursement formula that weighed against small, often rural or suburban hospitals.

HELPED SAVE FORT DIX, MCGUIRE AFB & NAVY LAKEHURST, ADDED THOUSANDS OF NEW JOBS- He is also widely recognized in the Garden State for taking on the Pentagon in a trio of battles to save Fort Dix (1988, 1991) and McGuire Air Force Base (1993), as well as neighboring Lakehurst Naval Air Engineering Station (with colleague Rep. Chris Smith in 1995) during Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) hearings. In all four cases, the Pentagon was reversed, and today Fort Dix and McGuire have added thousands of jobs and are busier than they have ever been in peacetime. In BRAC 2005, with bases closing all over the country, Saxton convinced the Pentagon to combine McGuire, Fort Dix and Lakehurst into a single joint base, dubbed “mega base” by local newspapers, effectively saving Lakehurst from closure. The BRAC recommendations became public law, and by 2011 some 2,000-3,000 new jobs will come to the new military installation, titled “Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst” as the nation’s only Army-Air Force-Navy installation that also has significant Marine and Coast Guard presence.

BRINGING HOME THE ‘BIG J’ - Also notable was winning the federal competition to bring home the WWII-era Battleship USS New Jersey to the Delaware River in South Jersey in 2000. The upset victory over the favored North Jersey location paved the way for a major naval museum that opened in 2001 and has drawn thousands of visitors annually to help revitalize the Camden Waterfront. Rep. Saxton worked on an extensive, bipartisan plan over several years to convince the Navy to tow the Battleship from the North Pacific down to and through the Panama Canal (just prior to the U.S. ceding control of the canal to Panama) to place the Big J in the Philadelphia Navy Yard. As a senior member of the Armed Services Committee, he worked to convince the Secretary of the Navy that the Delaware River, where the ship had been built and launched in 1943, was the proper site for the historic vessel’s final home.

STRENGTHENING & GROWING McGUIRE, DIX AND LAKEHURST - In 2001, Congressman Saxton’s eight-year plan to bring ultramodern Boeing C-17 Globemasters to McGuire AFB came to fruition when the Air Force informed Mr. Saxton it intended to send a squadron of the cargo planes to McGuire, helping to ensure McGuire's role in the 21st century. In September 2004, the Congressman helped welcome the first of McGuire’s C-17s, which arrived straight from the California factory, through mid-2005. The base has seen more than $150 million of new construction in the 2000-2003 federal budgets, then most in its history. McGuire has seen over a billion dollars in new construction over the past 15 years. In the 2005 defense budget, Mr. Saxton helped steer over $50 million to Fort Dix, McGuire AFB and Navy Lakehurst. In 2006, he helped put $48 million in the budget. In 2007, he helped obtain more than $17 million for Dix and $85 million for McGuire, a new record. Incredibly, in July 2008, the House passed a defense budget that smashed military construction records of the past, with a record-breaking $179 million funds for 2009 to create the coming Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst. Early key successes included: a brilliant move to bring a Guard and Reserve mission to Fort Dix after the Army gave up its basic training mission there in 1992, thereby saving Fort Dix from closure; supporting the creation of a minimum security Federal prison in vacant Dix facilities, which brought with it 645 new jobs, and; transferring 30 modern tankers from Barksdale AFB to McGuire, and with it a refueling mission that continues today.

CONGRESS’ AIR MOBILITY ADVOCATE - Ever a watchdog of overspending, Mr. Saxton helped Congress purchase 60 more C-17 modern cargo planes in 2002 for 25 percent less than previously estimated costs. The plane is widely viewed as the best transport aircraft built in the history of aviation. Since 2005, he has sought authorization for the Air Force to negotiate to buy another 42 C-17s, to a total of 222 (he has publicly called for at least 270 C-17s, to replace the 270 C-141s the Air Force retired). Working with other senior members of the House Armed Services Committee, he added authorization language to the FY2007 defense authorization bill. In 2006-07, he was a leader in the fight to authorize and appropriate funds for 10 more C-17s, and later helped add another 15 in a 2008 supplemental spending bill. He asserts the strong case that at least another 15 are needed because of the rate C-17s have been used in Operation Iraqi Freedom, and supports their purchase in the 2009 defense bill.

Cong. Saxton is an advocate of modernizing the nation’s critical tanker fleet. McGuire AFB in his district operates nearly 40 tankers, one of the largest tanker fleets of any East Coast base. McGuire is responsible for providing the “air bridge” over the Atlantic to Europe, the Middle East and western Africa. In 2008, Congressman Saxton has voiced strong concerns over the Pentagon’s unprecedented, initial selection of a French-made tanker (Airbus’ first ever attempt at manufacturing a refueling aircraft), over the U.S.-made model for the decision’s impact on the shrinking U.S. defense industrial base and its ability to build large military airplanes. The purchase, at $170 billion one of the largest Pentagon contracts in history, also concerns the Congressman because of the French plane’s shortcomings in greater fuel consumption and its overly large size. While he supports the GAO’s determination (which was highly critical of the AF selection of the Airbus plane) to require a new bid, he is disappointed that the new Air Force RFP release in August 2008 was strongly geared to the French plane.

YEARS OF MILITARY BASE MODERNIZATION BEAR FRUIT - As chairman of the Military Construction Subcommittee between 2001-02, he brought millions of dollars to every one of New Jersey's main military installations, a total of over $200 million in new construction in the state. These projects were critical in that they were all funded and constructed prior to the May 2005 BRAC list.

Congressman Saxton designed a 10-12 year plan to modernize Fort Dix, McGuire AFB and Navy Lakehurst. He worked closely with base commanders to support important projects in defense budgets that enhanced existing missions and attracted new missions. Working with DoD officials from the Army, Navy and Air Force, he has spent the past 10 years highlighting and promoting multi-service projects that improved “jointness” between the bases. On May 13, 2005, that strategy paid off when the Pentagon specifically recommended that the three adjoining bases be combined and dubbed “Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst,” along with 11 other bases. The coming “Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst” will be the only Army-Navy-Air Force base in the country.

Under Congressman Saxton’s tenure, bases were not only removed from closure lists, but received dozens of new projects from airfields, ranges, hangars and training facilties, as well as thousands of new homes for military families. The end result is modern bases made very valuable to the Department of Defense for future operations.

Fighting for Ocean Legislation, Winning Beach Repair Funds

As a senior member of the Fisheries, Wildlife and Oceans Subcommittee, a part of the House Natural Resources Committee, he has actively fought for sensible fisheries management as well as for fishermen's rights and the Jersey Shore economy. He has sponsored legislation banning sludge dumping off the Atlantic Coast, as well as bills that protect dolphins, sea turtles, sharks and other marine mammals, domestic coral reefs and marine sanctuaries. He led the fight to aid New Jersey fishermen by expanding the summer folounder quota for 2007, and laying out a plan to expand the quota over the next five years. He has aided fishermen regarding monkfish, tilefish and other species. He also has added millions of dollars to keep the channels clear in Barnegat Bay, which is critical to the commercial fishing fleet, recreational boaters and marinas. He has also vigorously defended fishermen’s rights to access the Holgate section of the Forsythe Wildlife Refuge.

In 2005, Mr. Saxton obtained $5 million of construction funds (enough to start construction) in the House budget for the long-awaited Long Beach Island (LBI) project to fix beach damage from three back-to-back storms in 1991 and 1992. The Army Corps of Engineers has spent 10 years and $3.3 million designing the project. Mr. Saxton also acquired $1.75 million in construction funds between 2003-2004. The funds were used to complete a Surf City, N.J. section of the larger LBI project in 2007. In the 2007 supplemental, he added $4 million to clean up munitions discovered in Surf City. Mr. Saxton added $4.9 million in the 2008 budget for the overall LBI project, and worked to include $11.7 million in the 2009 Energy and Water budget. Due to Mr. Saxton’s innovative efforts to authorize the LBI project years ahead of schedule in 2000, the LBI project is one of the last in the country funded 65 percent by the federal government. All others are expected to be at 35 percent. Prior to the start of the next phase, however, the State of N.J. must still approve local beach access.

Working for a Healthy Local & National Economy

Mr. Saxton is credited with promoting South Jersey high-tech industry and job growth, particularly for the shore-based tourism industry and the defense industry that employs thousands of South Jersey residents.

In the 1990s and early 2000s, he was able to obtain research funds for missile defense R&D in South Jersey. This later proved critical in 2006 when the Navy stopped ordering the Aegis DDG-51 destroyers that had been the bulk of the plant’s work and future. The rapid proliferation of missile technology to aggressive nations like North Korea and Iran created an immediate need for national missile defense. Job losses due to the end of the DDG-51 program were more than offset by Aegis technology being revamped for missile defense. This new technology, developed with funding added by Congressman Saxton, resulted in the highly publicized and unprecedented shoot down of a falling satellite by a U.S. Navy ship armed with the Aegis ABM system in March 2008.

Under Congressman Saxton’s tenure, federal dollars for new construction projects on the bases totaled over $2 billion. This helped provide construction workers with a constant source of jobs, and area construction and supply firms with business.

His decade-long work on the Joint Economic Committee led him to have regular dialogue with then Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan, with whom Mr. Saxton has forged a strong relationship supporting the Chairman's anti-inflation policies that have led to unprecedented economic growth. In 2006, he welcomed and forged a new relationship with new Chairman Ben Bernanke. The Congressman is a fiscal conservative and solid supporter of tax code reform and controlled spending, including income tax reductions and incentives for higher savings, as well as higher IRA contributions and penalty-free withdrawals from 401K and IRA plans for senior citizens. His plan to promote middle-class investments in mutual funds with tax reforms has garnered national acclaim.

Personal History

The Congressman is a native of Nicholson, Pa., and graduated from East Stroudsburg University. He also attended Temple University.

Mr. Saxton is a former public elementary school teacher and small business owner. He resides in Burlington County, N.J. He served six years in the N.J. Assembly and three years in the N.J. Senate. He has two children, and three grandchildren.

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