Gottheimer: Garrett won't talk about transition

The bitterness that was a hallmark of the contest between Republican Rep. Scott Garrett and Democrat Josh Gottheimer apparently did not end when the polls closed and Gottheimer won by about 10,000 more votes.

In an interview about his orientation as a new member of Congress, Gottheimer told The Record that Garrett has not returned his calls or responded to a certified letter asking about a transition, especially to ensure constituent requests do not fall through the cracks.

“I called him," Gottheimer said Thursday. "I sent him a letter before Thanksgiving both thanking him for his service as well as asking him to meet to discuss the transition. My chief also reached out to his chief of staff. We just haven’t heard back.

GARRETT: Constituents won't be left hanging

Video: Gottheimer talks about working with Republicans

“My biggest thing is, these constituent issues are not partisan issues. Helping a veteran or a senior, making sure they get their Social Security, or helping a business that has an issue, this election should not affect their lives,” Gottheimer said.

Garrett’s spokesman did not respond to an email seeking comment on Friday, and his staff members had already been moved out of their office in the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill to temporary cubicles as work crews readied offices for new members.

Garrett, R-Wantage, did not vote in the House on Thursday or Friday. He was not seen entering or leaving a party conference Friday morning, where plans were discussed for this week, the final voting days of the 114th Congress.

Late Monday, Garrett's office emailed a statement saying, "In accordance with House rules and procedures, the congressman's office is informing every constituent with an open case about their options going forward, and the process is moving along as scheduled. Any information that needs to be forwarded to the incoming office will be sent in a timely manner depending on each constituent's preferences, as has been done in the past."

While polarizing politics is all too common, Garrett's apparent unwillingness to discuss a transition with his successor is not.

The last time a Democrat captured a New Jersey seat that a Republican had held was in 2008, and Democrat John Adler not only worked on the transition with the retiring incumbent , H. James Saxton, Adler even kept one of Saxton’s constituent service aides on his payroll.

When Adler was defeated two years later by Republican Jon Runyan, he transferred his outstanding constituent files to the offices of the state’s two Democratic senators. Garrett’s office has not made similar outreach to either Sen. Cory Booker or Sen. Bob Menendez, their offices said.

“We have not been contacted by Garrett’s office, but constituents have begun to call,” Menendez spokeswoman Tricia Enright said. “They say they were told Garrett’s office is not taking any new cases and they’re telling constituents to contact Sen. Menendez or Sen. Booker.”

At the non-profit Congressional Management Foundation, which has a contract with the House to provide training services to members, President Brad Fitch said he had heard of only one other case in the past 10 years in which there was no cooperation between an outgoing and an incoming member. Fitch said it is not unusual for some materials to be withheld, such as electronic databases of constituent contacts, especially if party control is changing hands, but files about constituents are a different story.

“When it comes to paper files, dealing with casework or ombudsman work, the more common practice is for the office that is either retiring or leaving because of [an] election to provide paper files to the incoming member,” he said.

“One of the more important reasons for that is because, in some cases, they may be dealing with the constituent’s original documents, and if those documents are somehow lost or destroyed, the constituent could be out of luck,” Fitch said.

New members also have to decide if they are going to keep a previous member’s office space back home, and if they do, they have to sign their own leases for both real estate and any equipment, such as phones or copiers, Fitch said.

Gottheimer of Wyckoff said he is trying to decide where to place his district offices in North Jersey, and he had to obtain information from House officials about the leases on Garrett’s offices in Glen Rock and Newton.

“We’re trying to get as much information as possible on what we’re paying,” Gottheimer said. “The Glen Rock office, that’s about $4,500 a month, and I’m going to look to try to see where I can get that cost down.”

Along with being New Jersey’s most expensive House race ever, the Garrett-Gottheimer campaign was particularly nasty practically from the start. Gottheimer’s ads said Garrett was being investigated for ethics violations, when all that had happened was an advocacy group made an allegation that appeared to go nowhere.

Garrett, meanwhile, used a civil lawsuit that was ultimately withdrawn as the basis for ads saying Gottheimer had assaulted a female neighbor, when the lawsuit itself said he had only wagged his finger in the woman’s face and did not touch her.

In their only debate, the candidates argued over who was a better liar.

Garrett initially declined to concede on Election Night, saying there were tens of thousands of votes still be counted. With no further reference to those votes, he put out a statement the following day thanking his supporters and lamenting the results “were not what I hoped for.” The statement never mentioned Gottheimer.