David Jolly

Jolly was ranked as the 48th most bipartisan member of the U.S. House of Representatives during the 114th United States Congress (and the fourth most bipartisan member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Florida) in the Bipartisan Index created by The Lugar Center and the McCourt School of Public Policy that ranks members of the United States Congress by their degree of bipartisanship (by measuring the frequency each member's bills attract co-sponsors from the opposite party and each member's co-sponsorship of bills by members of the opposite party).

Since leaving office, Jolly has participated regularly as a political commentator on cable news sources such as CNN and MSNBC; in this capacity he has been critical of President Donald Trump.

David Wilson Jolly (born October 31, 1972) is an American attorney, former lobbyist, and formerly Republican politician who served as the U.S. representative for Florida's 13th congressional district (Pinellas County) from 2014 to 2017.

He received his B.A. degree from Emory University in 1994 and his J.D. degree from the George Mason University School of Law in 2001.

He worked for Republican U.S. Representative Bill Young full time from 1995 to 2006 in various positions, with a brief break for six months in 2001 when he worked at a Washington securities firm.

In 2002, Jolly became Young's general counsel and held that position until he left in 2006.

He served as the personal attorney for Young's family as well.

In 2007, Jolly joined Washington, D.C. firm Van Scoyoc Associates as a lobbyist and in 2011, he left Van Scoyoc to open his own firm, Three Bridges Advisors.

He made political donations to both Republicans (about $36,000) and Democrats (about $30,000) during his time as a lobbyist.

Jolly had his name removed from the Lobby Registry to run for the vacant House seat.

At the time, Jolly was working as vice president of the Clearwater-based investment company Boston Finance Group.

Jolly formerly opposed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act but stated on an interview with MSNBC that during unemployment he had a new appreciation for its use as a "safety net".

He is pro-life.

Speaking about firearms policy, Jolly said: "I do believe the Second Amendment is a fundamental right, but I don't believe it's beyond the reach of regulation, and I believe it's appropriate to look at regulations that ultimately keep the guns out of the hands of criminals."

Having served as general counsel to his predecessor, Republican Bill Young, Jolly won a January 2014 special election for Young's seat.

He was reelected in November 2014 but was defeated in 2016 by Democrat Charlie Crist.

After leaving office, Jolly became a prominent Republican critic of President Donald Trump.

He supports the Balanced Budget Amendment and says he would have voted to raise the debt limit in early 2014.

Jolly supports sending special operations forces overseas, securing the border, increasing the vetting process for legal immigrants, and increasing surveillance of suspected domestic terrorists.

In February 2014, Jolly introduced the Naval Station Guantanamo Bay Protection Act.

Jolly pushed to extend the ban on oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.

On July 21, 2014, Jolly announced his support for the legality of same-sex marriage, stating: "I believe in a form of limited government that protects personal liberty. To me, that means that the sanctity of one’s marriage should be defined by their faith and by their church, not by their state."

He said "As a matter of my Christian faith, I believe in traditional marriage."

On January 14, 2014, Jolly won the Republican nomination over Mark Bircher and Kathleen Peters, winning a plurality of 45% of the vote.

Jolly faced Democratic nominee Alex Sink and a libertarian candidate, Lucas Overby, in the special election.

The race received national attention as possibly forecasting the mid-term elections that were coming in November of that year and became the most expensive Congressional race in history, with around $11M spent, $9M of it by outside groups.

During the campaign there was friction between the National Republican Congressional Committee and Jolly; the RNC thought Jolly's campaign was inept, and Jolly criticized the negative ads run by the RNC.

and voters were generally unhappy with the overwhelming number of attack ads on both sides.

In January 2015, Jolly announced plans to introduce a bill that would extend the reforms of the federal flood insurance program.

In July 2015, Jolly introduced the Veterans Health Care Freedom Act.

Jolly encouraged the U.S. House to extend the Treasure Island beach renourishment project.

In April 2016, Jolly's United States Senate campaign spokesperson Sarah Bascom confirmed that the campaign had made edits to his Wikipedia page to remove information about Jolly, including references to the Church of Scientology and his lobbying activities, alleging that it presented a "public negative narrative" against him, and accused an unnamed rival campaign of adding "propaganda" to the article.

Jolly called it "a careless staff mistake" and said that he stands by his record and wants the public to be fully informed.

In September 2018, Jolly announced he had left the Republican Party.

Jolly was born in Dunedin, Florida, the son of Judith and Lawson Jolly, a Baptist pastor.

He grew up in Dade City, Florida.

When he was 16 he was the driver of a car that struck and killed a pedestrian, but he was found not to be at fault.

He considered running for lieutenant governor of Florida in 2018 on a bipartisan ticket, with former Democratic congressman Patrick Murphy as the candidate for governor.

They conducted a speaking tour around the state.

Jolly ultimately decided not to run for any public office in 2018.