Representative Rush Holt, of New Jersey, Will Not Seek Re-election

By KATE ZERNIKEFEB. 18, 2014


Representative Rush D. Holt Jr. of New Jersey, a research physicist who became Congress’ chief advocate for scientific research over eight terms, plans to announce Tuesday that he is not seeking re-election.

Mr. Holt, 65, joins 12 fellow Democrats, and 21 Republicans, in an exodus from the House. But in an interview, he said he was not bemoaning what he acknowledged was “a certain level of dysfunction” in Congress.

“From my point of view, Congress, even with its frustrations, is the greatest instrument for justice and human welfare in the world,” he said, citing the debt-ceiling extension passed last week despite doubters. “The stories trying to puzzle out why someone would do something else are based on this rather narrow way of thinking that the only purpose for a member of Congress is to be re-elected. I’ve never viewed it that way, and I think everybody who’s worked with me knows that I think there are a lot of things that I can and should be doing.”

Mr. Holt’s retirement is not expected to affect the Democrats’ chances in 2014; a seat that he barely wrested from a Republican in 1998 has been made reliably Democratic in two redistrictings.

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Representative Rush D. Holt Jr. of New Jersey Mel Evans/Associated Press

Mr. Holt is perhaps most popularly known as the five-time “Jeopardy!” champion who later won a celebrity round against Watson, the IBM supercomputer. In and around Princeton, where he had been assistant director of the Plasma Physics Lab, bumper stickers on Priuses proudly proclaim “My Congressman IS a Rocket Scientist.”

He has consistently pushed for more money for scientific research, and better science education, securing $22 billion for research in the stimulus bill, and grants of $16,000 for students who prepare to teach math, science or foreign languages.

“I’m not sure we have anyone in the Congress with his level of deep understanding of what it is going to take for the American scientific enterprise to thrive in the future,” said Shirley M. Tilghman, a molecular biologist and former president of Princeton.

Among his other accomplishments, Mr. Holt said he was proudest of getting “tens of millions” of dollars for suicide prevention among members of the military, and for securing state matching programs for land and water conservation. He also helped secure citizenship for the family of a Pakistani man killed in a hate crime in the days following the terror attacks of Sept. 11.

Particularly as Tea Party Republicans challenged the science of climate change in recent years, Mr. Holt argued vociferously for the importance of what he called “evidence based” debates.

“We all talk about making history in Congress, but Rush not only made history, he made progress,” said the Democratic leader, Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California, who called him the “most respected” among his colleagues, “for his integrity, his intellect, his idealism.”

“He’s just very true to what he knows, and that is that the science, the evidence, the factual basis is the place where we should be starting the debate, not hearsay, rumor and anecdote,” she said.

The 12th Congressional District, in Central New Jersey, had been in Republican hands for more than 30 years when Mr. Holt ran in 1998, in the middle of the debate over the impeachment of President Bill Clinton.

Mr. Holt, who had never sought public office, narrowly nudged out the Republican incumbent, Michael Pappas, who had stood on the floor of the House and sung a tribute to the special prosecutor: “Twinkle, Twinkle, Kenneth Starr, now we know how brave you are.”

Mr. Holt pushed for safeguards to touch-screen voting machines, and Internet privacy in the face of widened government surveillance.

Running in the Democratic primary for Senate last year to fill the seat of the late Frank R. Lautenberg, Mr. Holt showed flashes of frustration with the celebrity candidacy of Cory A. Booker, the mayor of Newark who won, arguing that he had more experience, and was the “most progressive” Democrat in the race. Mr. Booker won nearly 60 percent of the vote and went on to beat the Republican. Mr. Holt came in third, with 17 percent of the vote, just behind Representative Frank Pallone.

His district stretches over parts of several counties, and is not dominated by any one, so the open seat is expected to draw the interest of several Democratic legislators.

“You will have a real primary,” said Brad Lawrence, a Democratic strategist who has worked for Mr. Holt.

Among the Democrats mentioned are Senator Linda Greenstein – though Democrats in the New Jersey legislature might be concerned about losing her seat, which was in Republican hands before she won it. Assemblyman Upendra J. Chivukula ran against Leonard Lance in a neighboring district in 2012, but lives in Mr. Holt’s.

While Mr. Holt, one of two physicists in the House, had an unusual background for Congress, he also has a political pedigree. His father was the youngest person popularly elected to the United States Senate; he died when Mr. Holt was in grade school. His mother was the first woman appointed secretary of state in West Virginia.

Mr. Holt said that when he told his mother, now 101 and living in Washington, of his retirement, she asked whether it was really time, saying she thought there were a lot more things he could do in Congress. “By that argument,” he said, “I would stay until my dotage.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/19/ny...tion.html?_r=0