page_title: Roscoe Bartlett
section_title: Elections
hierarchical_section_title: Roscoe Bartlett / Political career / Elections
caption_attribution_description: English: Rep. Ben Cardin (at podium) (D-MD) joins Reps. Roscoe Bartlett (middle) (R-MD) and Jo Ann Davis (left) (R-VA) in calling for a study of homeland security needs of the National Capital region, including Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia. http://www.cardin.house.gov/SupportingFiles/Images/home_sec_bartlett.jpg
context_page_description: Roscoe Gardner Bartlett is an American politician who was U.S. Representative for Maryland's 6th congressional district, serving from 1993 to 2013. He is a member of the Republican Party and was a member of the Tea Party Caucus. At the end of his tenure in Congress, Bartlett was the second-oldest serving member of the House of Representatives, behind fellow Republican Ralph Hall of Texas.
context_section_description: 1980
  In 1980, Bartlett ran for a seat in the U.S. Senate. In the Republican primary, he ranked fourth with 7% of the vote, losing to incumbent Charles Mathias, who won the primary with 55% of the vote.
  1982
  In 1982, Bartlett ran for Congress in Maryland's 6th congressional district against incumbent Democratic U.S. Congresswoman Beverly Byron. He won the Republican primary with 52% of the vote. In the general election, Byron defeated him 74%–26%.
  1992
  He ran again in the newly redrawn 6th congressional district and won the Republican primary with 42% of the vote. Byron was upset by a somewhat more liberal Democrat, State Delegate Thomas Hattery, in the Democratic primary. Many conservative Democrats switched their support to Bartlett in November, as he defeated Hattery 54%–46%.
  1994–2006
  During this time period, he repeatedly won re-election with at least 56% of the vote.
  2008
  According to the Frederick News-Post, Bartlett had under-reported property sales by over $1 million since 2004 on his official financial disclosure forms, and made $299,000 in unreported loans in order to sell his daughter's home, over which he exercised power of attorney. Bartlett said that the under-reporting was an oversight and that he was a "bit player" in the real estate transactions.
  2010
  As the lone Republican in Maryland's congressional delegation, Bartlett won reelection in 2010 at the age of 84. On June 1, 2009, Democrat and Iraq war veteran Andrew Duck formally announced a campaign for Congressman Bartlett's seat.
  2012
  Bartlett's district was significantly altered in redistricting plans released in October 2011, which was described as gerrymandering. The new district lines shifted the district slightly to the south, adding some heavily Democratic territory closer to Washington DC.
  Specifically, the redistricting plan shifted all of heavily Republican Carroll County and a mostly Republican section of Frederick County to the heavily Democratic 8th district.   It also lost heavily Republican sections of Harford and Baltimore counties to the already heavily Republican 1st district.  In their place, the legislature added a heavily Democratic section of Montgomery County.  While John McCain carried the old 6th with 57 percent of the vote, Barack Obama would have carried the reconfigured 6th with 56 percent of the vote.
  Bartlett faced Democrat John Delaney and Libertarian Nickolaus Mueller in his bid for reelection.
  In 2012, the Federal Elections Commission fined Bartlett $5,000 for repeatedly failing to submit accurate campaign finance disclosure reports. Bartlett hired an accountant to address any outstanding disclosure issues.
  When fellow Congressman Todd Akin made inappropriate comments about female biology, Bartlett immediately repudiated them, adding "There is no room in politics for these types of statements...As a human physiologist I know there is no scientific backing to Todd's claims." He said his view on abortion exceptions has been "[T]he same for twenty years. I'm pro-life, with exceptions for the life of the mother, rape and incest...I'm so avidly pro-life I'm against corporal punishment", later adding that a very small proportion of  abortions are a result of rape; however, in 2001 Bartlett had supported a constitutional amendment which did not include the rape and incest exceptions.  "The Maryland Democratic Party went after Bartlett", trying to connect Todd Akin's comments to Bartlett.
  Bartlett was heavily defeated in the general election by Delaney, taking only 38 percent of the vote to Delaney's 59 percent.
caption: Rep. Bartlett (center) (R-MD) joined Sen. Ben Cardin (podium) (D-MD) and Rep. Jo Ann Davis (left) (R-VA) in calling for a study of homeland security needs of the National Capital region, including Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia.
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