Robert Anthony Borski Jr. (born October 20, 1948) is an American politician. He was a

Democratic Party Democratic Party most often refers to: *Democratic Party (United States) Democratic Party and similar terms may also refer to: Active parties Africa *Botswana Democratic Party *Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea *Gabonese Democratic Party *Demo ...

Congressman A Member of Congress (MOC) is a person who has been appointed or elected and inducted into an official body called a congress, typically to represent a particular constituency in a legislature. The term member of parliament (MP) is an equivalen ...

from the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sover ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

from 1983 until 2003, representing the state's 3rd congressional district. Borski was born in

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

, and he graduated from the

University of Baltimore The University of Baltimore (UBalt, UB) is a public university in Baltimore, Maryland. It is part of the University System of Maryland. UBalt's schools and colleges provide education in business, law, public affairs, and the applied arts and sc ...

in 1971. He was a member of the Pennsylvania state house of representatives from 1977 to 1982. In 1982, he took on

GOP The Republican Party, also referred to as the GOP ("Grand Old Party"), is one of the Two-party system, two Major party, major contemporary political parties in the United States. The GOP was founded in 1854 by Abolitionism in the United Stat ...

Representative

Charles F. Dougherty Charles Francis Dougherty (born June 26, 1937) is an American politician from Pennsylvania who served as a Republican Party (United States), Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives for Pennsylvania's 4th congressional district fr ...

in the 3rd Congressional District, which had been renumbered from the 4th after the 1980 Census. 1982 was a rough year for Republicans due to a recession and Borski would be a beneficiary of the public discontent. He also was helped by some friendly redistricting that shifted some heavily Democratic wards to the 3rd. Borski scored a narrow victory of less than 3,000 votes—in the process, ousting the last Republican to represent a significant portion of Philadelphia in the House. The Borski-Dougherty battles would be fought out in this district three more times in 1992, 1998, and 2000 with Borski victorious each time. In his 20 years in Congress, Borski rose to become the second-ranking Democrat on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. He was generally classed as a liberal Democrat, but opposed

abortion Abortion is the termination of a pregnancy by removal or expulsion of an embryo or fetus. An abortion that occurs without intervention is known as a miscarriage or "spontaneous abortion"; these occur in approximately 30% to 40% of pregn ...

in most cases. In 2002, the Republican-controlled State Legislature threw Borski a curve. Pennsylvania was due to lose two districts as a result of the

2000 United States Census The United States census of 2000, conducted by the Census Bureau, determined the resident population of the United States on April 1, 2000, to be 281,421,906, an increase of 13.2 percent over the 248,709,873 people enumerated during the 1990 ce ...

, and the legislature dismantled his northeast Philadelphia district. Borski's home was drawn into the Montgomery County-based 13th District of two-term Democrat

Joe Hoeffel Joseph Merrill Hoeffel III ( ; born September 3, 1950) is an American author and politician. A Democrat, Hoeffel was a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1999 to 2005, representing Pennsylvania's 13th congressional distri ...

. They expected that either Borski or Hoeffel would be bloodied from the resulting

primary election Primary elections, or direct primary are a voting process by which voters can indicate their preference for their party's candidate, or a candidate in general, in an upcoming general election, local election, or by-election. Depending on the ...

. However, Borski decided not to run, instead retiring from Congress and allowing Hoeffel to avoid a costly primary campaign. After retiring, Borski formed his own

lobbying In politics, lobbying, persuasion or interest representation is the act of lawfully attempting to influence the actions, policies, or decisions of government officials, most often legislators or members of regulatory agency, regulatory agencie ...

firm, Borski Associates. Governor

Ed Rendell Edward Gene Rendell (; born January 5, 1944) is an American lawyer, prosecutor, politician, and author. He served as the 45th Governor of Pennsylvania from 2003 to 2011, as chair of the national Democratic Party, and as the 96th Mayor of Philade ...

hired Borski in 2003 to help lobby for the state of Pennsylvania in Congress. On October 10, 2002, Robert Borski was among the 81 House Democrats who voted in favor of authorizing the

invasion of Iraq The 2003 invasion of Iraq was a United States-led invasion of the Ba'athist Iraq, Republic of Iraq and the first stage of the Iraq War. The invasion phase began on 19 March 2003 (air) and 20 March 2003 (ground) and lasted just over one mont ...

. In 2003, the post office where Borski's father once carried mail was renamed in his honor. In 2010, ''Politics Magazine'' named him one of the most influential Democrats in Pennsylvania.

References

External links

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PA redistricting lawsuit
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Borski, Robert 1948 births Living people University of Baltimore alumni Democratic Party members of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives Pennsylvania lobbyists Politicians from Philadelphia Democratic Party members of the United States House of Representatives from Pennsylvania 21st-century American politicians Members of Congress who became lobbyists