Tim Mahoney

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This article is about the representative. For the musician, see Tim Mahoney (guitarist).

Tim Mahoney

United States Representative from Florida's 16th district
In office November 13, 2006-Present
Preceded by	Mark Foley
Succeeded by	Incumbent

Born	August 15, 1956 Aurora, Illinois
Political party	Democratic
Spouse	Terry Mahoney
Religion	United Methodist

Timothy Edward "Tim" Mahoney (born 1956) is the Representative-elect from Florida's 16th Congressional district. His opponent was six-term Republican incumbent Mark Foley until September 29, 2006, when Foley stepped down after questions were raised about an email exchange with a Congressional page. He will be the first Democrat to represent the district in fourteen years.

1 Biography
2 2006 campaign
3 References
4 External links

[edit] Biography

Mahoney is a businessman. He has a home in Palm Beach Gardens and a cattle ranch in southern Highlands County.^[1] He is married and has a daughter, Bailey. Currently his daughter is an honor student and a scholarship equestrian athlete. The Mahoneys are members of the Venus United Methodist Church in Venus, Florida. Mahoney describes himself as a fundamental Christian.^[1]

Mahoney was born in Aurora, Illinois. He grew up in Summit, New Jersey and graduated from Summit High School in 1974. He obtained a bachelors degree in computer science and business from West Virginia University in 1978 and an M.B.A from George Washington University in 1983.^[1]

Mahoney began his career in the computer business. After seven years, he achieved wealth when a company he was working for, Tecmar, which sold personal computer accessories, was sold. In 1986, he moved to Florida and became president of Rodime Systems, a division of Rodime Inc. Rodime Inc., for which Mahoney was also vice president of marketing and sales, manufactured disc drives that were packaged for the retail market by Rodime Systems. The Rodime Inc. manufacturing plant moved to Singapore in 1989 and Mahoney sold Rodime Systems. In 1995, Mahoney and business partner, Lenny Sokolow, started Union Atlantic, LLC, a venture capital firm. His inability to get the firm listed on vFinance.com, a fledgling matchmaking Web site for venture capitalists and cash-hungry entrepreneurs, led him and Sokolow to purchase the website in 1998, merging it with Union Atlantic.

Mahoney is currently chairman and chief operating officer of vFinance, Inc., which is located in Boca Raton. The vFinance website currently boasts 80,000 subscribers, but nearly 90 percent of the company's $25.8 million revenues now come from brokerage and trading activities, according to vFinance's annual report. The company has dropped from $8 per share in 2000 to 20 cents on September 26, 2006. It has turned a profit once in its first six years, has been sued for fraud and breach of contract and paid fines of more than $80,000 from securities regulators, records show. Yahoo! Finance shows vFinance has the lowest market cap of any publicly traded asset management company and identifies it as one of the "laggards" in net-profit margin. However, the company has quadrupled its revenues in the past six years and increased its payroll from 21 employees to 197 during the same time.^[1]

[edit] 2006 campaign

One poll taken by Hamilton Beattie on September 12, 2006, had Foley leading Mahoney in a matchup by 48% for Foley to 35% for Mahoney [2].

According to the state of Florida, 42% of the voters in this district are registered Republicans, and 36% are registered Democrats [3]. George W. Bush won this district with 52% of the vote in the 2000 presidential election, and with 54% of the vote in the 2004 presidential election.

Mahoney has sharply criticized the Bush administration for overspending, general mismanagement, and its policies in Iraq.^[2] In August, General Wesley Clark endorsed the candidacy of Mahoney for Congress.^[3]

On September 28, 2006, ABC News reported that Republican incumbent Mark Foley had sent email messages, from his personal AOL account, to a then-16-year-old former Congressional page, asking the page to send a photo of himself to Foley, among other things which were overtly sexual in nature. [4] ^[4]

Mahoney has called for a full investigation of Foley's actions.^[5] The next day Foley submitted a letter of resignation from Congress on September 29, 2006 in the wake of news reports about the communications.^[6]

Republicans' hold on Mark Foley's seat went "from safe to shaky overnight."[5] On October 2, 2006, the Florida Republican Party Executive Board selected state representative Joe Negron as Mahoney's new opponent.^[2] However, Negron's name did not appear on the ballot so he only received votes cast for Foley, whose name remained on the ballot by law.

On election day Mahoney narrowly defeated Negron by 1 percentage point.

Political offices
Preceded by Mark Foley	Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Florida's 16th congressional district November 13, 2006-Present	Incumbent