Scott Fitzgerald is the Republican incumbent representing Wisconsin's 5th District since 2021. A newspaper owner and Army Reserve officer, he served in the Wisconsin State Senate from 1995 to 2021, including as majority leader, before winning the seat vacated by Jim Sensenbrenner. He serves on the Financial Services and Judiciary committees and chairs a Judiciary subcommittee.[1][2][3][4]
Fitzgerald was born in Chicago in 1963, later moved to Wisconsin, and graduated from Hustisford High School in 1981.[1][2] He earned a Bachelor of Science from the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh in 1985 (in journalism, according to Ballotpedia).[1][2] His father, Stephen Fitzgerald, was Dodge County sheriff, a U.S. Marshal and Wisconsin State Patrol superintendent, and his brother Jeff was Speaker of the Wisconsin State Assembly in the 2011-2012 session.[2]
Fitzgerald joined the U.S. Army Reserve in 1981 and was commissioned a lieutenant in the Armor Branch in 1985.[1][2] He completed the Army Command and General Staff College, served as a battalion commander, and retired in 2009 as a lieutenant colonel.[1][2] In 1990 he bought the Dodge County Independent News in Juneau, Wisconsin, and he sold it in 1996 to the Watertown Daily Times, where he remained as an associate publisher for a number of years.[2][1]
Fitzgerald represented the 13th District in the Wisconsin State Senate from 1995 to 2021.[2][1] His official biography lists him as Majority Leader, Minority Leader, Co-Chairman of the Joint Committee on Finance and Chairman of the Senate Corrections Committee; Ballotpedia lists him as majority leader in 2004 and from 2011 to 2020.[2][1]
In 2020 Fitzgerald was elected to the U.S. House for the seat vacated by retiring Republican Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, defeating Democrat Tom Palzewicz 60.1% to 39.8%, and he won re-election in 2022 and 2024 with 64.4% each time.[1][2][4] He serves on the House Financial Services Committee (Financial Institutions; Housing and Insurance; Task Force on Monetary Policy, Treasury Market Resilience, and Economic Prosperity) and the Judiciary Committee, where he chairs the Subcommittee on the Administrative State, Regulatory Reform, and Antitrust and sits on the Courts, Intellectual Property, Artificial Intelligence, and the Internet Subcommittee.[3] His official biography says he and his wife, Lisa, live in rural Clyman, where they raise horses, and have three sons.[2]
Researched from the cited sources on 2026-10-21.
