Douglas Forrester

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Forrester is inaugurated as Mayor of West Windsor in 1979.

Douglas Forrester (born January 24, 1953 in Glendale, California) is an American government contractor in New Jersey. He is the 2005 Republican nominee for Governor. His campaign slogan is that he wants to give New Jersey "A government as good as its people." He is campaigning to end the corrupt practice of pay-to-play in New Jersey and to cut New Jersey property taxes by 30% over three years. His opponent is Jon Corzine, a US Senator. Forrester is a 51% owner in pharmacy benefits management company Benecard as well as majority owner of insurance company Heartland Fidelity. Both companies derive the vast majority of their revenue from public sector contracts, and an investigation into fraud by a subcontractor of BeneCard is ongoing by New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer. There is as yet no proof of fraud.

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Mayor Douglas Forrester

Forrester is the youngest of five children. His father, 45 at the time of Doug's birth, never graduated from high school, but worked his way through the ranks at Lockheed Martin, and Doug's mother died when he was 4. His father remarried.

Forrester excelled in water polo at high school in Santa Clara, California. He considered enrolling in Stanford University, but "Harvard gave [him] a better offer," and he graduated cum laude in 1975, having studied philosophy and government.

Forrester then moved to New Jersey to study at the Princeton Theological Seminary, where he earned a master's degree in divinity. However, he felt he wasn't ready to enter the ministry. Married to childhood friend Andrea Howard, Forrester moved to West Windsor, where he began a career in government. Forrester was elected as a township committeeman and as mayor.

In the 1980s, Forrester became Assistant State Treasurer in the Kean Administration, and later went on to direct the pension system for state employees. In 1990, Forrester founded BeneCard Services, Inc., a pharmacy benefits management firm (or PBM) that provides prescription drug coverage primarily to public sector entities. In a financial disclosure statement in 2002, Forrester reported his 51% share in the company to be worth over $50,000,000. In 2003, Forrester started Heartland Fidelity with Robert Ullman, his partner in BeneCard.

Forrester ran for the US Senate in 2002 with the endorsement of President Bush [1]. After his original opponent, Bob Torricelli, abandoned the race, Forrester was defeated by Democrat Frank Lautenberg. Forrester sued to prevent Lautenberg replacing Torricelli, but the New Jersey Supreme Court said, in a decision written by Peter Verniero, a Republican: "We see what advantage this has for Mr. Forrester; we fail to see what advantage this has for the people of New Jersey."

According to the Associated Press, Forrester was being asked to run for Governor in autumn 2004, but he felt being near to his daughter Briana, who had suffered a brain hemmorhage and been diagnosed with cancer, a higher priority. However, in November, Briana told her father, "Dad, I'm going to be fine, just announce. By the time you get going, my cancer will be over." On November 23, 2004, Forrester formally announced his gubernatorial candidacy at Washington Crossing State Park (As of April 2005, Briana's cancer is in remission). He has announced he will not accept public funding for his campaign. His primary competitor in the primaries was Bret Schundler, a former gubernatorial candidate and former Mayor of Jersey City, New Jersey. After vote counting problems in Bergen County, a swing county in the primary election, Forrester broke even as planned with Schundler, giving him a 36%-31% statewide victory over Schundler, setting Forrester up for his race against Democratic Party candidate and US Senator Jon Corzine.

Acoording to the Trenton Times, New Jersey law has prohibited insurance companies, or people with a majority interest in one, from making political donations since Woodrow Wilson was governor. Forrester's campaign is substantially funded by donations from himself; but Forrester contends that Heartland Insurance is incorporated in Washington, D.C., it doesn't count. Heartland Insurance is in business to insure Benecare and its clients, and therefore does the overwhelming majority of its business in New Jersey, and has its offices there. It was incorporated in Washington to avoid another New Jersey law, prohibiting the formation of such captive insurers; but its business is subject to the regulation of the New Jersey Insurance Commissioner. The New Jersey Department of Banking and Insurance issued an opinion in August 2005 stating that Forrester had not broken the law.