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Scott Perry
Rep. Scott Perry heads to the chamber for votes in the Capitol in Washington. J. Scott Applewhite/AP

Scott Perry Is in the Battle of His Political Life. He’s Been Battling for Decades.

Scott Perry once preached bipartisan civility. He transformed into one of the most conservative and cantankerous voices in Congress.

Rep. Scott Perry heads to the chamber for votes in the Capitol in Washington. J. Scott Applewhite/AP

HARRISBURG, PA — Just two weeks after he was first elected to Congress in the fall of 2012, Scott Perry was already thinking about his legacy.

“I just hope that if I was to be remembered as anybody or anything, it was to be a principled person that was polite,” he said during an interview with the assistant chief clerk of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, where he had served the last six years.

His focus on the purse strings and limiting the footprint of the federal government is familiar to anyone who has spoken to Perry for more than two minutes.