Congressman Chris Smith was endorsed for reelection by the New Jersey AFL-CIO at the union’s convention in Atlantic City this week.
Over 600 delegates from 1,000 NJ unions—representing more than one million members and their families— voted to endorse Smith.
New Jersey AFL-CIO President Charles Wowkanech said of the slate that includes Smith, “This year’s endorsed candidates… have the experience and dedication necessary to grow our communities prioritizing education, health care, jobs, infrastructure and investment in our future.”
Smith, the only Republican from New Jersey’s congressional delegation to win the endorsement, addressed the convention delegates on Tuesday morning. Read the rest of this entry »
Congressman Chris Smith told News12 that he will personally bring the cause of Princeton University graduate student Xiyue Wang to the attention of Vice President Mike Pence and that he will have Wang’s wife, Hua Qu, testify before his Congressional Committee as part of his effort to secure the release of the American student, and others, from prison in Iran.
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s administration sided with New Jersey Tuesday in a dispute over catch limits for summer flounder that threatened to shut down the entire fishing season. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross approved the state’s Marine Fisheries Council proposal for 24 fewer fishing days but a larger minimum size for fish, rather than the limits… Read the rest of this entry »
Some U.S. lawmakers are urging President-elect Donald Trump and his incoming administration to recalibrate U.S.-China relations with a harder line on human rights. “It is increasingly clear that there is direct link between China’s domestic human-rights problems and the security and prosperity of the United States,” Congressman Chris Smith said at a hearing of the Congressional-Executive… Read the rest of this entry »
NEWARK, N.J.—Rep. Chris Smith (NJ-04) testified today before the New Jersey Transit Corporation Board of Directors in an effort to convince the agency to reject the Jersey Central Power & Light Co (JCP&L) application to utilize the transit agency’s right-of-way for the proposed “Monmouth County Reliability Project.” JCP&L has proposed the 10-mile-long transmission line be placed through residential neighborhoods along NJT’s North Jersey Coast line, creating an undue burden for large numbers of people in five Monmouth County municipalities.
“Some may argue that there is little or no adverse health link to exposure to the electromagnetic fields created by these high-voltage lines, and may produce select studies that suggest that,” said Smith, Chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives’ Subcommittee on global health in his expert testimony. “But there is statistically relevant evidence–including studies–that suggest otherwise.”
Bob Williams, grandson of Alfred Caponigro, Caponigro and Congressman Chris Smith
OCEAN TOWNSHIP, N.J. – Alfred Caponigro of Ocean Township would not accept the medals he earned in combat during World War II because of all of the other Americans who didn’t make it back, or who lost limbs and other injuries. Caponigro lost his hearing in the war and was discharged with a 100 percent disability rating by the Navy.
On Tuesday Caponigro, 90, joined by his family and friends, accepted his medals from Congressman Chris Smith, 73 years after he earned them.
WASHINGTON, DC – At a Capitol Hill meeting hosted Oct. 7 by U.S. Rep. Chris Smith (NJ-04), Dean of the New Jersey Congressional Delegation, with Roy Wright, Deputy Associate Administrator for Insurance and Mitigation at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), a bipartisan group of NJ Members of Congress continued to press for equitable relief for… Read the rest of this entry »
The House of Representatives rejected President Obama’s Nuclear deal with Iran today, 168-269. 25 Democrats joined all 244 House Republicans what is was a symbolic vote that will have no impact on the implementation of the deal.
Congressman Chris Smith spoke passionately against the deal yesterday on the House Floor:
The New Jersey State Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) has named Congressman Chris Smith (R-NJ4) its 2015 Legislator of the Year.
VFW State Legislative Director William F. Thomson presented Smith with the award Monday in Hamilton, Mercer County. VFW State Commander Jack Kane announced the honor on June 19 at its annual convention in Wildwoods Convention Center in Wildwood, N.J.
“The men and women in uniform make tremendous, selfless sacrifices for our nation,and they must know that when they come home they will receive the care and assistance they earned,” said Smith, who chaired the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee from 2001-2005 and authored more than a dozen veterans’ laws. It is an honor for me to accept this award, but it is more of an honor to work for our veterans.”
As the former chairman of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee and the author of more than a dozen laws to modernize, expand and improve the services provided by the Veterans Administration (VA), I see the need to review and evaluate existing programs to ensure that they align with the promise a grateful nation makes to those who wear and have worn the uniforms of the United States military. As President Lincoln so eloquently said at the end of the Civil War: “Let us strive…to care for him who shall have borne the battle…” a phrase later adopted as the motto of the VA.
That is why I co-sponsored and twice voted for the “Clay Hunt Suicide Prevention for American Veterans (SAV) Act.” This bipartisan legislation is named in honor of the late Iraq and Afghanistan War veteran whose story is not unfamiliar to many who have attempted to navigate the VA’s bureaucracy to receive the care they have earned. Clay Hunt was one of the many veterans who experience some form of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as a result of their service, yet he did not receive adequate mental health care in the VA system and took his own life at the age of 28.