Chris Smith (New Jersey politician)

Christopher Henry " Chris " Smith ( born March 4, 1953 in Rahway, New Jersey) is an American politician. Since 1981 he represents the State of New Jersey in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Career

Chris Smith attended until 1971, the St. Mary's High School in Perth Amboy. He was then to 1975 at Trenton State College. In 1974 he studied at Worcester College in the meantime the University of Oxford. In the following years he worked in the sporting goods industry. Politically, he was originally a member of the Democratic Party. In 1978 he moved to the Republicans. In 1978, he ran unsuccessfully for even the U.S. House of Representatives. In 1979 he worked for the New Jersey Legislature.

In the congressional elections of 1980, Smith was the fourth electoral district of New Jersey in the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington DC chosen, where he succeeded the retiring on December 29, 1980 Frank Thompson on January 3, 1981. This was defeated in the election against Smith, which also had to do with a corruption scandal in connection with the Abscam investigation by the FBI; Thompson was sentenced in 1981 to three years in prison.

After 15 previously re- election Chris Smith can exercise his mandate in Congress until today; last he continued in 2010 with 69.4 percent of the vote to Democrat Howard Klein Hendler through. He is currently a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee and the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe as well as in two sub-committees. Between 2001 and 2005 he was chairman of the veterans committee. In his time as a congressman of the terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001, the Iraq war and the military mission in Afghanistan fell. His main focus is the fight against abortion. He is supported in his election campaigns of the pro-life group National Right to Life Committee for years.

Smith is married and lives privately in Hamilton.