Paul Tonko

Paul David Tonko ( born June 18, 1949 in Amsterdam, New York) is an American engineer and politician of the Democratic Party. Since 2009 he is a member of the House of Representatives of the United States for the state of New York.

Biography

Paul Tonko was born in centrally located in the state of New York Montgomery County. He graduated from Clarkson University and graduated from there with an academic degree. In 1983 he was elected to the New York State Assembly. There he represented the 105th District of New York until June 2007. He then took over the post of president of the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, a member of the energy industry. A post he was to the end of April 2008 in order to run for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.

As the successor to Michael R. McNulty, he was elected in the 2008 elections to the House of Representatives. He represents the 21th Congressional District of New York. Tonko is a member of the Committee on Education and Labor and the Committee on Science and Technology. In the 2010 election he defended his seat with 59.3 percent of the vote to Republican Theodore Danz.

Tonko is single and lives in his native city of Amsterdam. He is Roman Catholic faith.