The Honorable Jerrold Nadler

President Bill Clinton said of Congressman Jerrold Nadler that not only has he represented New York well, he also has “represented…the United States very well.” Now serving his sixth full term in the House of Representatives, Congressman Nadler represents New York’s Eighth Congressional district, which has often been referred to as one of the most demographically diverse districts in the nation. The eclectic district includes Manhattan’s West Side below 89th Street, as well Borough Park, Coney Island, and other communities in Brooklyn.

Representative Nadler was first elected to Congress in 1992, after serving for 16 years in the New York State Assembly. He has emerged as a national leader on civil rights, civil liberties, transportation, and a host of progressive issues such as access to health care, support for the arts and the expansion of the Social Security system. The Congressman was re-elected in 2002 with a resounding 75 percent of the vote.

Representative Nadler is perhaps best known as a prominent member of the House Judiciary Committee. There, along with his role in defending individual rights and religious freedoms, the Congressman was a vigorous defender of the Constitution during the Presidential impeachment hearings. Congressman Nadler’s unwavering demand for bipartisan adherence to the Constitution earned him national praise.

Within the Judiciary Committee, Representative Nadler has served for several years as the ranking member on the Constitution Subcommittee, which considers all proposed constitutional amendments, and deals with such issues as constitutional rights, federal civil rights laws, abortion, gay rights, and government ethics. As such, the Congressman has been a principal participant in some of the great ideological debates of our time, on issues ranging from abortion to Internet free speech rights. He has also served for several years on the Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law, which has jurisdiction over such key issues as consumer protection, bankruptcy law, and the right to competent legal representation.

In 1976, after a stint as a legislative staffer, Mr. Nadler won a seat in the State Assembly and there first developed his strong record on such issues as civil liberties, environmental protection, and campaign finance reform. He is credited with authoring much of New York State’s body of law on domestic violence and child support enforcement, and was one of the architects of the landmark “Child Support Adjustment Act.” Over the next 16 years, he developed an impressive resume as a legislator, and according to the 1992 New York Red Book, “compil[ed] a record of fiscal foresight and prudence.”

Mr. Nadler also earned hundreds of awards from varied organizations for his Assembly work, from being the only male to be honored as “Assemblymember of the Year” by the National Organization for Women to his inclusion on the American Civil Liberties Union’s Annual Honor Roll. It was also during his Assembly years that Representative Nadler honed his expertise on issues of urban infrastructure. He founded and chaired the Assembly Subcommittee on Mass Transit and Rail Freight.

Mr. Nadler’s extensive knowledge of transportation and mass transit has led to his standing as a highly regarded national expert on issues of public infrastructure. He is the highest-ranking Democrat from the Northeast on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, and served as a Co-Chair of the Congressional Transit Caucus. Congressman Nadler stood virtually alone for many years in decrying the downstate New York region’s isolation from the national rail freight system and its almost total reliance on truck-borne freight. Such dependence has created enormous costs to the area, in terms of increased air pollution, asthma, congestion, and the general expense of doing business in the region. The problem is compounded by the virtual elimination of port traffic in New York City. Congressman Nadler proposed to reverse these effects by reconnecting New York to the nation’s rail freight system by constructing a rail freight tunnel under New York Harbor from Bay Ridge, Brooklyn to either Staten Island or Bayonne, New Jersey. This proposal would breathe life into New York’s port, while at the same time creating manufacturing jobs, easing a significant traffic burden, and helping the environment. The plan has garnered broad bipartisan support at the city, state and federal levels.

After the Congressman’s district was attacked on September 11, 2001, he and his staff dedicated their efforts to assisting the residents, employees and small businesses of lower Manhattan to overcome the tremendous difficulties they faced. Immediately following the attacks Congressman Nadler convened the “Ground Zero Elected Officials Task Force” to coordinate the delivery of much needed aid and supplies to the residents and businesses in lower Manhattan. After the initial shock of the tragedy had subsided, the Congressman worked tirelessly to ensure that victims received the government attention they needed. He introduced legislation to expedite the payment of benefits to the families of public safety officers killed on September 11th, pushed to extend unemployment benefits for those who lost their jobs as a result of the tragedy, and worked closely with constituents and government officials to ensure that aid from the Federal Emergency Management Agency was properly delivered to all those in need.

Congressman Nadler has also taken the lead in the continuing fight to protect air quality in lower Manhattan. Soon after the attacks, the EPA declared it safe for residents to return to their homes and denied its responsibility for conducting air quality tests and cleanup efforts in affected residences. The Congressman immediately called public attention to the EPA’s negligence in these actions, which gravely threatened the health of lower Manhattan residents, and hosted hearings to investigate this negligence and determine the actual extent of environmental hazards in the area.

In April of 2002 the Congressman released an extensive white paper reporting the findings of these hearings, which reported that the EPA had failed to fulfill the responsibilities mandated by federal law by denying New Yorkers indoor cleaning services it had performed in other areas in the past. In the face of ongoing efforts by high-level EPA officials to cover up their negligence and deny their responsibility, Congressman Nadler continues fighting on behalf of constituents for higher standards in cleanups still taking place and extension of these cleanups to public spaces and neighborhoods currently being excluded from the process.

In its “Hall of Fame” tribute to the Congressman, Vanity Fair said that Jerrold Nadler epitomizes “liberalism the way it ought to be.” He is considered an unapologetic defender of those who might otherwise be forgotten by the American law or economy, but is respected specifically for his creative and pragmatic legislative approaches. Indeed, Mr. Nadler is regarded nationwide as a champion of progressive causes, and his work has garnered him 100 percent ratings from such groups as Planned Parenthood, NAACP, Human Rights Campaign, Children’s Defense Fund, the League of Conservation Voters and the American Federation of Teachers.

Congressman Nadler is a prominent member of the Congressional Pro-Choice Caucus, and has consistently led House efforts to protect a woman’s right to choose. As a staunch supporter of equal rights, Mr. Nadler has championed issues of concern to the gay and lesbian community, including authoring a landmark bill that would grant same-sex, binational couples the same rights as heterosexuals under U.S. Immigration law.

A leading proponent of a “Patients Bill of Rights,” the Congressman has been a crusader in the fight to reign in health maintenance organizations. Congressman Nadler also introduced legislation in 1998 designed to assure the long-term solvency of Social Security “without raising the retirement age, without cutting benefits, without raising tax rates and without shifting the risk onto the backs of individuals.”

In the face of Republican efforts to reduce the budgets of the NEA and NEH, Representative Nadler has repeatedly fought to turn back cuts in federal funding of the arts. He has also sponsored legislation aimed at bridging the so-called “digital divide” and authored the first House bills to provide for handgun licensing and registration.

Congressman Nadler began his political career while an undergraduate at Columbia University in the late 1960s. He was a founder of a group of students known as the “West Side Kids,” (referring to the west side of Manhattan) which focused on reforming New York City Democratic politics through support of liberal and anti-Vietnam War candidates. The Kids developed their political base by engaging in community organizing to improve local housing and education conditions.

Although today a legislator with nationwide impact, Nadler has not lost touch with the cares and concerns of his local New York constituents. For instance, understanding that the cost of living in New York City can be more than two and one-half times as great as in some other areas of the country, Congressman Nadler introduced a bill to adjust federal income tax brackets to reflect regional differences in the cost of living. His effectiveness in representing New York has not gone unnoticed, either. Politicsny.com, one of the leading websites covering New York politics, has given its highest rating of “excellent” to the Congressman in each of the last two years.

Representative Nadler has never been afraid to stand up to big names in the interests of his constituents. The Congressman led a highly publicized battle against developer Donald Trump, who tried to have part of the newly renovated West Side Highway torn down to enhance the views of the Hudson River for a new Trump luxury building project. “I do not believe that New Yorkers work hard and pay taxes so they can line Mr. Trump's pockets,” Mr. Nadler said of the move that would have cost the taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars.

Additionally, Congressman Nadler has worked for four years to make possible the return of historic Governors Island from the federal government to the people of New York and protect it from inappropriate development, most recently with the introduction of the Governors Island National Monument Ratification Act of 2002.

As the Congressman for New York’s Eighth district, Mr. Nadler represents one of the largest and most diverse Jewish communities in any congressional district nationwide. An active member of the National Governing Council of the American Jewish Congress and other Jewish communal organizations, Congressman Nadler has worked throughout his career to support American Jewish community concerns and a safe, prosperous, and peaceful Israel. He has consistently stood behind Middle East peace efforts.

The Congressman is also a former member of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council, has been a principal supporter of federal hate crimes legislation, and authored a bill granting federal tax exemptions on settlements received by Holocaust survivors. Congressman Nadler’s work on First Amendment religious freedoms is widely recognized. He is an ardent defender of the separation of church and state and has served as the lead Democratic author and sponsor of the Workplace Religious Freedom Act, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000, which was signed into law by President Clinton on September 22, 2000. The Congressman has also worked extensively on Black-Jewish relations, and was a recent recipient of the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding’s “Racial Harmony Award.”

A well-regarded source of political opinion and policy expertise, Congressman Nadler has been featured on a wide spectrum of news outlets, including NBC’s “Meet the Press,” CNN’s “Larry King Live,” and PBS’s “News Hour with Jim Lehrer.” Mr. Nadler also has been a reliable commentator for virtually all the major print news sources around the nation, from the New York Times to The Detroit News to the Los Angeles Times; from George to Vanity Fair; from the late liberal columnist Lars-Erik Nelson, to moderate David Broder, to conservative Robert Novak.

Representative Nadler is a graduate of Crown Heights Yeshiva, Stuyvesant High School, Columbia University, where he was a Pulitzer Scholar, and Fordham Law School. The Congressman lives on the West Side of Manhattan with his wife, Joyce, and son, Michael.