A House bill would honor Leonard G. "Bud" Lomell, the highly decorated hero during the D-Day invasion at Normandy, by putting his name on the VA Clinic in Toms River. (Karen Wall/Patch) By Karen Wall Patch Staff WASHINGTON, DC — When ground was broken for the new Veterans Affairs health clinic in Toms River in May 2022, former Toms River Mayor Maurice Hill made a plea, asking the congressional delegation to name the clinic for the town's World War II hero, Leonard G. "Bud" Lomell. On Monday, th... Read more

The following are excerpts of remarks by Rep. Chris Smith, Co-Chairman of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, at the commission’s July 23, 2025 hearing on Taiwan and CCP transnational repression, with witnesses Fan Yun, Rear Admiral Mike Studeman, USN (Ret.), Peter Mattis, and Audrye Wong: "In 1999, two People’s Liberation Army colonels, Colonel Qiao and Wang, published a book entitled Unrestricted Warfare. It is a fascinating book, and one which sees everything short of kinetic as ... Read more

Tomorrow, July 23rd, the co-chairs of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) will hold their first public hearing on the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) increased acts of political warfare and repression against Taiwan. WHAT: Congressional hearing on the PRC’s acts of political warfare and repression against Taiwan and its supporters WHEN: Wednesday, July 23, 2025, at 10:00 a.m. WITNESSES: Fan Yun, Member of the Legislative Yuan of Taiwan Rear Admiral Mike Studeman, USN (Ret.... Read more

Comprehensive anti-human trafficking legislation was unanimously approved by the House Foreign Affairs Committee and will now head to the House Floor for a vote, where it is expected to receive widespread bipartisan support. Introduced by Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), The Frederick Douglass Trafficking Victims Prevention and Protection Act of 2025 (H. R. 1144) was named in honor of Frederick Douglass, a famed abolitionist and outspoken critic of slavery. It is only fitting that legislation designed ... Read more

As we approach the somber 2-year mark since the unjust imprisonment of Dr. Gubad Ibadoghlu by the government of Azerbaijan, Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), a leading American human rights lawmaker, renewed the call for securing Ibadoghlu’s release and for the U. S. to sanction the individuals involved in the ongoing medical abuses against Ibadoghlu, a world-renowned economist, former New Jersey resident and now political prisoner. As an economist, Dr. Ibadoghlu’s scholarship has included research on t... Read more

Today, the U. S. House of Representatives unanimously passed legislation to name the new Toms River Veterans Clinic in honor of Second Lieutenant Leonard G. “Bud” Lomell, a World War II hero and longtime Toms River resident. Click here for Smith’s full remarks. H. R. 2170, “To name the Department of Veterans Affairs community-based outpatient clinic in Toms River, New Jersey, the Leonard G. 'Bud' Lomell, VA Clinic, and for other purposes,” formally recognizes and memorializes Lomell’s heroic mi... Read more

by Tommy Watters The Point Pleasant Canal will be getting a $3 million fence safety facelift. After a series of meetings with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers over two years, the agency announced plans to repair and replace old safety fencing along the entire perimeter of the Point Pleasant Canal in the borough, U.S. Rep. Chris Smith (R-4) announced on June 11. The canal first opened to navigation in 1926, and is a roughly two-mile-long, man-made channel that connects the Barnegat Bay and the M... Read more

At a widely attended human rights forum on Capitol Hill this week, Congressman Chris Smith (R-NJ), Co-chair of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) and member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, underscored the severity and intensity of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s campaigns to suppress and silence the voices of dissidents and other pro-democracy advocates, including those who escaped to the United States. Click here for Smith’s full remarks. The “Safeguarding Freed... Read more

Alarming accounts of growing repression at the hands of the government of Pakistan, targeting political opposition figures, independent journalists, and the blocking of free and fair elections in Pakistan were the focuses of a bipartisan congressional hearing chaired Tuesday by Congressman Chris Smith (R-NJ), co-chairman of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission. “Life in Pakistan today is marked by rampant government violations of basic freedoms, particularly freedom of speech and media freedom... Read more

New legislation to reauthorize the nation’s federal efforts to fight Lyme disease was announced yesterday on Capitol Hill. Known as the TICK Act, the bill authored by Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) with lead sponsors Reps. Lloyd Doggett (D-TX), Thomas Kean, Jr. (R-NJ) and Paul Tonko (D-NY), will provide continued funding for Lyme disease research at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Senator Susan Collins is the author of this legislation in the US Senate. “Lyme and other tick-borne diseases are e... Read more