Blind human rights lawyer Chen Guangcheng, known for his daring night-time escape from Chinese secret police in 2012 and the subsequent international efforts to secure his freedom and move to the United States, testified in person for the first time before Chairman Chris Smith’s (NJ-04) global human rights subcommittee in the U.S. House of Representatives. It was a sharp contrast to Chen’s live call to Smith during a similar hearing on May 3, 2013 from a Chinese government hospital bed in China.... Read more

A Medicare-sponsored program designed to provide all-inclusive health care for seniors, while allowing them to remain independent in their own homes, will be spared and protected despite original plans by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to rewrite the rules and thereby gut the program. Rep. Chris Smith, co-chair of the Alzheimer’s Disease Task Force, who led a bipartisan effort to persuade the federal government to withdraw its proposal, hailed the reversal as a win for senior... Read more

Representatives Chris Smith (NJ-04) and Jon Runyan (NJ-03) said the New Jersey Department of Transportation will receive $76 million in federal funding for New Jersey’s planned Route 35 reconstruction in Ocean County. “This vital infrastructure project will replace what was an aging, antiquated roadway even before Sandy, with a state-of-the-art stretch of highway that is designed to last,” said Smith, whose district like Runyan’s, includes large parts of Ocean County. “Route 35 is an important t... Read more

The eye-opening testimony of a Planned Parenthood lobbyist in Florida before Florida state legislators asserting that abortionists should be allowed to let a baby born alive after a botched abortion die are alarming, said Congressman Chris Smith (NJ-04), Co-Chairman of the House Bipartisan Congressional Pro-Life Caucus, and a sign of Planned Parenthood’s extreme and evolving positions on abortion. In an interview to air Friday with Jay Sekulow, Chief Counsel for the American Center for Law and ... Read more

Congressman Chris Smith (NJ-04), the Co-Chairman of the Congressional Coalition on Autism Research and Education (C.A.R.E.), marked today as World Autism Day and April as National Autism Month. “The human costs of autism are staggering,” said Smith, author of the Combating Autism Reauthorization Act, Public Law 112-32, signed into law in September 2011. “It makes the necessity of seeking prevention, effective treatments and even someday a cure more critical than ever.” The CDC in 2012 released a... Read more

Times of Trenton guest opinion column: Superstorm Sandy caused close to $37 billion in damages in New Jersey. For days and weeks afterward, churches, synagogues, mosques and temples in New Jersey that were spared serious damage opened their doors to those left homeless by the storm. Their congregations did not ask those who were stranded about their religious affiliation. They did not deny people food and shelter because they were not among their congregants. Now, more than a dozen New Jersey ho... Read more

Earlier today, U.S. Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) and Rep. Ted Deutch (D-FL) introduced bipartisan legislation to protect hospitals in New Jersey and other-urban areas that are facing unsustainable Medicare payment losses. Smith’s bill, the Urban Medicare-Dependent Hospitals (UMDH) Preservation Act, would afford hospitals in urban areas that serve a high proportion of Medicare patients (60 percent or higher) the same payment relief currently provided to their rural counterparts. Hospitals in some area... Read more

The National Association of Community Health Centers today presented Rep. Chris Smith (NJ-04) with the Distinguished Community Health Defender Award for his leadership and support of health care services to underserved communities in New Jersey. “Community health centers provide essential primary and preventive care services,” said Smith, who secured the designation of a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) for Ocean Health Initiative (OHI) in 2005 and Lakewood’s CHEMED in 2009. “They allow... Read more

U.S. Reps Chris Smith (R-NJ), Grace Meng (D-NY) and Peter King (R-NY) announced today that they are urging key U.S. Senators to allow a vote on legislation that would allow the use of federal disaster funds to rebuild houses of worship damaged by Hurricane Sandy. The three lawmakers, who worked to pass the bill in the House last month, made the case in a letter they sent to Senators Thomas Carper (D-DE), Chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee and Tom Coburn (R-TN), the panel’s Rankin... Read more

Speaker of the House John Boehner has tasked Rep. Chris Smith (NJ-04), a senior member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and leader on many international human rights efforts, to lead the bipartisan U.S. congressional delegation to attend the investiture of former Argentine Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio as Pope Francis. “On behalf of Speaker Boehner and the entire U.S. House of Representatives, I will convey our deepest respect, congratulations and best wishes to Pope Francis on his instal... Read more