Biography

Congressman Jim Walsh represents New York State in the U.S. House of Representatives as a member of the Committee on Appropriations. His district includes Onondaga County, northern Cayuga County, Wayne County, and the northeastern portion of Monroe County.

He is one of 10 Chairmen of the Appropriations Subcommittees, a group sometimes referred to in Washington as "the College of Cardinals" because of their influence on national spending policies.

In the 109th Congress, Mr. Walsh is chairman of the Subcommittee on Military Quality of Life and Veterans Affairs. As chair of MilQual/VA, the third largest of the 10 appropriations budgets at approximately $125 billion, Mr. Walsh has spending oversight responsibility for the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Defense Health Program, Department of Defense installations and military housing programs, the Armed Forces Retirement Home, the America Battle Monuments Commission, and Arlington National Cemetery.

The New York Times has called Walsh's role on Appropriations "important to New York State," and the Buffalo News has described Walsh as "commonly seen as New York's most powerful House member."

Mr. Walsh also serves as a senior member of the Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education.

Of particular interest to many in New York, Mr. Walsh proudly serves as Chairman of the Friends of Ireland, a bipartisan working group of House members involved in Irish-American relations. Reappointed by the Speaker of the House this session, he is the longest serving Republican Friends Chairman in House history, having first been appointed in 1995. Mr. Walsh also co-chairs the U.S.-Irish Interparliamentary Group and regularly leads Congressional Delegation trips to Ireland to work on the Northern peace initiative.

Walsh is also responsible for the Walsh Visa, passed by Congress in 1998 and reauthorized in 2004, which as part of the peace process allows citizens from Northern Ireland and the border counties to live and work in the U.S. for three years with a goal of learning an applicable trade and experiencing life in a multi-cultural society.

For his longtime work in promoting the Irish Peace Process, Walsh was presented with a 2002 Ellis Island Medal of Honor by the National Ethnic Coalition of Organizations and has been honored in his hometown by the local Ancient Order of Hibernians, receiving the Bobby Sands Award in 1998. Additionally, he received the Flax Trust Award in 1997 for his leadership in economic support plans for Ireland including the International Fund for Ireland.

In other areas, Mr. Walsh is nationally recognized as a leader in child nutrition through his support of the WIC Program (Women with Infants and Children) and TEFAP (The Emergency Food Assistance Program) and as sponsor of the Hunger Has a Cure bill in the House of Representatives.

In 1999, Walsh was the author and primary sponsor of the "Newborn and Infant Screening and Intervention Program Act," creating a nationwide program through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to assist states in establishing programs to detect and diagnose hearing loss in every newborn child and to promote appropriate treatment and intervention for newborns with hearing loss.

Between 1989 and 1990 when Walsh began working on the issue in Congress, only 3% of all babies in the United States were being screened, and only three hospital-based screening programs existed in the entire country. Today close to 95% of all newborns in the Unites States are screened at birth, and Walsh remains a co-founder and co-chair of the Congressional Hearing Health Caucus, an organization of Members of Congress committed to advancing health and accessibility issues of particular concern to those with hearing loss.

With his wife DeDe, he has been active in support of breast cancer research and treatment as well as community-based and federally funded relief for battered women and teenage mothers.

He is perennially endorsed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Greater Syracuse Chamber of Commerce, the NFIB (National Federation of Independent Business) and others for his stands against government waste and his support of balanced budgets and tax reform.

A history-major graduate of St. Bonaventure University, Mr. Walsh is a returned Peace Corps volunteer - Nepal, Social Services caseworker, and telecommunications executive. He served as Director of the Telecommunication Institute at SUNY (State University of New York) Institute of Technology at Utica-Rome and taught telecommunication policy. At the same time, he served on the Syracuse City Council as its President.

Mr. Walsh is active in civic and charitable organizations. To name a few, he is a board member of the Erie Canal Museum, Vera House, and Everson Museum.

An avid sportsman who hunts, fishes, and skis on a regular basis, Mr. Walsh and his wife live in the Town of Onondaga, a suburb of Syracuse. They have three adult children, Jed, Ben and Maureen, and are parishioners of Most Holy Rosary Church. Mr. Walsh's father, William F. Walsh, served as Mayor of Syracuse from 1961-69, and as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Central New York and the Finger Lakes region from 1973-78.