Biography

Now in his tenth term, Jim Walsh proudly represents New York's 25th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives. Walsh's 25th Congressional District stretches from Syracuse west along Lake Ontario thru Cayuga and Wayne Counties to the northeastern Rochester suburbs. His district includes all of Onondaga and Wayne Counties, plus the Cayuga County towns of Sterling, Victory, Ira, Cato and Conquest and the Monroe County towns of Irondequoit, Webster, and Penfield.

Congressman Walsh is a longtime member of the House Appropriations Committee and has served in a variety of leadership roles on the committee. As chair of the Appropriations subcommittee with responsibility for federal veterans programming, Walsh ushered in the largest increases in veterans healthcare funding in the nation’s history and secured close to $80 million to update and improve Hancock Air National Guard Base.

As chair of the Legislative Affairs Appropriations Subcommittee, Walsh began efforts to save and restore the historic U.S. Botanic Gardens on the Washington mall.

And when Walsh held fiduciary oversight over the Department of Housing and Urban Development, he created the highly successful Syracuse Neighborhood Initiative, credited with serving as a major catalyst for increased downtown investment, expanded and enhanced housing opportunities, and improved citizen involvement and neighborhood pride throughout Syracuse.

Now as Ranking Member of the panel's Labor-Health and Human Services-Education Subcommittee and senior member of the Transportation-Housing and Urban Development Subcommittee, Walsh is in a strong position to influence national policy and continue his work to bring needed federal investment home to Central and Western New York. All told, Walsh has brought home roughly $1 billion for economic development and other activities improving our quality of life.

The New York Times has called Walsh's influence on the federal appropriations process “unmistakable.” Already this term, Walsh has been successful in efforts to increase the maximum of Pell Grant amounts available for lower income students attending college and to push the Department of Health and Human Services to address the growing problem of food allergies among our nation’s children.

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 over 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.

Of particular interest to many in New York, Mr. Walsh proudly serves as Co-Chair of the Ad-Hoc Committee on Ireland and is Past Chair of the Friends of Ireland, having been first named to that post by the Speaker of the House in 1995. In these roles, Walsh has led many delegations to Ireland and plays a key role in the Irish Peace Process.

Walsh is responsible for the Walsh Visa program, 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 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.

Especially important to the region, the Congressman has been an ardent supporter of environmental and clean water initiatives, agriculture concerns and farmland conservation, projects to expand the region's reputation for renewable energy R&D;, activities to strengthen the area's economy, and efforts to preserve and enhance the Erie Canal National Heritage Corridor.

Walsh’s work in Washington created the Finger Lakes Agricultural and Open Space Land Project to safeguard water quality, preserve vistas, and protect open space from unplanned sprawl. His work on the Onondaga Lake cleanup has resulted in $150 million in federal resources for program projects and the active involvement of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

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.