About Me

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Congressman David N. Congressman Cicilline serves Rhode Island’s First Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives. Congressman Cicilline is a leader in Congress on issues of core American values, ensuring equitable access to economic opportunity, sustaining and growing our manufacturing sector, promoting equality for all, protecting the rights of workers, and safeguarding the ability of older Americans to retire with dignity.

Congressman Cicilline is currently leading efforts to combat price gouging and inflation, implement gun safety legislation on the federal level, and pass the first piece of antitrust legislation of the modern era to ensure a fair and competitive online marketplace for startups, consumers, and small businesses. As a senior member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Congressman Cicilline recently visited Ukraine and the Polish-Ukrainian border and is working to ensure that Ukraine has the economic and security support it needs to fight against Putin’s illegal and unwarranted invasion and defend its democracy.

Congressman Cicilline is a senior member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the House Committee on the Judiciary, where, as Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial, and Administrative Law, he oversees efforts to ensure access to affordable health care, keep the courts responsive to consumers and workers, and promote innovation and economic opportunity through open and competitive markets. Congressman Cicilline has been leading the fight to hold Big Tech accountable, overseeing a top-to-bottom investigation into the state of competition in the digital marketplace and leading the introduction of six bipartisan bills to build a stronger online economy and protect consumers and small businesses.

On the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Congressman Cicilline has fought to keep Americans safe at home and abroad, has worked to promote democracy and human rights around the world, and build bipartisan support for American diplomacy and strengthening our alliances abroad.

Congressman Cicilline is dedicated to keeping Rhode Islanders safe and investing in our state and its future. He is the author of the Active Shooter Alert Act, bipartisan legislation that would create an AMBER alert-like system for use during active shooter incidents. He has also secured funding for Rhode Island’s law enforcement officers and body-worn cameras through multiple federal grants, and in 2022 brought home $413,000 for Family Service of Rhode Island’s (FSRI) Police Go Team. Founded in 2004, when Congressman Cicilline was Mayor of Providence, the Police Go Team provides trauma-trained clinicians and liaisons to partner with police to respond, on-scene, to children and families exposed to violence. The objective of the Police Go Team is to prevent the consequences of traumatic events in the lives of children and adults in Providence, Pawtucket, and Central Falls via immediate social service response to violent crime.

Throughout his tenure in Congress, Congressman Cicilline has fought for and delivered federal funding for Rhode Island – our infrastructure, neighborhood centers, public safety, and local programs and services. These funds are key investments in Rhode Island’s people, economy, and future. In the 117th Congress, the House reinstated Community Project Funding, allowing each Member to submit 10 local projects for direct funding through the appropriations legislation for the 2022 Fiscal Year. Congressman Cicilline secured funding for all 10 of his recommended projects in 2022, totaling $9.6 million.

In Congress, Congressman Cicilline has become one of the leading advocates for the Make it in America agenda to help rebuild and strengthen America’s manufacturing sector. Congressman Cicilline has advanced efforts to help create jobs, promote American-made goods, and stimulate economic growth, including his legislation, signed into law, to help American manufacturers better compete against foreign businesses for U.S. government contracts.

As a champion for the middle class, Congressman Cicilline is a leading voice in the fight to ensure Rhode Islanders who work hard and play by the rules are able to buy a home, send their kids to college, and save for retirement. Congressman Cicilline has fought to advance legislation that helps lower the costs that weigh most heavily on families and workers – promoting tax relief to help pay for childcare, championing efforts to lower the cost of medicine by allowing Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices, and addressing the economic structure that allows big corporations to limit competition, which raises costs for consumers and undermines the steady supply of goods.

Congressman Cicilline has worked to protect our nation’s seniors by opposing every effort to privatize Social Security and cut Medicare. Congressman Cicilline has introduced legislation to create a Permanent Select Committee on Aging in the U.S. House, which would be empowered to conduct investigations, hold hearings, and issue reports to inform Congress on issues related to aging. Congressman Cicilline is championing efforts to ensure all Americans can age in good health and with dignity, including the Social Security 2100 Act, which would strengthen the Social Security trust fund, increase benefits, improve the Cost-of-Living Adjustment (COLA), and repeal the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and the Government Pension Offset (GPO).

As Mayor of Providence, Congressman Cicilline was a founding member of Mayors Against Illegal Guns and has continued to fight in Congress to reduce gun violence. Congressman Cicilline is the author of the Assault Weapons Ban, to keep military-style weapons of war out of our communities, and the Untraceable Firearms Act, to prohibit unlicensed private individuals from manufacturing “ghost guns,” untraceable homemade firearms that can be built and obtained without a background check or compliance with gun laws. Congressman Cicilline is a vocal advocate for commonsense gun safety measures, including universal background checks, to ensure that individuals already prohibited from gun possession under federal law, such as felons, domestic abusers and those who are considered a danger to themselves or others, are not able to obtain firearms.

As Chair of the Congressional LGBTQ+ Equality Caucus, Congressman Cicilline is leading efforts to promote equality for all, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity. In 2021, the U.S. House of Representatives passed Congressman Cicilline’s Equality Act, comprehensive civil rights legislation that prohibits discrimination against members of the LGBTQ+ community in the areas of employment, education, credit, jury service, federal funding, housing, and public accommodations.

In Congress, Congressman Cicilline is working hard to restore the public’s confidence and trust in government by making our campaign finance system more transparent and by reducing the influence of corporate money in our elections. Congressman Cicilline has worked to overturn Citizens United, which opened the floodgates to unlimited corporate spending on elections, and continues to fight to end the influence of big money in our political system.

Prior to his election to Congress, Congressman Cicilline served two terms as Mayor of Providence and four terms in the Rhode Island House of Representatives. He is a graduate of Brown University and the Georgetown University Law Center and resides today in Providence.