Meet Gary

U.S. Congressman Gary Ackerman was elected to Congress in 1983 and is presently serving his fourteenth term in the House of Representatives. Ackerman represents the Fifth Congressional District of New York, encompassing the North Shore of Queens and Long Island including west and northeast Queens and northwest Nassau County.

Congressman Ackerman is a senior member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and serves as the Chairman of its Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia. Ackerman is also a senior member of the House Financial Services Committee.

In 1965, Ackerman became a school teacher where he taught social studies, math and journalism. In 1970, he founded the Flushing Tribune, a weekly community newspaper in Queens.

Ackerman was first elected to public office in 1978 when he won a seat in the New York State Senate. Ackerman served in the chamber for four years.

A Leader in the House of Representatives

As a member of Congress, Ackerman has helped Queens and Long Island secure funding for many critical issues such as the environment, education, healthcare, the economy, law enforcement and overall quality of life.

On the House Financial Services CommitteeOn the House Financial Services Committee, Ackerman has also sponsored numerous bills which are now federal law, one being an issue that Ackerman had worked on since 1969. When he was a junior high-school teacher in Queens, Ackerman petitioned the New York City Board of Education for an unpaid leave of absence to spend time with his newborn daughter. His request was denied under then existing policy which reserved unpaid "maternity-child care" leave to women only.

In what was to be a forerunner of the federal Family Leave Act, then teacher Ackerman successfully sued the board in a landmark case which established the right of either parent to receive unpaid leave for child care. A quarter of a century later, Congressman Ackerman in the House-Senate Conference Committee, signed the report of the Family and Medical Leave Act which became the law of the land.

Ackerman was raised in Flushing, Queens, attended Brooklyn Technical High School and graduated from Queens College in 1965. The Ackermans have three children and four grandchildren.