Chris Smith is the US Representative for New Jersey’s 4th Congressional District. He has held that position since 1980 and, due to Republican gerrymandering, he last faced a truly competitive election in 1982. He has thus held a series of two-year appointments with virtually guaranteed reappointment for the past 36 years. Since he has not had to worry about reelection, and he has apparently had an undemanding constituency for most of his career, he has little interaction with his constituents. Indeed he refuses to hold town hall meetings and has not held one since at least 1992. While he maintains an apartment in Hamilton, NJ in order to be able to claim “residence”, his longtime home is in Virginia, and he seems only to visit the district for photo-ops, such as having his picture taken with one or another of the local VFW chapters. More details on Smith’s background can be found on this page, which gives a very detailed history of Smith’s career
What has he done right? It seems to be true that he has worked in support of veterans and he seems to be well-like by veterans’ groups: something must explain all his photo ops with them. His work against human trafficking is notable, as is his work to help persecuted Christians around the world. (However the latter is needless to say somewhat parochial, given the number of people around the world who are not Christians and are are persecuted for their beliefs.) He has also had a reasonable voting record on environmental issues.
I should also say that it is not completely true that Smith does not engage with his constituents. Since January 2017 I have called his office in Washington, written email to him via his website, and on some occasions sent printed letters via the mail. This has sometimes yielded a response in the form of a letter to inform me of his recent voting record on relevant bills. Sometimes he has sent a letter that is not in response to a letter from me, which seems to be intended as an “FYI”. I have received nine letters to date (starting in May of last year). The topics included:
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Smith’s opposition to HR 806, which would delay the implementation of the EPA’s ozone air quality standard, which passed the House.
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His opposition to the AHCA.
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Cosponsorship of legislation (the Recognizing America’s Children Act - HR 1468) to provide a pathway for DACA recipients to become legal permanent residents.
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Cosponsorship of H. Res. 195, which recognizes the importance of climate change.
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Opposition to the Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act of 2017 (HR 38).
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Opposition to the original House Budget Resolution HConRes 71.
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Opposition to offshore drilling off the Atlantic coast
The analysis here also highlights Smith’s stances on some of these issues.
One of the letters, actually the first I received, stands out especially in light of what we discuss below. The letter, dated May 24, 2017, dealt with the then recent appointment of Robert S. Mueller III as Special Counsel to oversee the Department of Justice’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 campaign. Smith’s letter included the following statement:
Foreign interference meant to undermine our nation’s democratic processes and institutions threaten our national security and require thorough investigation and comprehensive solutions to defend that which we hold dear. As I stated previously, we must follow the facts wherever they lead, with one objective: the truth.
Now, admittedly just sending letters isn’t quite the level of engagement with constituents one might hope from a representative — it remains true that he has not held a town hall meeting since about 1992 — but he’s also not completely ignoring his constituents either. And to reiterate a point made earlier, the letters show that Smith is on the right side of issues in many cases.
Regarding town halls, Smith’s stated reasons for not holding them boil down to claims of “bad behavior” by the public. Last year, a spokesman for Smith cited some (presumably recent) online comments about the congressman in order to justify a pattern of behavior that dates back 25 years. Unfortunately, the fact remains that Smith is a public servant, and one of the bits of that service one is supposed, willy nilly, to perform is connecting with one’s constituency. Even that paragon of virtue in public service, our former Governor Chris Christie, at least got that much right when he told GOP members of congress that they should hold town halls whether it is pleasant or not and that “You asked for the job. Go do it.”
There are of course many cases where Smith also seems to be on the wrong side of history. HIs stance on abortion is the most obvious one, though in that case I believe that his stance is a principled one — unlike Trump’s, for example, which is surely arrived at for more cynical reasons. Of equal concern is, for example, his response to Trump’s Muslim travel ban where, while noting that the ban was “poorly implemented”, he voiced support for more stringent vetting over and above the stringent vetting that would-be visitors and immigrants already receive. For someone who has apparently supported refugees, this position is stunning.
Then of course there is the following completely stereotypical GOP response to the Parkland Shooting, which speaks for itself:
As noted above, one of the worthy causes that Smith has pursued is ending human trafficking, and in those efforts he has at least done more than just send “hearts and prayers” to the victims of trafficking. A favorite refrain of “conservatives” has been that “liberals” care more about “foreigners” than they do “Americans” — a whine that we have heard often in the context of recent liberal backlash against ICE’s stepped up program of detention and deportation. Smith is a good example of why this has things exactly backwards. Republicans can show extreme concern for human rights, at least when so doing does not get in the way of some larger military or economic goal. But when it comes to the basic human right of every American to be able to go about their daily life with minimal fear of being mowed down by a nut with an AR-15, the best they can offer is “thoughts (or hearts) and prayers.”
But most puzzling among his recent stances is his response, or sometimes, non-response to Trump, Ryan and the GOP’s hijacking of American democracy. To be perfectly blunt, there are only five types of people who support the GOP and what they are trying to do to America:
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Some very rich people, such as the Kochs or the Mercers, who do not care who is in charge of the country so long as they can be bought, and cajoled into restructuring society to maximally benefit them. Robert Mercer has been quoted as saying he thought society was “upside down”, in that it gave far too much to the undeserving poor, and too little to the people who really produce things, meaning people like him. It seems that he is now well on his way to getting his wishes fulfilled.
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People who want to stick their head in the sand, wait until this blows over and hope in the meantime that nothing bad happens to them. In other words ostriches. Or maybe better: Martin Niemöllers.
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Out-and-out racists, xenophobes and homophobes, who view the current climate as a refreshing change from the liberal “elite” pushing their agenda down their throats. For them, a move towards autocracy is probably fine so long as it allows them to live in a world that is “purified” of what they see as undesirable elements.
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People who are deluded, or idiots, or both. Let’s not beat about the bush: assuming one does not fall into categories 1-3 above, there are no longer any extenuating circumstances that would justify anyone supporting Trump and the GOP with conviction other than plain and simple delusion or stupidity. Right after the election, some liberal commentators, such as Nicholas Kristof at the New York Times, pushed a campaign of tolerance, and recommended trying to understand the thinking of the other side. The time for that has passed. Only someone who lives in a world that bears no relation to the actual world we live in can look at what Trump is trying to do and honestly believe it is for the better. They must be so ill-educated and ill-informed that they cannot see Trump’s and the GOP’s bald lies about everything from taxes, to education to climate change, for what they are.
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Russian trolls.
Except for the last category, these are obviously not mutually exclusive. One can be a racist idiot, for example. Or a very rich person who favors Trump not because he would have been the first choice, but because he’s here now and, well, let’s just make the best of it (a rich ostrich in other words).
On some of the things that matter most right now, Chris Smith has either been silent or has actively supported actions that are threat to our democracy. Smith has been a Congressman since the days of Reagan, when the GOP was veering to the right, but had not achieved the heights of insanity that it has today. His votes against the GOP Tax Plan, and the various attempts to undo the Affordable Care Act, would seem to suggest that he does not completely buy into what Trump and Ryan are trying to do. Smith’s seat, as we noted above has been safe for the past 36 years, so it seems unlikely he voted against the party line merely out of fear for his seat. So let’s give him credit for that.
But then what about his support for release of the scurrilous Nunes memo, which seems particularly odd in light of the letter about the Mueller investigation that I quoted above? Trump’s attempt, with the active help of congressional members like Nunes, and at least the tacit support of many others in the GOP, to derail the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 elections, is one of the most serious threats to democracy America has faced in recent years. All people must be ultimately accountable for their actions, and the office of the presidency must offer no sanctuary against that. If there was cooperation between the Trump campaign and foreign operatives seeking to undermine the validity of our elections, then this needs to be found out. And if as a result it is determined that criminal charges should be brought against members of the Trump campaign, and possibly even Trump himself, well that is what must happen. Needless to say, any person in Trump’s position right now would feel defensive; given his narcissistic personality, that defensiveness will naturally multiply manifold.
Nunes’s role in this is clearly as ass-licker-in-chief, so we can assume that his motives for wanting to release a memo that purposefully presented a skewed view of the investigation, were purely venal. But what does Smith get out of his support? Perhaps he genuinely believes that justice is served by it, but if this is the case, then that is indeed a very poor reflection on Smith’s seriousness concerning his duty to work for the best interests of his constituents and uphold the Constitution.
But again, given his past history, he does not seem a priori like the type to support obstruction of justice, so perhaps this was some sort of tit-for-tat. For example, it could be that second-tier careerist Republican congress members have a deal with Ryan: support the party line on a certain number of key issues, and we’ll give you license to vote your conscience on some others, and to pursue your pet agendas. If it is that, then either Smith was basically instructed to support the party line here, or else it was not a matter that he felt was important enough to fight for, or both. Either way, this again does not reflect well on Smith’s courage to defend what his conscience must tell him is right. In that light, it is ironic that Smith, along with Senator Marco Rubio, nominated “the entire pro-democracy movement” of Hong Kong for the Nobel Peace Prize, but seems blind to the threat our own democracy faces in the hands of his party.
Why devote so much space to a second-tier congressman who owes his entire career to a district redrawn in his favor? Apart from the fact that New Jersey’s Fourth District deserves better and needs a change, it is also obviously true that if we want to win back the House and drain the swamp of some of the members who are threatening the progress this country has made over the past 50 years, then we need to understand in each and every district what we are up against.
Smith has not been uniformly bad and has on many occasions voted to support positions that help people. But his positions under the Trump regime have been in some cases alarming. It will be a tough fight to unseat him, but we have to try, so let us hope that the Democrats can find a candidate strong enough to take him on. Some recent letters to the editor at The Trentonian (here, and here) suggest that people are getting fed up with his positions and his lack of interest in representing his constituency. And a recent analysis in Medium, makes a good case that Jim Keady is the candidate currently in the running who has the best chance of unseating Smith — by presenting a coherent progressive platform that is easily distinguishable from Smith’s “centrist” positions on many issues, as well as demonstrating the sort of connection to his district that Smith has not had for over a quarter of a century.
The question that remains forefront in my mind about Smith is this. Why would a politician who in the past seemed to demonstrate some sense of decency now apparently not oppose some of the more flagrant abuses of a party that shows no sense of decency? We can leave Smith to examine his own conscience, but this is one that voters in New Jersey’s Fourth Congressional district should be asking themselves when they go to the polls in November.