Meet Congressman Adam Schiff

By Mary O’KEEFE

Congressman Adam Schiff is back in La Crescenta. Not that he was ever that far away, but due to redistricting if elected this November he will once again represent the unincorporated area of Los Angeles County, La Crescenta.

Since he began serving as a congressman in 2001, he has been in the area fighting to retain money for NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory, raising awareness of Turkey’s continued denial of the Armenian Genocide and, recently, has been a strong voice demanding the U.S. Forest Service complete and implement a study on how they approached the Station Fire.

Schiff said he was happy to be back representing the La Crescenta area, which is part of District 28 that covers a wide area from West Hollywood to the Angeles National Forest.

The last time he ran for Congress he was representing District 29, which also included Glendale. He has been a strong supporter of several Armenian organizations that strive to have the Armenian Genocide recognized not only by Turkey but also by the U.S. government.

He has also been a constant and strong supporter for NASA/JPL, which employs several residents in the area. He was at JPL many times during the planning and development of the Mars Science Laboratory and was at JPL when the rover Curiosity landed on Mars. He used that landing to again call attention to the need to restore and maintain funding for the Mars Program.

Schiff was at the forefront of calling for the U.S. Forest Service to answer questions after the 2009 Station Fire. He led panel discussions on the agency’s policy on water dropping planes and night flights. He pressed the forest service to not only conduct an investigation on its procedure during the Station Fire but to implement the findings of that report.

He does support the President’s health care that was passed and sees it as a necessary step in controlling the ever-growing health care costs.

“It is important that we move forward on health care reform,” he said. “The [plan] helps [citizens] in several ways [including] allowing kids to stay on health care [until they are 26 years old].”

Schiff added it is also going to help seniors with their health care costs and help small businesses.

“Small businesses will be able to pool purchasing power and buy [health care] like big business,” he said.

It doesn’t have to be an election year for most to realize that bipartisan work on issues is few and far between. Schiff said he was optimistic that Congress and the Senate will be able to work together in the future.

“It is so important for a ruling party in power to be given a chance to govern,” he said. “Changes need to be given a chance to succeed.”

He said the economy is moving in the right direction and supports the continuation of the Bush-era tax cuts. He has co-sponsored H.R. 15 that extends tax cuts for Americans with an income up to $250,000.

“We are at the point now where the gap between the very poor and the very wealthy has never been this [wide],” Schiff said.

Locally Schiff has been supportive of several organizations like St. Luke’s of the Mountains. When its flags representing several countries and cultures were stolen, he gathered several cultural leaders to help replace them. He was on hand when new ones were donated and installed on the church property. He has also been supportive to local organizations like high school robotic teams and countless civic groups like the CV Armenian Community Center and Crescenta Valley Town Council.

Schiff is running as the Democratic incumbent for the District 28 Congressional seat.

For information on Congressman Adam Schiff, visit schiff.house/gov or www.schiff4congress.com  Contact him at (202) 225-4176 or (626) 304-2727.

  Mary Okeefe