Vic Snyder
Vic Snyder (1947-) is a physician, attorney and Democratic Party (United States) U.S. Representative from the 2nd District of Arkansas (U.S. state), containing Little Rock, coming to Congress in 1997. While he has been on medical missions with his wife Betsy, a Presbyterian minister, he has an 83% rating from the Americans United for Separation of Church and State (AU), indicating support for separation of church and state. The Christian Coalition gave him an 8% rating on their standards for values votes.
Health care
His vote for the H.R. 3962 House health care bill has been reported to have been unpopular in the district.
He has a 100% voting record from the American Public Health Association, having cast votes in favor of regulating tobacco as a drug, giving mental health equity with physical health insurance, [1]
NARAL Pro-Choice America gives him a 100% record while the National Right to Life Committee gave him 55%. He voted against a ban on physician-assisted suicide.
International relations
He has been a medical missionary in Thailand, Honduras, Sierra Leone and Sudan, interspersed with family practice in Arkansas.
He opposed the 2002 Iraq War resolution. In a November 2009 hearing, he asked a witness, "What is our moral duty in Afghanistan?" [2] He also pressed the Army about developing defenses to improvised explosive devices. "IEDs remain the number one cause of casualties to coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. Although IEDs are not a new threat, they have been used with unprecedented frequency in Iraq and Afghanistan. While the decrease in successful attacks in Iraq is encouraging, that success has not been replicated in Afghanistan which has seen an increase in success in fatality attacks with our increase in forces there."[3]
He is a member of the Congressional Working Group on Cuba and cosponsored the Freedom to Travel to Cuba Act.
Committees
- chair, Joint Economic Committee
- U.S. House Veterans Affairs Committee
- U.S. House Armed Services Committee
Caucuses
- Member, New Democrat Coalition
- Congressional Arts Caucus
- Congressional Caucus on Addiction, Recovery and Treatment
- Congressional Caucus on Human Trafficking
- Congressional Caucus on India and Indian Americans
- Congressional Caucus on the Judicial Branch
- Congressional French Caucus
- Congressional Friends of Jordan Caucus
- Congressional Hazards Caucus
- Congressional Rural Housing Caucus
- Congressional Working Group on Cuba
- House Cancer Caucus
- House Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Education Caucus
- Hunger Caucus
- Job Corps Congressional Caucus
- Rural Health Care Caucus
- Congressional Sudan Caucus
- Task Force on International Religious Freedom
- U.S.-China Working Group
Education and early career
- Bachelor's in chemistry, Willamette University, 1975
- Between his sophomore and junior years at Willamette, Snyder volunteered for the United States Marine Corps, in which he served from 1967-1969, ultimately earning the rank of corporal. He served for one year in Vietnam with Headquarters Company, First Marine Division.
- Doctor of Medicine, University of Oregon Health Sciences Center, 1979.
- Family practice resident at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, completed 1982
During this time, he took part in several medical missions, with his wife, a minister to under-developed countries, including work in the Cambodian refugee camps in Thailand, the El Salvadoran refugee camps in Honduras, a West African mission hospital in Sierra Leone, and an Ethiopian refugee camp in Sudan.
- Law degree, University of Arkansas at Little Rock School of Law, 1988
References
- ↑ "Vic Snyder on Health Care", On the Issues
- ↑ Muqtedar Khan (18 November 2009), "Our moral duty to Afghanistan", Washington Post
- ↑ "Iraq Snapshot", Common Ills, 30 October 2009