Congressman Paul Tonko represents New York’s 20th Congressional District, including the communities of Albany, Schenectady, Troy, Saratoga Springs and Amsterdam. He represents all of Albany and Schenectady Counties and parts of Montgomery, Rensselaer and Saratoga Counties.
He is serving his seventh term, after first being sworn into Congress in 2009.
Paul serves on the Energy and Commerce Committee, the oldest standing committee in the House, created in December of 1795. He is the first Upstate New York Democratic member to serve on the committee since Leo O'Brien, who resigned the post in October 1966. He was elected by his peers in the 116th Congress to chair the Subcommittee on Environment and Climate Change. He was also selected to continue his service on the Science, Space and Technology Committee, as well as on the Natural Resources Committee.
Recovering from the Great Recession of 2007 and 2008 has been job one since I was first elected to Congress in 2009. As of the end of 2016, we had seen 75 consecutive months of private sector job growth and an unemployment rate cut in half. While these accomplishments are nothing to scoff at, our largest economic challenge today is to stop the suppression of middle-class wages. That means fighting against harmful trade policies like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and supporting economic justice in our private sector, giving our small businesses the tools and targeted tax credits they need to thrive, expand and hire locally.