http://www.house.gov/maloney/bio.htmlCongresswoman Carolyn B. Maloney, a Democrat, represents the 14th district in New York City. Her district contains many of the city's most historic and well-known neighborhoods, including most of the East Side, Astoria and Long Island City, Queens. After serving for ten years on the New York City Council, Maloney defeated a 14-year incumbent in her first race for Congress in 1992. She was reelected in 2004 with 81% of the vote and has never lost an election. Maloney serves on the House Financial Services Committee, the Government Reform Committee and is the ranking House Democrat on the Joint Economic Committee.
Maloney has worked tirelessly to ensure that New York’s recovery from 9/11 is completed and that our national security is strengthened. A strong supporter of the 9/11 Commission, Maloney and her colleague Rep. Christopher Shays (CT-04) formed the bipartisan 9/11 Commission Caucus upon the release of the commission’s final report. The Caucus’s goal is to enact each of the Commission’s 41 recommendations into law.
Beginning in July 2004 and working closely with family members of 9/11 victims on the Family Steering Committee, Maloney and Shays attempted to pass a bipartisan security reform bill in the House. They introduced companion bills to the Senate’s McCain-Lieberman and Collins-Lieberman legislation. They kept up the pressure for a final bill, even as the House-Senate negotiations appeared on the brink of collapse. Finally, in December 2004, Congress was called back to Washington to pass a landmark bill born out of key 9/11 Commission recommendations – a tremendous victory for the nation. Maloney’s Caucus continues to press for the enactment of additional commission recommendations, and Maloney is the author of a proposal to reorganize Congress for better oversight of Homeland Security and Intelligence, one of the commission’s chief concerns.
In 2004, much of Maloney’s 9/11 recovery effort also centered around obtaining federal health monitoring and medical treatment for the heroes who volunteered or worked at Ground Zero after 9/11 and have since developed medical conditions. Maloney introduced the Remember 9/11 Health Act in March 2004 to provide and expand medical monitoring and treatment for those who responded to, or volunteered for, the 9/11 rescue and recovery. In September 2004, Maloney introduced a bill to extend the sign-up deadline for the Victims Compensation Fund, since many volunteers and responders were unaware of it or have late-developing medical problems.
Maloney has also kept close tabs on whether New York will receive the entire $20 billion in federal recovery aid promised to it after 9/11. Just before the second anniversary of the attacks, she released a report that provided an accounting of the aid to that point. In February 2002, Congresswoman Maloney urged the Bush Administration to develop a public timetable for when the $20 billion would actually arrive in New York and also called on the President to appoint someone in charge of responding to New York’s needs and coordinating federal aid to the city.
In December of 2001, Congresswoman Maloney, with Congressman Peter King (NY), sponsored and passed successful legislation in the House of Representatives to award Congress’s highest honor, the Congressional Gold Medal, posthumously to the firefighters, police officers, emergency workers, and employees of federal, state, and local governments who lost their lives while responding to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
Rep. Maloney is a national leader on homeland security and was named Chair of the House Democratic Caucus Task Force on Homeland Security in June 2003. In that position, she has organized hearings, national surveys and reports on homeland security and has advanced Democratic security policy. In late June 2003, Maloney convened a special task force hearing in Washington on local homeland security needs. First responders and local officials from around the country went to Capitol Hill to testify. Maloney also coordinated a national survey of local responders and officials on hometown security; the results were compiled into the October 2003 report, Federal Homeland Security Assistance to America’s Hometowns.
As a New Yorker, Maloney has led the charge in Congress to reform federal homeland security assistance distribution, particularly to America’s most targeted areas. She has fought vehemently for a change in the state funding program that sends disproportionate amounts of security money to low-threat states and for an increase in “high-threat” funding to targeted cities. In January 2004, Maloney and several colleagues requested of President Bush a doubling of high-threat funds in his FY2005 budget. When the President’s proposal was released days later, the high-threat program was, indeed, doubled. Maloney has worked to help the New York Fire Department at the federal level, introducing legislation to fix FDNY’s radio system and releasing a report on the flaws of the FIRE Act, which shortchanges FDNY.
As the former co-chair of the Women’s Caucus, Maloney is a nationally-recognized advocate for women’s and family issues, with special emphasis on funding for women’s health needs, reproductive freedom, and international family planning. She was a member of the U.S. delegations to the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing and to the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) fifth-year review and appraisal at The Hague (Cairo + 5). In 2004, she attended ICPD’s tenth-year review meeting in Puerto Rico.
As the Member of Congress who has spearheaded the Debbie Smith Act in numerous sessions of Congress, Maloney took the lead in the effort to erase the backlog of rape DNA testing kits that could put rapists behind bars. In 2004, the Debbie Smith Act was attached to two broader pieces legislation on DNA technology, which each had wide bipartisan support in the House and Senate. After passing the House and Senate, the Justice for All Act, containing the Debbie Smith legislation, was signed into law in October 2004.
Maloney has also been an outspoken authority against the persistent problem of sexual assault in the military. She successfully attached an amendment to the Defense Authorization legislation in 2004 that will ensure the American military has ample rape DNA testing kits and that the use of those kits is properly expedited.
Maloney has fought vigorously to restore the Untied States’s contribution to UNFPA, the United Nation’s Population Fund, since the Bush Administration first withheld it in 2002. Maloney succeeded in increasing funding for UNFPA in the FY 2002 Foreign Operations Appropriations bill to $34 million, a $12.5 million increase from the previous fiscal year. Additionally, she introduced the Saving Women's Lives Act of 2002, to try to spur the Bush Administration to release the $34 million budgeted for the United Nations Population Fund. In 2004, Maloney proposed compromise legislation to restore the U.S.’s contribution to combat the horrific condition obstetric fistula. In November 2002, Maloney was recognized for ‘Carrying the Weight of the World’ by United Nations Family Planning and received their Women’s Leadership Award.
Maloney worked to increase public awareness in social inequalities between men and women that still exist in American In January 2002, she released The Dingell-Maloney Report: A New Look through the Glass Ceiling, an alarming report documenting a widening wage gap between men and women managers. Together with her colleague John Dingell of Michigan, she followed the 2002 report up by commissioning another Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, this one examining wages for all women over the past 20 years. The comprehensive report, released in 2004, revealed a persistent wage gap of 20-cents on the dollar that has remained unchanged.
Rep. Maloney was named the ranking House Democrat on the Joint Economic Committee (JEC) in January 2005. The JEC is Congress’s chief body to review economic conditions and recommend improvements in economic policy.
Rep. Maloney has been the Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Domestic and International Monetary Policy, Trade and Technology of the Financial Services Committee since February 2003. This Subcommittee oversees Federal Reserve interest rate policy that directly affects all mortgage, car, and credit card interest rates.
Since being elected to Congress, Maloney has worked to modernize financial services laws and regulations while strongly advocating for consumer protections. She is the author of the “Consumer Checking Account Fairness Act,” which would ensure that deposits quickly clear into consumers’ accounts, giving them the same technology advantage as banks have obtained from electronic check clearing.
In the 108th Congress, Rep. Maloney worked to include groundbreaking identity theft protections in legislation updating the nation's credit reporting system (FACT Act, P.L. 108-159). She was a leader of the fight to preserve the rule-making authority of the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Financial Accounting Standards Board over corporations’ public filings. Rep. Maloney also cosponsored legislation that enhances consumer protections needed to combat the mutual fund abuses exposed by New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer.
A vigorous advocate for the New York financial services community, Maloney has played a major role in legislation to modernize the deposit insurance system which passed the House, coauthoring an amendment to ensure fairness for banks that helped recapitalize the insurance fund during past crises. A long- time supporter of credit unions, she introduced the Credit Union Regulatory Improvements Act (H.R. 3579) which would improve the safety and soundness of credit unions.
In the 107th Congress, Maloney remained steadfast to her commitment of modernizing financial service laws while strongly advocating for consumer protections and privacy. She passed legislation to cut fees on securities transactions by $14 billion over ten years. In April 2003, the House passed a bill introduced by Maloney and Sue Kelly (R-NY). H.R. 758, the Business Checking Freedom Act, allows banks to pay interest on business checking accounts.
In the 106th Congress, Maloney served as a conferee on the historic Gramm-Leach-Bliley financial modernization bill, where she fought to redraft Depression-era separations between banking, securities, and insurance firms while at the same time providing new consumer privacy protections for personal financial information. Maloney was the lead Democrat on the Investor and Capital Markets Relief Act, legislation which allowed the SEC to increase salaries of its employees so it can recruit and retain the most qualified professionals to oversee the markets. She is also a member of the Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit and the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations.
Maloney continues to focus attention on issues relating to transportation and education that have a direct impact on her district in New York. A strong supporter of the Second Avenue Subway, Congresswoman Maloney was instrumental in obtaining $2.5 million in federal funding for the project in the FY 2005 Omnibus Appropriations bill. This marks the fifth consecutive year of progress for the subway. Additionally, she spearheaded a coalition of elected officials who persuaded Mayor Bloomberg to reaffirm his commitment to the Second Avenue Subway. Working with the New York Congressional Delegation, Rep. Maloney has been successful in obtaining appropriations for several district projects. Maloney created and co-chairs the Task Force for an East Side High School which succeeded in obtaining backing from the Board of Education for a new academically rigorous high school on the East Side. The school opened in September 2002.
In early 1999, Maloney, who co-founded and co-chaired the Census Caucus, was appointed the Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on the Census. She has been leading the fight to ensure that scientists, in spite of the objections of partisan politicians, will finally be able to release all 2000 Census data. The importance of accurate data cannot be minimized. Decennial census data is used to ensure fair representation and the fair distribution of federal funds. In 1990, the census undercounted the City of New York by 244,000, costing the city its fair share of federal funding. Maloney worked hard to ensure that the Census Bureau received adequate funding to continue with its plan to use modern statistical methods (statistical sampling). Unfortunately, the Bush Administration has refused to release the data generated using statistical sampling.
Maloney authored legislation that made available for study thousands of World War II era Nazi War Crime records. The bill established a working group to review and organize documents held by federal agencies, checks for possible breaches in national security, and makes the non-sensitive material available to the public. Maloney successfully worked with partners in the Senate to extend the working group past its original March 2004 sunset date so it could finish its important work. In May 2004, the Interagency Working Group released its completed report.
A staunch supporter of key U.S. allies, Maloney passed legislation cracking down on the Arab Boycott of Israel and has championed the cause of justice in Ireland. She is the co-founder and co-chair of the Congressional Caucus on Hellenic Issues and has advocated for peace on Cyprus and enhanced U.S.-Greek relations.
Maloney has received the Military Order of the Purple Heart, For Meritorious and Conspicuous Service for Veterans, the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association’s (NFPRHA) Distinguished Public Service Award, the Ellis Island Medal of Honor, the Hadassah Myrtle Wreath Award, Peace Action’s Global Peace Award, the Queens Women’s Political Caucus’s Queens Women of Distinction Award and the Healthy Mothers, Health Babies’s 2000 Special Impact Award. Maloney was the Grand Marshal of New York’s Greek Independence Day Parade in 1996 and 2001. Her legislative efforts have been featured on NBC Nightly News, NBC’s Today, CBS Sunday Morning, CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and other local, national, and international major media outlets.
After graduating from Greensboro College, Maloney worked for several years as a teacher and an administrator for the New York City Board of Education. In 1977, she went to work for the New York State legislature and held senior staff positions in both the State Assembly and the State Senate. In 1982, Maloney ran for public office for the first time and defeated an incumbent to win a seat on the New York City Council.
In her ten years on the Council, Maloney fought to eliminate waste and fraud in government. In 1986, she founded the Council's committee on city contracts and used this position to write a series of new laws setting up a computerized system to monitor the $7 billion which the city awards each year in contracts. She was also the principal author of the landmark New York City Campaign Finance Act. Maloney also became a champion of women’s, family, and children’s issues. The first Council member to give birth while in office, Maloney was also the first to offer a comprehensive package of legislation to make day care more available and affordable.
Congresswoman Maloney lives in New York City. She and her husband, Clifton Maloney, have two daughters, Christina and Virginia.
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(updated 01/13/05)
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