Vic Snyder

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Vic Snyder

Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Arkansas's 2nd district
Incumbent
Assumed office January 7, 1997–
Preceded by	Ray Thornton
Succeeded by	Incumbent

Born	September 27, 1947 (age 59) Medford, Oregon
Political party	Democratic
Spouse	Betsy Singleton
Religion	Presbyterian

Victor F. (Vic) Snyder (born September 27, 1947) is the Democratic United States Congressman from the 2nd Congressional District of Arkansas (map).

1 Early life
2 Politics
3 Personal life
4 External links

[edit] Early life

Vic Snyder was born in Medford, Oregon. He is a graduate of Medford High School (1965) and attended college at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon. After attending college for two years, in 1967 Snyder volunteered for the United States Marine Corps. He served in Vietnam with Headquarters Company of the US 1st Marine Division during the Vietnam War, attaining the rank of Corporal. Snyder earned a degree in Chemistry in 1975 from Willamette and earned his medical degree from the University of Oregon Health Sciences Center (now Oregon Health & Science University) in Portland, Oregon in 1979.

Snyder moved to Little Rock, Arkansas and served his residency at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. In 1982 after completing his residency he worked as a family practice physician for 15 years. During this time he travelled overseas to volunteer his medical services at Cambodian refugee camps in Thailand, Salvadoran refugee camps in Honduras, and Ethiopian refugee camps in Sudan. From 1985 to 1988 Snyder attended the University of Arkansas at Little Rock School of Law to obtain his law degree while still maintaining his medical practice.

[edit] Politics

In 1990 he successfully ran for a seat in the Arkansas legislature and served in that body until 1996. In the Arkansas legislature, Snyder stepped into one of his earliest legislative controversies when he attempted to repeal the state's aged "Sodomy Laws". Ultimately, however, his efforts failed, and the sodomy laws stayed in effect until the state Supreme Court struck it down in Jegley v. Picado in March 2001.

Snyder was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1996 and was reelected in 1998, 2000, 2002, 2004 and 2006. Snyder focuses on many traditionally liberal issues, including a particular interest in support for veteran's and military families, serving on the House Committee on Veteran's Affairs and the House Armed Services Committee. He has a fairly liberal voting record for being an elected politician from the South and otherwise conservative-leaning Arkansas. Snyder voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment, the ban on partial-birth abortions, banning lawsuits against gun manufacturers and distributors, bankruptcy reform, drilling in ANWR, and the authorization of force in Iraq, many of these positions however are supported by Democrats from Southern states. In addition, Snyder was one of only two Congressmen to vote against prosecuting Saddam Hussein.

[edit] Personal life

Snyder married The Reverend Betsy Singleton, a United Methodist minister, in 2003. Together they have one child, a son, Charles Pennington Snyder born May 23, 2006.

Despite his wife's yearly blessing of the animals, Snyder remains unfriendly to animal rights and animal protection legislation. In 2006, he was one of only a few liberal representatives to vote against protecting American horses from slaughter for consumption by humans in Europe and Asia.^{[citation needed]}

In 2006, he sponsored a bill that would have allowed non-U.S. born citizens to run for President of the United States.^{[citation needed]}

In response to the Representative Mark Foley scandal, Snyder said that the "allegations raise a lot of questions that need to be answered".^{[citation needed]}