District 7 General Election 2022: Tom Malinowski

DISTRICT 7, NJ — Democratic incumbent Tom Malinowski is running for re-election in the House of Representatives 7th Congressional District general election on June 7.

This would be Malinowski's third term. He is running against Republican Thomas H. Kean, Jr. The pair faced off against each other in the previous 2020 election where Malinowski narrowly inched out Kean.

District 7 covers all of Hunterdon County, and parts of Essex, Morris, Somerset, Union, and Warren counties.

Are you running for office in District 7? Contact Alexis Tarrazi at alexis.tarrazi@patch.com for information on being featured in a candidate's profile and submitting campaign announcements to Patch.

Tom Malinowski

Age: 57

Town of Residence: East Amwell, NJ

Position Sought: 3rd term re-elect for New Jersey's 7th Congressional District

Party Affiliation: Democrat

Family: N/A

Education: B.A., University of California, Berkeley, M.Phil., Oxford University (Rhodes Scholar)

Occupation: Your Congressman, representing New Jersey's 7th Congressional District

Previous Elected or Appointed Office: Your Congressman, representing New Jersey's 7th Congressional District

Why are you seeking to run for District 7?

I am not a career politician, but a life-long public servant who ran for Congress for the first time in 2018 because I wanted to give something back to the country that I love. I’m running for reelection because I want to make that economy more fair for hard working people struggling to pay for health care and child care, bring manufacturing jobs back to America, and protect the freedoms, including a woman’s right to choose, that make our country a model for the world.

Do you feel flooding is an issue in the district? How would you like to address it?

Tropical Storm Ida made clear, once again, the urgent need to protect people, homes, and businesses in New Jersey from extreme weather. With major storms becoming more frequent, it can’t simply be that we apply to FEMA for help to fix our homes every five years, or that we keep building ever higher and higher floodwalls. For the long term, we need additional investments in the infrastructure that keeps our rivers and streams from flooding. I’m proud to have helped pass the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which includes $17.1 billion for the Army Corps of Engineers to address our water infrastructure challenges, including inland flooding from storms. And it includes billions more for resilience, wastewater, and stormwater management. We’ve already secured $1 billion for New Jersey water projects through the infrastructure bill and the post-Ida disaster funding bill. And there’s more to come.

Additionally, we've got to recognize that climate change is not some abstract, future threat. It is happening today. It is four feet of water in your basement, and flash floods that kill our neighbors. The cost of not dealing with it is much greater than the cost of America leading the world to clean energy.

How do you feel about Roe v Wade being overturned?

Everywhere I go, voters bring up the Supreme Court’s repeal of Roe vs. Wade and how to protect our freedom to make decisions about when to have children, access to birth control, and who to marry. We all have our own moral convictions about these matters. But the overwhelming majority of Americans supported Roe vs. Wade and assumed it would remain the settled law of the land, because we don’t think the government should be making these difficult personal decisions for families, or treating women and doctors like criminals for having an abortion. With Roe vs. Wade gone, states across America are doing just that, in some cases from the moment of conception, even when the life of the mother is a risk. I think that’s wrong.

I cosponsored the Women’s Health Protection Act, which would enshrine Roe v. Wade into the law of our land once and for all. I also introduced the Stopping Abortion Bounties Act, which would impose a 100% federal tax on any “bounty” collected under state laws designed to encourage vigilantes to turn in women who have an abortion or try to leave their states to seek health care.

In contrast, my opponent, Tom Kean Jr., voted against codifying Roe vs. Wade in New Jersey.

Inflation has hurt residents and business owners in the area, how do you plan to help them?

Because consumer spending recovered faster post-pandemic than the supply chains for the goods we buy, inflation has been hurting everyone. Our decision to ban Russian oil — which Democrats and Republicans were united in supporting— increased the price of gas and food. We’ve made progress in getting gas prices down, and passing legislation to lower costs, but there is much more work to be done. Bringing supply chains for critical technologies, and the jobs that go with them, back home to our country will help, and that has been one of my top priorities.

One of the biggest causes of inflation has been the shortage of microchips, a key component of everyday goods like cars, appliances, and phones. So this summer, I helped pass the CHIPS and Science Act, which will bring chip manufacturing back to America, including New Jersey, reducing our dependence on foreign supply chains. I’m pushing for another bill that I helped write, the America COMPETES Act, that invest in bringing home manufacturing of other critical technologies, from batteries, to pharmaceutical ingredients, to solar panels, to make our supply chains more resilient. Meanwhile, gas prices are coming down thanks to our efforts to increase domestic oil production and crack down on price gouging by oil companies — and we’ll keep that up.

What other issues do you feel must be tackled in the district?

I believe that every American has a right to quality, affordable healthcare. Through the American Rescue Plan, I helped deliver the largest expansion of healthcare coverage since the Affordable Care Act, lowering monthly premiums for millions of middle class Americans who did not previously qualify for ACA coverage by capping health insurance premiums at no more than 8.5% of a person’s income.

And this summer, I helped pass the Inflation Reduction Act to lower costs for middle class Americans. The bill will allow Medicare — finally — to negotiate lower drug prices with pharmaceutical companies, while capping the price of insulin for seniors at $35 a month, and eventually for all drugs at $2000 a year. It guarantees that no American will pay more than 8.5 percent of their income for health insurance, saving middle class families who use the Affordable Care Act up to hundreds of dollars a month. The bill will also lower our energy bills by making clean American energy more affordable and expanding domestic energy production, reducing pollution AND our dependence on foreign oil. All of these investments are responsibly paid for — through a minimum tax on corporations like Amazon that have recently gotten away with paying zero taxes — without costing middle-class families a penny. Voters should know that my opponent, Tom Kean Jr., opposed all of these things.

What else would you like to share about yourself or your campaign?

Unlike other candidates, I show up and listen — having held more than 130 public town hall meetings since I was elected in 2018. It is from these open meetings and the conversations I have with residents that I get my priorities in Washington. My opponent has held no public meetings with voters during his 20 year career as a legislator in Trenton.