Adam Smith

Adam Smith serves as the Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, where he is a strong advocate for our military personnel and their families. Smith is committed to providing our military personnel with the best equipment available to carry out their current and future missions while ensuring that the Pentagon spends taxpayer dollars in the most efficient and effective manner.‪ This includes carefully examining our current policies and working to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse.

Adam also served until recently on both the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. As a 14-year member of the House Armed Services Committee, he most recently chaired the Subcommittee on Air and Land Forces (ALF) and prior to that, the Subcommittee Terrorism, Unconventional Threats and Capabilities (TUTC). The ALF subcommittee has jurisdiction of all Army and nearly all Air Force acquisition programs, while TUTC oversees the nation’s Special Operations Forces and counter-terrorism policy, among other critical areas. During the last Congress, Adam also served on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, where he was responsible for overseeing and funding the intelligence community and intelligence-related activities and programs of the United States government.

Adam Smith was raised in SeaTac, Washington where his father, Ben, worked as a ramp serviceman at SeaTac Airport and was active in the local Machinists’ Union. His mother, Leila, stayed at home, raising Adam and his two brothers. Adam attended Bow Lake Elementary, Chinook Middle School, and Tyee High School, graduating from Tyee in 1983. After a year at Western Washington University, Adam transferred to Fordham University, where he worked his way through college loading trucks for United Parcel Service and graduated in 1987 with a degree in Political Science. Following his graduation, Adam attended the University Of Washington School Of Law, and earned his law degree in 1990. He later worked in both private and public practice, first as a lawyer at Cromwell, Mendoza and Belur in 1992, and then as a prosecutor for the City of Seattle from 1993-1995. As a prosecutor, Adam focused on drunk driving and domestic violence cases, and in 1996, went on to work as a judge pro tempore. He was elected to the State Senate in 1991 as the youngest State Senator in the country.