Adam Smith was born on June 15, 1965, in Washington, D.C. Adam 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.
One of my top priorities in Congress is to improve the relationship that citizens have with their government. In many ways, government has gotten too big, too burdensome and is not efficient and responsive enough to fulfill the needs of the people. I am committed to providing the most dedicated service to the people of the Ninth Congressional District of Washington by creating broad-based opportunities for all, growing our economy, keeping our country strong and forward-looking, and making government work better for everyone.
I am committed to making our federal government more efficient and responsive. I believe Americans deserve a government that constantly changes with the times to meet their needs, and that we cannot solve the problems of today while saddled with the bureaucracies of yesterday. To ensure this change, we must be willing to seriously examine existing programs and agencies, phase out programs and subsidies that are no longer useful, and eliminate waste and ineffectiveness from all areas of our government.
I am also committed to the highest ethical standards throughout our government. I encourage the efforts Congress has made to develop a policymaking process as open and transparent as possible, and will continue to revise this process to ensure the strongest standards are enacted. I will continue to support initiatives that achieve these goals and remain open to any of your ideas and thoughts about how better to achieve these objectives.
Communication between the people I represent is vital to a strong and functioning democracy. Nothing is more important to me than listening to the people I represent, giving them straight answers about what I'm doing and where I'm coming from, and taking their opinions into consideration. While I won't agree with each and every one of the more than 700,000 people I represent on every issue, I can promise that I'll always listen and be straight-forward with you.