RPCVs Seek Re-election in the House

The upcoming elections potentially place six Returned Peace Corps Volunteers in the House of Representatives. After ten terms of representing New York’s 25^th district, Republican Congressman James Walsh is retiring. Walsh, who served with the Peace Corps in Nepal from 1970-1972, leaves four other RPCVs seeking re-election in the House.

• Sam Farr, a Democrat representing California’s 17^th congressional district, joined the Peace Corps in 1964 where he served in Columbia for two years.
• Another RPCV is Democratic Congressman Mike Honda, who represents California’s 15^th district. From 1965 to 1967, Honda served in the Peace Corps in El Salvador.
• RPCV Republican Congressman Chris Shays is seeking re-election in Connecticut’s 4^th congressional district. Shays joined the Peace Corps in 1968 and served in Fiji for two years.
• Fellow Republican Tom Petri seeks re-election in Wisconsin’s 6^th district. Petri served with the Peace Corps from 1966 to 1967 in Somalia.

Potentially joining the four RPCVs in the House are Hank Eng of Colorado and Mike Skelly of Texas. In February 2008, Eng announced his candidacy for Congress in Colorado’s 6^th congressional district, located in central Colorado, to replace Tom Tancredo. Eng ran unopposed and was elected as the Democratic candidate in the August 2008 primary. He served in 1972 as a Peace Corps volunteer in Kenya, Africa. Skelly is the Democratic candidate for Texas’s 7^th congressional district, which includes portions of Huston and Harris County. Skelly served in Costa Rica with the Peace Corps after graduating from Notre Dame.