H.Res.106 supporter Tom Lantos completing service in House of Representatives

PanARMENIAN.Net - Chairman of the House Affairs Committee, Democrat Tom Lantos (D-San Mateo, San Francisco) is completing his service due to ill health.



Congressman Tom Lantos released the following statement:



"Routine medical tests have revealed that I have cancer of the esophagus. In view of this development and the treatment it will require, I will not seek re-election.



"It is only in the United States that a penniless survivor of the Holocaust and a fighter in the anti-Nazi underground could have received an education, raised a family, and had the privilege of serving the last three decades of his life as a Member of Congress. I will never be able to express fully my profoundly felt gratitude to this great country."



Tom Lantos was elected to Congress in 1980 and is in his 14th term in office. His Democratic colleagues elected him chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs in January 2007. He is a senior member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. The only Holocaust survivor ever elected to Congress, Tom is the founding co-chairman of the 24-year-old Congressional Human Rights Caucus, which Annette has directed as a volunteer since its inception, the congressional press unit said.



On October 10, 2007, the House Committee on Foreign Affairs under the chairmanship of Congressman Lantos passed the Armenian Genocide resolution, H.Res.106 with a vote 27 to 21.