CANDIDATE IN THE SPOTLIGHT: Tom Smith
For Tom Smith- it’s always been about service. After graduating from the Air Force Academy, Tom deployed as a combat medic to Iraq and Afghanistan. He had one simple mission: “That Others May Live.” Since the military, he’s fought forest fires in the Pacific Northwest, worked at a Syrian refugee camp in Greece, and helped respond to an earthquake in Ecuador. His first foray into public service and politics didn’t come until after the 2016 election. The divisiveness of the 2016 election and how fellow Americans were being pitted against each other- this is what called Tom back home. He served first with a fellow veteran, who ran for Congress, then went to work on Capitol Hill as the Policy Director for the For Country Caucus, the only bipartisan caucus within Congress consisting of lawmakers who are also veterans, working to make this country a better place to live for fellow veterans, servicemembers and our families. The key piece of legislation their team passed in January of this year is the approval to build a Global War On Terrorism Memorial in downtown D.C. on the National Mall.
“True service means being beholden to no one”
But since then, the disparities raised by the pandemic made Tom realize that his service isn’t needed across the world or even across the country; it’s needed in his own communities. Montgomery County, Maryland, where Tom calls home, is one of the richest counties in the United States. But there are folks here who feel left behind by their government, a sentiment felt especially by communities of color. Tom has seen the rich get richer while poorer areas – schools, parks, community staples – become underfunded and overlooked. He decided to run for Maryland’s House of Delegates to put people before politics, service before self, and lift up the communities that need it most. Tom’s next mission is serving his neighbors in the state house. True service means being beholden to no one, and that’s why Tom refuses to take a single dime of corporate PAC money. With the primary election on July 19, Tom is knocking on thousands of doors each month, hearing first hand from his neighbors, and aiming to be the servant leader that Montgomery County needs.