Vic Snyder (born September 27, 1947) is the Democratic United States Congressman from the 2nd Congressional District of Arkansas (map). Vic Snyder was born in Medford, Oregon. He is a graduate of Medford High School (1965) and attended college at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon. After attending college for two years, in 1967 Snyder volunteered for the United States Marine Corps. He served in Vietnam with Headquarters Company of the US 1st Marine Division during the Vietnam War, attaining the rank of Corporal. Snyder earned a degree in Chemistry in 1975 from Willamette and earned his medical degree from the University of Oregon Health Sciences Center (now Oregon Health & Science University) in Portland, Oregon in 1979.
Snyder moved to Little Rock, Arkansas and served his residency at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. In 1982 after completing his residency he worked as a family practice physician for 15 years. During this time he travelled overseas to volunteer his medical services at Cambodian refugee camps in Thailand, Salvadoran refugee camps in Honduras, and Ethiopian refugee camps in Sudan.
From 1985 to 1988 Snyder attended the University of Arkansas at Little Rock to obtain his law degree while still maintaining his medical practice. In 1990 he successfully ran for a seat in the Arkansas legislature and served in that body until 1996.
Snyder was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1996 and was reelected in 1998, 2000, 2002, and 2004. Snyder focuses on many traditionally liberal issues, including a particular interest in support for veteran's and military families, serving on the House Committee on Veteran's Affairs and the House Armed Services Committee. He has a fairly liberal voting record for being an elected politician from the South and otherwise conservative-leaning Arkansas. Snyder voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment, the ban on partial-birth abortions, banning lawsuits against gun manufacturers and distributors, bankruptcy reform, drilling in ANWR, and the authorization of force in Iraq, many these positions however are supported by Democrats from Southern states.
Snyder married The Reverend Betsy Singleton, a United Methodist minister, in 2003.
