From Site of Congressman Chris Van Hollen:
Chris Van Hollen was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Maryland's 8th District in November 2002. Van Hollen serves on the Committee on Government Reform. He is also the Vice Chair of the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Caucus.

Prior to his election to Congress, Van Hollen served in the Maryland General Assembly from 1991 to 2002-four years in the House of Delegates and eight years in the State Senate where he was Vice Chair of the Budget and Taxation Committee and Chair of the Health and Human Services Subcommittee. During his service in the Maryland legislature, he authored landmark education funding legislation, the Patient Protection Act, the Clean Energy Incentives Act, the Chesapeake Bay Protection Act and was a key Senate leader in the passage of Maryland's gun safety law.

The son of a U.S. Foreign Service Officer, Van Hollen was born in Karachi, Pakistan and lived also in Turkey, Sri Lanka and India. After receiving a graduate degree in public policy and national security studies, Van Hollen worked in the 1980s as a professional staff member of U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee and as the Legislative Assistant for national security issues to Maryland Senator Mathias. During Van Hollen's service on the Foreign Relations staff, he traveled to the Iraqi-Turkish border to investigate chemical warfare used by Saddam Hussein against Iraqi-Kurdish civilians. His 1988 report, co-authored with colleague Peter Galbraith, was the first U.S. documentation of chemical weapons used since the First World War.

Chris Van Hollen is a graduate of Georgetown University Law Center. He also holds a Master's degree in Public Policy from Harvard University's Kennedy School and an undergraduate degree from Swarthmore College.

Chris Van Hollen and his wife, Katherine, live in Kensington, Maryland with their three children, Anna, 12, Nicholas, 11 and Alexander 7. He is also an MSI soccer coach.