On March 15, 2012, Ackerman announced that he would retire at the end of the 112th Congress on January 3, 2013, after fifteen terms, and would not seek re-election in November 2012.

[4] A quarter of a century later, now a congressman, Ackerman in the House–Senate Conference Committee, signed the report of the Family and Medical Leave Act which became the law of the land.

[10] On March 15, 2012, Ackerman announced that he would retire at the end of the 112th Congress on January 3, 2013, after fifteen terms, and would not seek re-election in November 2012.

In April 2003 the Catholic League for religious and civil rights attacked Ackerman for voting against a non-binding resolution that would have declared a day of prayer in recognition of the U.S. war in Iraq.

Ackerman also scored a victory in his efforts to ban downed animals from being sold as meat in supermarkets, restaurants and butcher stores.

For a decade, Ackerman warned that use of such livestock was not only inhumane treatment of animals but also risked causing a Mad Cow disaster in the United States.

Law of the land is Ackerman's measure requiring banks and financial companies to notify consumers when negative information is placed on their credit reports.

Ackerman also sponsored legislation which is now law that in the wake of the Enron, WorldCom and other corporate scandals, prohibits accounting firms from consulting for the companies they audit.

[16] On January 8, 2009, Ackerman introduced a bill to order the Securities and Exchange Commission to re-institute the uptick rule, limiting the circumstances under which traders can sell stock short.

Ackerman believed that he was reflecting the public's opinion, saying: "How are they supposed to have confidence that if somebody goes to you with a complaint—gives it to you on a silver platter with all the investigations, with all the numbers, with all of the data, telling you exactly what he did, how he did it, and why he did it and how he knows that—and after a period after half a dozen or eight years, you don't know anything?

Enacted as well was his measure that prevents war criminals and human rights abusers who have perpetrated genocide, torture, terrorism or other atrocities, from entering the U.S. and deports those who have slipped in.

[citation needed] Ackerman is also well known for his many missions to feed the starving people of Ethiopia and the Sudan and for playing a leading role in the rescue of Ethiopian Jews and aiding their emigration to Israel.

[19] Ackerman was also successful in getting enacted, his bill that created the "Heroes" postage stamp, the revenue from which helps the families of rescue workers killed or permanently disabled while responding to the September 11 attacks.

[21] Ackerman participated in forcing the State of Hawaii to change its law that forbade blind individuals from bringing their guide dogs with them to the islands.

The Congressman chaired an investigation and bipartisan hearing into whether New York City and Long Island officials properly used the spraying of Malathion during the West Nile virus outbreak.

Ackerman, who sports a white carnation boutonnière each day, lives on a houseboat named the Unsinkable II while in Washington, D.C., and otherwise resides in Roslyn Heights in Nassau County with his wife Rita, having moved there from a home in Jamaica Estates, Queens that sold for US$1 million in 2008.