James Adelbert McDermott (born December 28, 1936) is an American politician and psychiatrist who was the U.S. representative for Washington's 7th congressional district from 1989 to 2017.

The 7th district includes most of Seattle, Vashon Island, Tukwila, Burien, Shoreline, Lake Forest Park, Lynnwood, Mountlake Terrace, Woodway, and Edmonds.

He has pushed what he's called an "Apple agenda"—his acronym for Affordable health care, Promotion of jobs, Protection of the environment, Life with hope and without fear, and excellence in Education.

[citation needed] In 1988, the seat for Washington's 7th congressional district came open when five-term incumbent Mike Lowry gave it up to make an unsuccessful run for the Senate.

[17] This consolidated land in Washington state which allowed the city of Seattle to gain greater control over its primary water source, thus enabling more efficient planning for the future.

[18] In the fall of 2002, McDermott and fellow Representatives David Bonior of Michigan, Nick Rahall of West Virginia and Mike Thompson of California visited Iraq; in Baghdad they met with members of parliament and the Iraqi Foreign Minister, and in Basra they met with residents who talked about the effect on them of the Iraq sanctions.

[22] According to a disclosure form filed with the clerk of the House of Representatives, the nonprofit organization Life for Relief and Development paid McDermott's $5,510 travel expenses for the Iraq trip.

On March 26, 2008, a Bush Administration indictment accused Muthanna Al-Hanooti of arranging for the trip and paying for it with funds from Saddam Hussein's intelligence agency, the IIS.

[23] Ultimately these charges were dropped; Al-Hanooti was convicted of attempting to sell Iraqi oil to raise money for humanitarian purposes without permission of the U.S.

[26][27] This piece of legislation strengthened privacy and confidentiality of people already receiving care under the Act and modernized it by prohibiting cyberstalking as defined under the law.

In 1954, during the McCarthy era and communism scare, Congress had passed a bill, which was signed into law, to add the words "under God.

Rep. John Boehner, who was part of the Gingrich conversation, sued McDermott in his capacity as a private citizen, seeking punitive damages for violations of his First Amendment rights.

Eighteen news organizations – including ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, The Associated Press, the New York Times and the Washington Post — filed a brief backing McDermott.

On June 26, 2006, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit vacated the judgment, deciding to re-hear the case with all nine judges.

3174 required the US Army Board for Correction of Military Records to review dozens of convictions that followed the Fort Lawton Riot of 1944.

The Board uncovered "egregious error" in the prosecution, overturned the convictions, issued retroactive honorable discharges to the defendants and ordered back pay.

[48] While the bill had unrelated provisions, the primary focus was on the extension of the $8,000 first-time home buyer tax credit; opinion is divided as to the effectiveness of the program.

[49] This legislation requires publicly traded companies in the United States exercise due diligence to ensure that conflict minerals (gold, tin, tantalum and tungsten) in their products do not come from mines funding civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

A United Nations Security Council committee reported that this legislation was a "catalyst" for efforts to save lives by cutting off a key source of funding for armed groups [50] at a cost to American firms of approximately $8 billion per year.

[51] McDermott sponsored a bill which would have eliminated the tax burden incurred by married same sex couples, same-sex and opposite-sex domestic partners.

[53] This represented McDermott's fifth introduction of such an act, which would offer a tax structure should online gambling become fully legalized and regulated within the United States.