The congressman from the 10th District is Donald Payne, a Democrat first elected in 1988 and the first African-American to represent a New Jersey district in Congress. He grew up in a working-class section of Newark. His mother died when he was just 7, and Payne stayed with his grandmother while his father worked long shifts on the docks. A community organization dedicated to children and teens in tough neighborhoods helped him win a college scholarship, and Payne became a high school history teacher and football coach. He was later the community liaison for Newark-based Prudential. In the 1970s, Payne was elected to the Essex Board of Chosen Freeholders. In 1980 and 1986, he ran against Democratic U.S. Rep. Peter Rodino, who was chairman of the House Judiciary Committee when it voted to impeach President Richard Nixon. Payne lost, even as an African-American in a district with a black majority. But when Rodino retired in 1988, Payne, at age 54, won 73% of the vote in the Democratic primary and easily won the general election. He has not faced a serious re-election challenge since.

Payne has a strongly liberal voting record. He served as chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus in 1995 and 1996, just as Republicans were taking control of Congress. He successfully lobbied the new majority to keep the Africa Subcommittee on the Foreign Relations Committee. Active in issues related to Africa, Payne sponsored a resolution to cut off new investment in Sudan because of its practice of slavery. In July 2004, the House passed his resolution condemning the war in Sudan as “genocide.” In 2006, Payne helped to negotiate a bipartisan deal in the House to expand presidential authority to promote peace and accountability in Darfur, and he joined a delegation led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Darfur and elsewhere in Africa.

Payne agitates for increased foreign aid for United Nations peacekeeping operations, and likes to point out that the more than 700 million people of Africa receive less aid from the United States than do the 6 million of Israel. In 2003, President George W. Bush named Payne as one of two congressional delegates to the United Nations. Payne also came to the defense of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in December 2004, when Republicans called for his resignation amid allegations concerning corruption in the Iraq oil-for-food program

He was one of 22 House members who voted “present” on the March 2003 resolution authorizing the use of force in Iraq, calling the war “ill-conceived” and one that “could have been avoided through diplomacy.” In the majority, Payne chairs the expanded Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health. In October 2007, the House passed his Ethiopian Democracy and Accountability Act, which condemned Ethiopia’s human-rights record and raised the option of sanctions against the country. He also joined with Republican Rep. John Boozman of Arkansas to get more U.S. assistance to African countries fighting malaria.