Meet Ameer Benno: A Candidate for Congress

Ameer Benno is the Republican candidate for congress in New York’s fourth congressional district. As a native Long Islander, he is running on a platform of making the community more affordable for families and small businesses, modernizing infrastructure, improving safety from a local level to the United States National Security, and restoring the culture of constitutional government. He believes that elected officials must be a visible presence in the community that they represent and plans to ensure that law enforcement and first responders have the resources necessary to make the community safer, especially from MS-13 and the opioid epidemic.

Benno’s maternal great-grandparents migrated to the United States in the 1900s from Ukraine to escape the pogroms, which was a massacre of Jewish citizens in Eastern Europe. His father was born in a refugee camp in Tel-Aviv in 1946, two years before the birth of the Jewish State. He fought for Israel in the Six-Day War of 1967 and came to the United States for an education following his service. Benno’s parents met at a community synagogue and joined the family business after they married. Benno, his brother, and his sister grew up experiencing firsthand how hard work was vital to success from his father. Benno attended a military high school in Albany, and later enrolled in John Hopkins University.

While studying at Hopkins, his roommate was killed by a gunman on campus. This tragic experience inspired him to study the American judicial system, which led him to study at Cornell Law School. He represented Cornell at national and international Moot Court Competitions, and studied abroad in Jerusalem, and worked in the litigation department of the Wall Street corporate firm of Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft while attending Cornell.

He currently works as a civil rights attorney on Long Island and in New York City. Benno is an officer of the Nassau Lawyers Association, president of the Merrick-Bellmore Jewish Community Council, board member of the Merrick Jewish Centre and the Long Island chapter of the Jewish National Fund, officer of the South Bellmore Civic Association, a board member of the New York State Academy of trial lawyers, a former professor at New York Law School, and a prosecutor at the Manhattan District Attorney’s office.

Benno stresses his belief in the United States Constitution, which preserves the human rights of American citizens and limits the power of the federal government, and his focus on economic growth, freedom, and opportunity for the middle class. He stated, “Americans, especially Long Islanders, are smart, savvy, and able to make good decisions. They don’t need to be told what to do with their hard-earned money.” If elected, he wants to make sure that New York is properly represented in the White House.