Rodney Procter Frelinghuysen (born April 29, 1946) is an American former politician and lobbyist who served as the U.S. representative for from 1995 to 2019. The district includes most of Morris County, an affluent suburban county west of New York City. A member of the Republican Party, Frelinghuysen served as Chair of the House Appropriations Committee from 2017 to 2019. Frelinghuysen announced on January 29, 2018, that he would not seek re-election that year. He has at times supported abortion rights and at times voted to limit access to abortion. He opposed federal funding of Planned Parenthood, and opposed sanctuary cities, gun control, gay marriage, and federal regulation of greenhouse gas emissions. He endorsed Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election. He voted to repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) and replace it with the American Health Care Act (AHCA). Frelinghuysen was criticized for using a fundraising letter to "[out] a member of an activist group opposing him to her employer" which resulted in a complaint by the Campaign for Accountability made with the Office of Congressional Ethics. Early life and education Frelinghuysen was born in New York City to Peter Frelinghuysen Jr., a New Jersey politician and Beatrice Sterling Procter, an heir to the Procter & Gamble fortune. Frelinghuysen is a member of a family long prominent in New Jersey politics, one which was ranked the seventh greatest American political dynasty by Stephen H. Hess, senior fellow emeritus at the Brookings Institution, and author of "America's Political Dynasties". His father, Peter Frelinghuysen Jr., served as the U.S. representative from New Jersey's 5th congressional district from 1953 to 1975, representing much of the same area Rodney did during his time in Congress. On his father's side, he is a great-grandson of American Sugar Refining Company founder Henry Osborne Havemeyer and great-great-great-grandson of Ballantine Brewery founder Peter Ballantine. On his mother's side, he is a great-great-grandson of William Procter, co-founder of Procter & Gamble and grandson of William Cooper Procter, the president of Procter & Gamble from 1907 to 1930. He attended St. Mark's School, an exclusive Episcopal preparatory school in Southborough, Massachusetts. Rejected by Princeton, the alma mater of his father and grandfather, Frelinghuysen instead matriculated at Hobart College in New York. There, he served as president of the Kappa Alpha Society and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in American history in 1969. Frelinghuysen next enrolled