election with 52% against Republican county legislator Allan E. Binder. In 1994, he won re-election with 55% of the vote. Since then, he has won re-election with at least 63% of the vote. 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. Tenure Ackerman was the Congressional delegate to the United Nations. In addition, he was the ranking Democrat on the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian Americans. In 2002, he was awarded India's third highest civilian award, the Padma Bhushan for his contributions as member of the India Caucus in the Congress. Ackerman was one of only 22 Congressman and one of 2 Democrats from New York to vote against a resolution calling for the protection of the symbols and traditions of Christmas. The resolution, which did not include language that would protect the symbols of other religious holidays, passed 401–22 in the House in December 2005. 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 received an "A" on the Drum Major Institute's 2005 Congressional Scorecard on middle-class issues. Ackerman was also a member of the Cuba Democracy Caucus and is currently the head of the International Council of Jewish Parliamentarians (ICJP). Ackerman has missed voting on 80 occasions pertaining to a variety of issues, including the Pension Protection Act, the Tax Relief Extension Reconciliation Act, and the Honoring the Contributions of Catholic Schools. In June 2001, Ackerman honored King Christian X of Denmark for his wearing a yellow badge armband during World War II in support of the Danish Jews who had been ordered by the Nazi occupation to wear yellow badges, although Jews in Denmark were never forced to wear an armband, and the story is merely a legend. Health Among Ackerman's significant legislative undertakings, was the passage of his Baby AIDS amendment to the Ryan White Care Act. The measure requires mandatory HIV testing of newborns and disclosure of the results to the mother. Ackerman championed the issue of newborn testing after discovering that 45 states, including New York, tested babies for HIV but used the data solely to track the prevalence of the disease