The congresswoman from the 16th District is Zoe Lofgren, a Democrat first elected in 1994. Lofgren grew up in the Bay Area, where her father was a Teamsters truck driver and her mother worked for the Machinists Union. She graduated from Stanford University, and then moved to Washington to work for Democratic Rep. Don Edwards while he was a leader on the Judiciary Committee that voted to impeach President Richard Nixon. She stayed on for eight years as an aide to Edwards. She met her husband, a lawyer, one Election Night. Lofgren returned to California to get a law degree, and then specialized in immigration law. In 1980, she was elected to the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors. When Edwards retired, Lofgren ran for his House seat. Her chief Democratic opponent, former San Jose Mayor Tom McEnery, was better known. But Lofgren raised twice as much money, with support from national women’s organizations and women in the California delegation. She gained considerable recognition after she insisted on listing herself as a county supervisor/mother on the ballot. Election officials refused, and the national press covered the ensuing controversy. Lofgren won the primary 45%-42%, and easily won the general election. Read More

The congresswoman from the 16th District is Zoe Lofgren, a Democrat first elected in 1994. Lofgren grew up in the Bay Area, where her father was a Teamsters truck driver and her mother worked for the Machinists Union. She graduated from Stanford University, and then moved to Washington to work for Democratic Rep. Don Edwards while he was a leader on the Judiciary Committee that voted to impeach President Richard Nixon. She stayed on for eight years as an aide to Edwards. She met her husband, a lawyer, one Election Night. Lofgren returned to California to get a law degree, and then specialized in immigration law. In 1980, she was elected to the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors. When Edwards retired, Lofgren ran for his House seat. Her chief Democratic opponent, former San Jose Mayor Tom McEnery, was better known. But Lofgren raised twice as much money, with support from national women’s organizations and women in the California delegation. She gained considerable recognition after she insisted on listing herself as a county supervisor/mother on the ballot. Election officials refused, and the national press covered the ensuing controversy. Lofgren won the primary 45%-42%, and easily won the general election.

Lofgren’s voting record, while mostly liberal, includes bipartisan free-market positions responsive to local businesses. Working with Republican David Dreier, a fellow Californian, she won expanded allotments of visas for high-tech workers. She pushed for looser controls on encryption exports, securities litigation limitations, and relaxation of trade restraints on supercomputers, all big Silicon Valley causes. When the House split 210-210 on a proposal to restrict government access to library records, Lofgren was the only House member to vote “present.” She said that the amendment went too far in preventing legitimate law enforcement searches.

When Democrats won the majority in 2006, Lofgren, a trusted lieutenant of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, became chairwoman of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International Law. She hoped to see a major overhaul of immigration policy, but the politically charged issue bogged down. Hoping to shed some light on the problems facing immigrant farmworkers, the normally serious-minded Lofgren took a novel tack: She invited Comedy Central’s faux-conservative comedian Stephen Colbert to testify at a September 2010 hearing on the topic. His quip-filled appearance attracted the reams of publicity she had hoped for, but it also drew bipartisan criticism from observers and lawmakers who said it made a mockery of Congress. Lofgren usually is a reliable liberal vote in the House Democratic Caucus, although that does not prevent her from pursuing bipartisan compromises. She was part of a group in July 2010 that introduced legislation aimed at curbing restrictive technology standards affecting the Internet.

Lofgren emerged as one of the leading opponents of the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act, an intellectual property enforcement measure favored by movie studios and the recording industry but opposed by some of her Silicon Valley dot.com constituents. It would give larger sites the power to kill rogue or upstart websites believed to be engaged in theft or copyright infringement. In October 2011, Lofgren told the tech media site CNET that the bill would signal “the end of the Internet as we know it.” In a written statement at a House Judiciary Committee hearing, Lofgren called the bill “a draconian and one-sided approach.” No doubt, her rhetoric helped build public opposition to the House bill. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith, R-Texas., a bill sponsor, canceled a markup in December. New technology giants such as Google and Wikipedia helped push the debate to the forefront by sponsoring an “Internet Black Out” day on January 18, 2012; Wikipedia made its site harder to access that day as a form of protest. Later that week, Smith officially withdrew the bill from consideration until greater consensus could be agreed upon.

Lofgren was also co-sponsor of a House bill that passed in November 2011 that would impose a five-year freeze on any new state and local taxes on wireless cellphone services.

Lofgren was a co-sponsor and outspoken supporter of a bill that would change the visa system to allow more highly-skilled immigrants from China and India to become permanent, legal residents. In late November 2011, the bill passed the House easily, with Lofgren this time joining forces with Rep. Smith, as well as Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah. On another immigration-related measure, Lofgren was the primary sponsor of a bill to allow overseas military service personnel and their spouses more time to file for permanent resident status through marriage. The bill was signed into law in November 2011.

In January 2009, Pelosi picked Lofgren to chair the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, informally known as the Ethics Committee. She took over as a politically sensitive inquiry was under way involving House Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., and questions were being raised about other senior Democrats’ connections to lobbyists. Lofgren’s skills as a former staffer and law professor were tested by the politically combustible cases. She revealed in testimony before the House Administration Committee in early 2010 that at least 36 lawmakers—around 8% of the House—had been subjected to scrutiny the previous year. Many were associated with the PMA Group lobbying firm, a group accused of exchanging campaign contributions for earmarks. She announced in February 2009 that she would return $7,000 in contributions from the firm. Her panel subsequently found that no House members colluded with the group.

Of the lawmakers under investigation, none proved more difficult for Lofgren than Rangel. She hoped to avoid a drawn-out and embarrassing ethics trial, but the defiant and crafty political veteran was unwilling to bargain. An ethics subcommittee determined in July 2010 that Rangel violated ethics rules on a variety of allegations related to his personal finances, a judgment that some Democrats worried could cloud their already-shaky chances for holding the majority. The case dragged on for months, with the ethics panel’s ranking Republican, Jo Bonner of Alabama, complaining that Lofgren had refused to set the trial before the November election. Finally, just after the election, Rangel was afforded a trial, but walked out in protest after complaining that he hadn’t been granted enough time to hire a new attorney. Lofgren and the rest of the panel refused to back down, and a few days later voted 9-1 to censure him—a decision Lofgren called “quite wrenching.”

As if that wasn’t enough, Lofgren had to wrestle with another touchy ethics case involving Maxine Waters, D-Calif., who was investigated for her efforts to get federal bailout money for a bank. Like Rangel, she vehemently denied any wrongdoing. Lofgren led a subcommittee formed in August 2010 to try Waters.

In 2003, Lofgren tried to get a foothold in leadership by running for vice chairman of the Democratic Caucus. But Pelosi, who is also from the Bay Area, had already been elected minority leader, and the Congressional Black Caucus pressed to have one of its members in the leadership. Lofgren got 53 votes to 95 for James Clyburn, an African-American from South Carolina, who won the post. Lofgren has had no trouble winning re-election every two years.