The congressman from the 40th District is Ed Royce, a Republican first elected in 1992. His lifetime almost precisely spans the area’s growth. He grew up in Fullerton and belonged to the conservative Young Americans for Freedom at Cal State Fullerton. He was later the head of Youth for Reagan in California during Reagan’s 1976 challenge to Gerald Ford. Royce worked several years as a tax and capital projects manager for a cement company. In 1982, a bunch of conservative state legislators known as the “Cave Men’’ took him to a Black Angus restaurant—no avocado-and-sprout sandwiches for them—and persuaded him to run for the state Senate. He won at age 31. When the legislature refused to pass Royce’s bill allowing crime victims to object to trial delays, giving grand juries more power, and ending “jury-shopping,” he got the measure on the ballot as an initiative and it passed by a wide margin. He also wrote the first law making it a felony to stalk someone. In 1992, Royce ran for the U.S. House. With the blessing of Orange County Republican leaders, he was unopposed in the primary and easily won the general. He has been re-elected by wide margins ever since. Read More

The congressman from the 40th District is Ed Royce, a Republican first elected in 1992. His lifetime almost precisely spans the area’s growth. He grew up in Fullerton and belonged to the conservative Young Americans for Freedom at Cal State Fullerton. He was later the head of Youth for Reagan in California during Reagan’s 1976 challenge to Gerald Ford. Royce worked several years as a tax and capital projects manager for a cement company. In 1982, a bunch of conservative state legislators known as the “Cave Men’’ took him to a Black Angus restaurant—no avocado-and-sprout sandwiches for them—and persuaded him to run for the state Senate. He won at age 31. When the legislature refused to pass Royce’s bill allowing crime victims to object to trial delays, giving grand juries more power, and ending “jury-shopping,” he got the measure on the ballot as an initiative and it passed by a wide margin. He also wrote the first law making it a felony to stalk someone. In 1992, Royce ran for the U.S. House. With the blessing of Orange County Republican leaders, he was unopposed in the primary and easily won the general. He has been re-elected by wide margins ever since.

In the House, Royce has a conservative voting record, and he has been a faithful fundraiser for Republicans. He has been a vocal critic of the Obama administration’s approach to immigration, calling for it to tightly enforce current laws rather than propose new ones. On the Financial Services Committee, he has worked with Democrats to expand lending authority for credit unions and to put them on an equivalent status with banks. With Rep. Melissa Bean, D-Ill., in 2009, Royce proposed a federal regulator for insurance companies to replace the patchwork state regulatory system. During conference committee negotiations on the 2010 financial industry overhaul, he tried without success to persuade conferees to make substantive changes to government-backed mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, arguing that reshaping those oft-criticized institutions was crucial to any reform effort.

The last time Republicans held the majority, Royce was the chairman of the International Relations Subcommittee on Africa. Although he had never set foot in Africa, he was widely praised for getting up to speed on the issues. He was instrumental in getting bipartisan support to enact an Africa free trade bill. He also sponsored bills to encourage oil production, promote human rights, and condemn the genocide in Sudan. He was among the sponsors of a bipartisan bill in 2009 requiring Obama to develop a comprehensive plan to end the brutal two-decade war in Uganda.

Back in the majority after the 2010 election, Royce became chairman of the Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade, where he has focused on the spread of radical Islam. He won enactment of a bill establishing Radio Free Afghanistan and another measure to promote nuclear nonproliferation in North Korea. He has also urged stronger strategic and trade relationships between the United States and India, and condemned the discrimination against Hindus in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Bhutan. He helped win the release of two journalists from a North Korean prison in 2009. The following year, Royce joined in an effort to get money into a defense spending bill for a California State University initiative training students in Arabic, Persian and other languages considered important to national security.