The congressman from the 29th District is Adam Schiff, a Democrat elected in 2000. Schiff’s father was a traveling salesman and later owned a lumberyard. Schiff grew up throughout the country, eventually graduating from high school in Northern California. He went on to Stanford University and Harvard Law School. From 1987 to 1993, he worked in the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles. He ran for the California Assembly and lost three times. But in 1996, he was elected to the state Senate. In his first two years, he authored dozens of measures that Republican Gov. Pete Wilson signed into law, including a bill guaranteeing up-to-date textbooks in classrooms and another reforming the child support system. Schiff also taught political science at Glendale Community College. Read More

The congressman from the 29th District is Adam Schiff, a Democrat elected in 2000. Schiff’s father was a traveling salesman and later owned a lumberyard. Schiff grew up throughout the country, eventually graduating from high school in Northern California. He went on to Stanford University and Harvard Law School. From 1987 to 1993, he worked in the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles. He ran for the California Assembly and lost three times. But in 1996, he was elected to the state Senate. In his first two years, he authored dozens of measures that Republican Gov. Pete Wilson signed into law, including a bill guaranteeing up-to-date textbooks in classrooms and another reforming the child support system. Schiff also taught political science at Glendale Community College.

Schiff ran for the House in the first election following the 1998 impeachment of President Clinton, and the issue became a factor in a number of races in 2000. Schiff challenged incumbent Republican James Rogan, who was a leader in the Judiciary Committee’s deliberations and a persuasive voice for the case against Clinton, which centered on the president’s affair with a White House intern. Rogan had won re-election in 1998 by just 51%-46%, and Clinton pal and entertainment mogul David Geffen was promising to raise millions of dollars to oppose him. The Schiff-Rogan race became a fundraising marathon, and was then the most expensive House race on record. The candidates raised more than $10 million combined, and much more was spent independently by Clinton’s supporters as well as his detractors.

In addition to their opposing positions on Clinton’s impeachment, the candidates disagreed on health care, abortion rights, gun control, and taxes. Rogan branded his opponent as a traditional tax-and-spend liberal, who would “run naked through the Treasury, spending everything he can.” Schiff attacked Rogan for calling abortion a Holocaust for the African-American community. And he said Rogan’s focus on Washington led him to ignore local problems. Schiff won by an unexpectedly large 53%-44% vote, and has been easily re-elected since.

In the House, Schiff’s voting record has been moderate, especially on defense and foreign policy. He joined the Blue Dog Coalition of moderate to conservative Democrats, and has sometimes worked across party lines. He was instrumental in bipartisan legislation that made identity theft a crime. And on a bill to implement recommendations of the 9/11 commission, he was the only Democrat voting with Judiciary Committee Republicans on added immigration restrictions. The final bill included his provisions to establish new penalties for developing a “dirty bomb,” and to give new tools to law enforcement to crack down on weapons of mass destruction.

Schiff stirred complaints from liberal constituents when he supported the resolution approving the use of force in Iraq in 2002 and for voting for the USA PATRIOT Act, the anti-terrorism law giving law enforcement broad new powers. He also was the only Democrat on the Judiciary Committee in 2009 to join Republicans in opposing legislation giving Americans greater power to challenge charges of alleged spying or illegal detention. But he also has been a solid party activist, contributing to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s re-election efforts by co-chairing a mentoring program for prime candidates. His contribution to congressional ethics reform was a bill, passed by the House in 2007, preventing lawmakers from placing their spouses on campaign payrolls. He has an interest in intellectual property issues and serves as co-chairman of the Congressional International Anti-Piracy Caucus, which in 2010 released a list of foreign websites that provide access to pirated materials.

As the co-founder of a Democratic study group on national security and with seats on both the Intelligence and Appropriations committees, Schiff has focused especially on legislation to secure nuclear materials in the former Soviet Union and elsewhere to keep them out of the hands of terrorists. In 2010, Schiff got a bill into law to have the Homeland Security Department develop better ways to “fingerprint” nuclear material. He has also pressed the cause for recognition of the Armenian genocide as the responsibility of the Ottoman Empire, a move Turkey adamantly opposes. His resolution was approved by the House Foreign Affairs Committee in 2007, but he agreed to postpone further action after a strong reaction from Turkey. He did get a bill signed into law in 2010 that calls for the State Department to expand its monitoring of press freedom and media independence as it tracks human rights violations.