Rep. Brad Sherman (D) Elected 1996, 4th term
Born:	Oct. 24, 1954, Los Angeles
Home:	Sherman Oaks
Education:	U.C.L.A., B.A. 1974, Harvard U., J.D. 1979
Religion:	Jewish
Marital Status:	single
Elected  Office:	CA St. Board of Equalization, 1990-95, Chmn., 1991-95.
Professional Career:	Accountant, 1980-90.
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The San Fernando Valley, in the early 20th century when the movie business was young, was a vast expanse of empty land, annexed to Los Angeles in 1915; moviemakers, looking for filming sites for a western, drove past the vacant lots of Westwood, up narrow roads through the Santa Monica Mountains and over into the vast Valley, sheltered from ocean breezes and rain-bearing clouds by the mountains. Since then this vast bowl of land has been transformed, first into 1950s suburbia, then into a postmodern city of its own, economically vital and yeastily ethnic. Even in its suburban years, the San Fernando Valley was not entirely residential: big factories--the General Motors Van Nuys assembly plant, the Anheuser Busch brewery, Rockwell (now, Boeing) and Litton (now, Northrop Grumman) defense plants--provided jobs. In those years this was fast-growing, family-friendly territory; politically, it was turf fought over hard by Republicans and Democrats. By the 1970s young white Anglo families were fleeing, as the Los Angeles Unified School District was hit by a busing order. There is plenty of upscale territory left in the uplands in the rims of the Valley, in Granada Hills and Tarzana; the office blocks and mini-malls show unmistakable signs of affluence. In the inner lowlands of the Valley, new immigrants have moved in to Reseda and Van Nuys. Some old neighborhoods have become rough enclaves, with youth gangs and boarded-up houses and apartments weakened by the Northridge earthquake; Iranians and Chinese, Mexicans and Koreans, Israelis and Filipinos are keeping other neighborhoods solidly middle-class. Even this multiethnic Valley has been unhappy to be linked with the city of Los Angeles, whose liberal-dominated Council imposes high taxes and irksome regulations that have stopped in the Valley the kind of vibrant economic growth seen in independent municipalities like Burbank and Glendale; a Valley secession movement arose and the issue was put on the November 2002 ballot, and the Valley voted 51%-49% for it. But it needed a majority in all of Los Angeles to pass, and failed.

The 27th Congressional District on the map looks like an inverted "U" over the San Fernando Valley, between the Santa Monica and San Gabriel mountains. On the east it includes part of Burbank, famous as the home of the NBC studios and Disney's headquarters. Just to the north are the Sunland and Tujunga neighborhoods at the base of the San Gabriel Mountains, and the Foothill Freeway on which Rodney King was driving 110 miles per hour when police stopped and beat him in 1992. The larger part of the district is on the western side of the Valley, including most of Granada Hills, Northridge, Van Nuys and Tarzana. This is a diverse district indeed, 37% Hispanic and 11% Asian, roughly half of whom are Filipino or Korean. The 2001 redistricting made major changes in the boundaries of this district. Thousand Oaks and Malibu were removed and the northern and eastern edges of the Valley added. This made the district slightly more Democratic and far more ethnically diverse.

The congressman from the 27th District is Brad Sherman, a Democrat first elected in 1996. Sherman grew up in Monterey Park, in the San Gabriel Valley east of Los Angeles; he started working on Democratic campaigns at age 6, licking stamps and stuffing envelopes, and set up his own stamp-wholesaling firm at 14. He graduated with high honors from UCLA, worked as an accountant, then went to Harvard Law School and practiced tax law in L.A. He always had the political bug, and in 1990 was elected to the state Board of Equalization. This four-member body is a sort of tax court; Sherman's district was most of Los Angeles County. He was known as a stickler for detail, a "tax nerd," as one former staffer said, who used the office with a keen scent for political advantage. He led the fight against Pete Wilson's snack tax in 1991, and got Bill Clinton to side with his opinion on taxing foreign-owned businesses, which he says saved California $2 billion. But he irritated cartoonists with a ruling that exempted them from the state tax on artwork but not on illustrations; they set up a website, the Sherman Gallery, in which they vied in caricaturing the balding and bespectacled Sherman.

Sherman decided to run for Congress, and moved his residence from Santa Monica to Sherman Oaks, when Anthony Beilenson announced he would retire in 1996 after 20 years in the House. Sherman had an active Republican opponent, businessman Rich Sybert, who had lost to Beilenson by 49%-48% in 1994. Both of these self-financers (Sherman spent $578,000 of his own money) stressed their moderation. Sherman ran against Newt Gingrich and the Republican Congress, but he also supported the death penalty, wanted racial quotas and preferences phased out and favored tough measures on illegal immigration. Sybert stressed his independence of Gingrich, favoring abortion rights and environmental protections. Sybert was intense, Sherman a bit humorous (he handed out combs to voters, saying "You'll be able to use it more than I can"). Sherman won 49%-44%.

In the House, Sherman's voting record has been notably more moderate than those of other Los Angeles County Democrats. One of the few CPAs in Congress, he serves on the Financial Services Committee. During debate on corporate accountability, he offered an amendment to require accounting firms that audit publicly held companies to carry liability insurance to cover investor losses caused by their errors; the amendment was defeated. Sherman was one of the few Los Angeles politicians who said that the Valley was not getting its fair share of spending from the city of Los Angeles, but he did not take a position on Valley secession.

On the International Relations Committee, in 2003, he became ranking Democrat of the new International Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Human Rights Subcommittee; subcommittee chairman Elton Gallegly represents the adjacent 24th District. Sherman said he wanted to focus on the threat of rogue states obtaining nuclear weapons. In October 2002 he voted for the use of force in Iraq, after initially backing language to urge more support from the United Nations.

Sherman has won reelection by increasing margins. Redistricting gave him a district that was two-thirds new to him. The first lines, drawn by Michael Berman, brother of 28th District Congressman Howard Berman, were objected to by Sherman. Howard Berman's old district was 65% Hispanic, and the initial plan reduced that percentage by putting many Valley Hispanics into Sherman's new district. The Bermans made some accommodations, and Sherman ended up with district that was 37% Hispanic and Berman with one that was 56% Hispanic. The Mexican American Legal Defense Fund challenged the boundaries of these districts in court; their case was dismissed. It is possible that Sherman may get serious Latino opposition within the decade, but he did not in 2002.

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DC Office
1030 LHOB 20515, 202-225-5911; Fax: 202-225-5879; Web site: www.house.gov/sherman

State Offices
Sherman Oaks, 818-501-9200.

Committees

• Financial Services (11th of 32 D): Capital Markets, Insurance & Government Sponsored Enterprises; Domestic and International Monetary Policy, Trade & Technology; Financial Institutions & Consumer Credit.
• International Relations (8th of 23 D): Asia & the Pacific; International Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Human Rights (RMM).
• Science (14th of 22 D): Research; Space & Aeronautics.

Group Ratings (More Info)
	ADA	ACLU	AFS	LCV	CON	ITIC	NTU	COC	ACU	NTLC	CHC
2002	100	73	100	100	84	38	20	35	4	11	0
2001	95	--	100	93	--	--	15	39	12	--	--

National Journal Ratings (More Info)
	2001 LIB	--	2001 CONS		2002 LIB	--	2002 CONS
Economic	68%	--	32%		72%	--	27%
Social	74%	--	27%		67%	--	29%
Foreign	66%	--	34%		72%	--	26%
For National Journal's complete 2002 Vote Ratings, as well as previous ratings dating back to 1995, please click here.

Key Votes Of The 107th Congress (More Info)
1. Approve Bush Tax Cuts N 2. Limit Patients' Bill of Rights N 3. Campaign Finance Reform Y 4. Ban ANWR Development Y 5. Faith-Based Charities N 6. Bar Gays in the Boy Scouts N		7. Ban Partial-Birth Abortion N  8. Arm Commercial Pilots Y  9. Trade Promotion Authority N 10. Bar Funds for Intl. Court N 11. Authorize Force in Iraq Y 12. Deny Home. Sec. Dept. Union N

Election Results (More Info)
	Candidate	Total Votes	Percent	Expenditures
2002 general	Brad Sherman (D)	79,815	62%	$713,658
	Robert Levy (R)	48,996	38%	$20,104
2002 primary	Brad Sherman (D)	unopposed
2000 general	Brad Sherman (D)	155,398	66%	$539,122
	Jerry Doyle (R)	70,169	30%	$126,148
	Other	9,877	4%
Prior winning percentages: 1998 (57%); 1996 (49%)

2000 presidential
	Gore (D)	117,120	60%
	Bush (R)	70,557	36%
	Other	6,568	3%
For 1992 and 1996 presidential results in the Twenty-Seventh District, please see the Almanac 2000 online. Please note that these older returns reflect district lines as they existed prior to 2002 redistricting.

• Cook Partisan Voting Index: D +12
• District Size: 152 square miles
• Population in 2000: 639,088; 99.7% urban; 0.3% rural
• Median Household Income: $46,781; 13.4% are below the poverty line
• Occupation: 19.9% blue collar; 66.2% white collar; 13.9% gray collar; 8.4% military veterans
• Race/Ethnic Origin: 44.9% White, 4.5% Black, 10.5% Asian, 0.3% Amer. Indian, 0.1% Hawaiian, 3.1% Two+ races, 0.2% Other, 36.5% Hispanic origin
• Ancestry: 6.3% German, 5.0% Irish, 4.6% English
• Click here for statewide demographic data.