Doug LaMalfa

In 2002, LaMalfa ran for the California Assembly in the 2nd District. He won the Republican primary with 59% of the vote,[2] and the general election with 67%.[3] He won re-election in 2004 (68%)[4] and 2006 (68%).[5]

LaMalfa being presented the True Blue award by FRC President Tony Perkins

LaMalfa worked with Bernie Richter as an early supporter of Proposition 209, which ended affirmative action in California. He worked for passage of the Protection of Marriage Act, Proposition 22, which banned Same-sex marriage in California, and after that initiative was overturned by the courts, he was an early supporter and active in the Proposition 8 campaign.[6]

LaMalfa opposed Mike Feuer's microstamping bill, AB 1471, which was signed into law by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on October 13, 2007.[7]

LaMalfa was a co-author of ACA 20, which, similar to Arizona's new law, would empower law enforcement to act as Immigration, Customs Enforcement Agents and would have cracked down on illegal immigration.[8] ACA 20 failed to pass the first hearing by a 3-to-6 vote.

In 2007, he successfully passed AB 1645, a law that would prevent seizures of firearms in the event of an emergency or natural disaster. This was the first pro-gun legislation passed and signed into law in a decade. When LaMalfa was named the California Rifle and Pistol Association's "Legislator of the Year" for 2007, he said "Receiving this award today from the California Rifle and Pistol Association is a truly humbling honor."[9]

• Joint Committee on Legislative Audit[10]
• Public Safety[11]
• West Nile virus[12]

In 2010, he ran for the California State Senate in the 4th District. In the Republican primary, he defeated State Representative Rick Keene 58%–42%.[13] In the general election, he defeated Lathe Gill 68%–32%.[14]

In November 2011, LaMalfa opposed a proposed bullet train. He did so, saying "In light of the High Speed Rail plan that was submitted and that the numbers still do not work, California in this dire fiscal crisis that we're in, we're going to introduce legislation to repeal the HSR Authority and the funding for that the state was going to put forward".[15]

LaMalfa opposed a bill that would require history teachers in all California public schools to teach history of homosexuality and gay civil rights. LaMalfa stated the Governor Brown was "out of touch with what I think are still mainstream American values. That's not the kind of stuff I want my kids learning about in public school. They've really crossed a line into a new frontier."[16]

LaMalfa strongly opposed the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, which would eliminate the Electoral College. He argued "I think this is dangerous. It flies in the face of 220 years of election law. We have an electoral college; it was put there for a reason."[17]

• Agriculture
• Budget and Fiscal Review
• Elections and Constitutional Amendments (Vice Chair)
• Governance and Finance
• Natural Resources and Water (Vice Chair)
• Veterans Affairs
• Joint Committee on Legislative Audit
• Joint Committee on Fairs, Allocation, and Classification (Chair)
• Joint Committee on Fisheries and Aquaculture[18]

In January 2012, 2nd district Congressman Wally Herger announced that he was retiring after thirteen terms. Hours after Herger announced his retirement, Republican consultant Dave Gilliard told Flash Report that Herger had endorsed LaMalfa as his successor in the district, which was renumbered as the 1st District in the 2010 round of redistricting.[19] His state senate district covered much of the congressional district's western portion.

LaMalfa finished first in the June 2012 primary election with 38% of the vote in an eight-person race, winning 10 out of the district's 11 counties.[20]

On November 6, 2012, LaMalfa defeated Democratic Party candidate Jim Reed 57%–43%.[21]

LaMalfa defeated Democratic nominee Heidi Hall in the general election with 61% of the vote.[22]

In the 2016 general election, LaMalfa defeated Democratic nominee Jim Reed with 59.1% of the vote.[23]

LaMalfa defeated Democratic challenger Audrey Denney in the general election.[24] In the hotly contested race, his campaign sent out an attack mailer showing a falsified picture of Denney signing a document supposedly endorsing Nancy Pelosi and liberal Democrats. Denney uploaded the original photograph to her campaign website in February 2018 to show her signing a promise to oppose campaign contributions from the petroleum industry. LaMalfa's campaign altered the wording on the document for their mailer.[25]

• Committee on Agriculture
  • Subcommittee on General Farm Commodities and Risk Management
  • Subcommittee on Horticulture, Research, Biotechnology, and Foreign Agriculture
• Committee on Natural Resources
  • Subcommittee on Indian and Alaska Native Affairs
  • Subcommittee on Public Lands and Environmental Regulation
  • Subcommittee on Water and Power

• Congressional Western Caucus[26]
• Republican Study Committee[27]
• U.S.-Japan Caucus[28]

In 2012, LaMalfa said "I think there's a lot of bad science behind what people are calling global warming."[29][30] Two years later, in 2014, during a candidate forum where the previous speaker stated that once we get past the debate about climate change, a debate about solutions can start, LaMalfa stated "The climate of the globe has been fluctuating since God created it".[31]

LaMalfa was quoted, in 2017, as saying "I don’t buy the idea that man-made activity is responsible."[32] In 2018 in the midst of wildfires, LaMalfa said "I’m not going to quibble here today about whether it’s man, or sunspot activity, or magma causing ice shelves to melt.”[33]

LaMalfa has described Trump as "considerate" and "engaging." During the impeachment trial of Donald Trump, LaMalfa voted against impeachment, believing that Trump did not do anything that would warrant impeachment, including during his phone call with the president of Ukraine.[34]

After Donald Trump lost the 2020 election and refused to concede, LaMalfa falsely claimed that "the circumstances surrounding this Presidential election point to a fraudulent outcome."[35] In December 2020, LaMalfa was one of 126 Republican members of the House of Representatives who signed an amicus brief in support of Texas v. Pennsylvania, a lawsuit filed at the United States Supreme Court contesting the results of the 2020 presidential election, in which Joe Biden prevailed[36] over incumbent Donald Trump. The Supreme Court declined to hear the case on the basis that Texas lacked standing under Article III of the Constitution to challenge the results of the election held by another state.[37][38][39]

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi issued a statement that called signing the amicus brief an act of "election subversion." Additionally, Pelosi reprimanded LaMalfa and the other House members who supported the lawsuit: "The 126 Republican Members that signed onto this lawsuit brought dishonor to the House. Instead of upholding their oath to support and defend the Constitution, they chose to subvert the Constitution and undermine public trust in our sacred democratic institutions."[40][41] New Jersey Representative Bill Pascrell, citing section three of the 14th Amendment, called for Pelosi to not seat LaMalfa and the other Republicans who signed the brief supporting the suit. Pascrell argued that "the text of the 14th Amendment expressly forbids Members of Congress from engaging in rebellion against the United States. Trying to overturn a democratic election and install a dictator seems like a pretty clear example of that."[42]

On January 7th, 2021, following the storming of the U.S. Capitol building by Trump supporters, LaMalfa voted alongside six other California representatives to reject the certification of Pennsylvania votes cast during the 2020 presidential election. [43]

From 1995 to 2016, LaMalfa was the recipient of the largest amount of money from agricultural subsidies (over $1.7 million) in the history of congress. As a member of the House Agricultural Committee, he oversees farm subsidies. In 2017, his spokesman, Parker Williams, stated that LaMalfa "voted to end direct farm subsidy payments in the very first farm bill he worked on" and that a new farm bill proposed does not provide subsidies for rice grown in California, a crop that LaMalfa farms.[44]

LaMalfa has an A+ rating from NumbersUSA, an organization that opposes illegal immigration.[45]

In 2014, LaMalfa was named one of the most "anti-LGBT" politicians in congress by the Human Rights Campaign.[46] He does not believe in same-sex marriage and feared that legalizing it would "open the floodgates" for polygamy to be legalized. He believes marriage is "an institution created by God and supposed to be held up and respected by men. And women."[47] He endorsed the First Amendment Defense Act.[48]

He stated that "California is just a sieve on its voter security" but does not think his own district had "illegal votes" because it does not "have the demographics that would be a really big push of that."[49]

LaMalfa's website states that he is "proud to have earned an A rating and the endorsements of the NRA and Gun Owners of America."[50] He has received $13,500 from the NRA.[51]

LaMalfa voted in favor of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017.[52] According to LaMalfa, the bill will enable his constituents to save more money and provide them tax relief. He says that the tax bill will give a "booster shot to the U.S. economy". He believes that the bill enable businesses to hire more workers and that there will be more products made in the USA as a result, especially in Redding.[53]