Jared Huffman represents California’s 2nd Congressional District which spans from the Golden Gate Bridge north to the Oregon border, and includes Marin, Sonoma, Mendocino, Humboldt, Trinity, and Del Norte Counties. He was first elected to Congress in November of 2012, and currently serves on the Natural Resources Committee and the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. Huffman Chairs the Natural Resources Subcommittee on Water, Oceans and Wildlife. Recognizing his environmental leadership, Speaker Nancy Pelosi appointed Jared to serve on the Select Committee on Climate Change in February of 2019.
During his four terms in Congress, Jared has built a reputation for working tirelessly to meet critical needs in every part of his diverse district – fighting to secure federal disaster relief funds for fire victims in Sonoma and Mendocino Counties, defending the historic dam removal process on the Klamath River, winning permanent protection for the Stornetta Public Lands National Monument on the Mendocino Coast, ensuring emergency dredging to keep Humboldt Bay open to navigation, securing an emergency EPA response that prevented a toxic disaster at the old Samoa Pulp Mill site, brokering an agreement at Muir Woods to reduce traffic gridlock and improve environmental and public safety conditions, pushing the Department of Interior to acknowledge downstream water rights to protect flows and salmon on the Trinity River, delivering millions in federal transportation funds to expand the SMART rail system to Larkspur, and much more.
Before serving in Congress, Jared represented the North Bay for six years in the California Assembly where he chaired the Water, Parks and Wildlife Committee. Among his other accomplishments as a state legislator, Jared played a leading role in crafting and passing landmark water reforms in 2009 and authored dozens of successful bills—including California’s pioneering lighting efficiency standards (AB 1109) which were subsequently adopted into federal law; the nation’s largest programs for solar hot water heating (AB 1470) and paint recycling (AB 1343); reforms that improve California’s State Parks system (AB 1589) and Department of Fish and Wildlife (AB 2402); and creation of a new voluntary type of corporation, California Benefit Corporations, to promote corporate social responsibility (AB 361).
Prior to his legislative service, Jared worked as a Senior Attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). One of his proudest accomplishments at NRDC was helping forge an agreement to restore a 153-mile stretch of the San Joaquin River in California’s Central Valley. Before NRDC, Jared was a successful public interest attorney whose victories included several major jury verdicts in gender discrimination and race discrimination trials. He also served 12 years in local government as a Director of the Marin Municipal Water District (MMWD), from 1994 to 2006.
Jared graduated magna cum laude from U.C. Santa Barbara, where he was a three-time NCAA All-American volleyball player. He went on to play for the USA Volleyball Team in 1987 when the team was ranked #1 in the world, before attending and graduating cum laude from Boston College Law School. Jared lives in San Rafael with his wife Susan, a teacher, and their two children Abby and Nathan. In his free time, Huffman enjoys all types of fishing, hiking and playing tennis