Mike Honda - Political Career

Political Career

In 1971 San Josė Mayor Norman Mineta appointed Honda to the city's Planning Commission. In 1981 Honda was elected to the San Jose Unified School Board. He was elected to the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors in 1990, and to the California State Assembly in 1996, where he served until 2001.

Honda won the Democratic nomination for the 15th District, which had once been represented by Mineta, in 2000 after Republican incumbent Tom Campbell made an unsuccessful bid for the United States Senate. Campbell had won the seat in a 1995 special election and held it for two full terms, all by fairly convincing margins, despite the fact the district leaned Democratic. However, the district reverted to form in 2000, as Honda won by a convincing 12-point margin. He has been re-elected four times with no substantive opposition.

From 2001 to 2006 Honda served on the Science Committee and the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. In 2007, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi appointed Honda to the influential Appropriations Committee. Honda also serves as Regional Whip for Northern California and Chair Emeritus of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus.

Rep. Honda has consistently supported the causes of civil rights groups, such as the NAACP and Human Rights Campaign.

In November 2004, Honda was among those invited to spend the evening with Presidential candidate John Kerry in Boston, Massachusetts on election night. In February 2005 Honda was elected a vice-chair of the Democratic National Committee under the chairmanship of Howard Dean.

Honda has close ties with the Chinese-American community. In May 2007 he was initiated into the San Francisco Lodge of the Chinese American Citizens Alliance. He is the first regular member of the organization who is not of Chinese ancestry.

During the 2008 electoral campaign, Honda made a Spanish-language appearance in a political advertisement on television which endorsed the re-election of Puerto Rico Governor Aníbal Acevedo Vilá, who would go to trial after the November 2008 elections for a 24-count federal Grand Jury indictment for corruption.

On 3 October 2008, Honda voted in favor of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act.

In 2009, Rep Honda was re-elected for a second term as DNC vice-chair, now under the chairmanship of former Virginia Governor Tim Kaine. Honda continues to serve as a member of the House Appropriations Committee, Chair Emeritus of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, Co-chair of the Democratic Caucus’ New Media Working Group, House Democratic Senior Whip and is the original author of the Equity and Excellence Commission now housed in the US Department of Education.

Honda’s legislative efforts have focused on education, civil rights, national service, immigration, transportation, the environment, and high-tech issues.