CA-49
REP. MIKE LEVIN
Current Position/Organization
CA-49
Representative Mike Levin is proud to represent California’s 49th Congressional District, which includes North County San Diego and South Orange County.
Currently serving his third term in the House of Representatives, Mike is a member of the House Committee on Natural Resources and the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, where he serves as Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity. Through these roles, more than two dozen of his bills have been signed into law by presidents of both parties.
Mike was raised in South Orange County and attended local elementary and junior high schools. He spent his high school years at Loyola High in Los Angeles, and went on to study at Stanford University, where he served as the Student Body President. Upon graduation from Stanford, Mike served as a Coro Fellow and then attended Duke University School of Law.
Prior to being elected to Congress in 2018, Mike fought for climate action while working as an environmental attorney. He also served on the board of the Center for Sustainable Energy and co-founded Sustain OC, helping accelerate the transition toward more sustainable power generation and transportation alternatives.
As a Member of Congress, some of Mike’s top priorities are combating climate change, protecting our natural resources, and capitalizing on the economic benefits of a sustainable energy future. He has led legislation to transition the United States to zero emission vehicles, ban new offshore drilling along the coast of Southern California, responsibly develop renewable energy on public lands, and much more.
Another priority for Mike is increasing oversight and accountability at the decommissioning San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) and moving the onsite spent nuclear fuel out of the region as quickly and safely as possible. Mike established a local task force upon arriving to Congress to formulate policy recommendations to address the hazardous waste. He is the founding Member and Co-Chair of the Spent Nuclear Fuel Solutions Caucus, a bipartisan group to drive progress on the safe storage, transportation, and disposal of nuclear fuel across the country. He has also led bipartisan legislation to prioritize the removal of spent nuclear fuel from environmentally sensitive sites like San Onofre and mandate resident inspectors at decommissioning nuclear power plants during sensitive activities. Mike has twice hosted Department of Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm at SONGS, where together they highlighted Mike’s work on sustainable spent nuclear fuel management and the federal government’s efforts to remove nuclear waste from the region.
Mike is also a leader on legislation to support veterans and their families. As the grandson of a World War II veteran and the representative of Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, Mike is an advocate for servicemembers and veterans who have sacrificed for our country. He has fought to protect the Department of Veterans Affairs from privatization efforts and has passed laws to improve veterans’ health care and services, expand job opportunities for those who have served, and provide stable, affordable housing to homeless veterans.
Mike is proud to be the lead Democrat on the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee’s Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity. During his four years as Chair, the Subcommittee was one of the most productive in Congress, with 70 bills passing into law to serve veterans. Mike sponsored one of the most consequential pieces of legislation signed for veterans in recent years, the Johnny Isakson and David P. Roe, M.D. Veterans Health Care and Benefits Improvement Act of 2020, which strengthened and expanded a wide range of veterans’ benefits during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond. Mike continues his steadfast support of our servicemembers, introducing and passing bipartisan legislation to secure greater economic benefits to protect veterans’ financial futures and wellbeing.
He has also championed efforts to expand access to affordable health care, combat food insecurity, preserve Social Security and Medicare, prevent gun violence, diversify and strengthen our local water supply, and protect a woman’s right to choose. Mike is a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and, as the grandson of immigrants from Mexico, a member of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.
Mike holds monthly town halls to keep his constituents informed and answer their questions, and he has made many of those town halls available as part of his podcast, Listening with Levin.
Mike lives in San Juan Capistrano with his wife, Chrissy, and their two children.