In 1998, Lowenthal decided to run for the 54th district of the California State Assembly. He defeated Republican nominee Julie Alban 50%-47%.[3] In 2000, he was reelected, defeating Republican nominee Rudy Svorinich, a Los Angeles City Council member, 59%-39%.[4] In 2002, he was reelected to a third term, defeating Republican nominee Cesar Castellanos, 60%-40%.[5]
Tenure
In the Assembly, Lowenthal authored gun control legislation that would ban gun selling in people's homes.[6] He was also a founding member of the Assembly's Bipartisan Caucus and authored legislation for the creation of California's first ever Bipartisan Citizens Redistricting Commission.[2]
In 2002, the California Firefighters Association named Lowenthal Legislator of the Year by after he passed a law that limited liability for organizations that donated firefighting equipment. The League of California Cities named him Legislator of the Year in 2001 due to his advocacy on behalf of local governments. He has also received the "Rivie" Award from the Friends of the Los Angeles River due to his efforts to help clean up the river.[citation needed]
California Senate
Elections
In 2004, Lowenthal ran for the California Senate in the 27th Senate district. He won the Democratic primary unopposed. In the general election, he defeated Republican nominee Cesar Navarro Castellanos 63%-37%.[7] In 2008, he was reelected, defeating Allen Wood 67%-33%.[8]
Legislation that Lowenthal had signed into law include a law to reduce diesel emissions at the ports by limiting idling time for trucks conducting transactions at the ports, a bill that established a grant program to provide financial incentives for purchasing or leasing electric vehicles, and a bill to protect highways.
With Bonnie Lowenthal's election to the Assembly and Alan Lowenthal's reelection in 2008, Senator and Assemblywoman Lowenthal were the first divorced husband and wife to serve concurrently in the California State Legislature.
On November 6, 2012, Lowenthal was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from the newly created 47th district after defeating Republican Gary DeLong.[11] DeLong carried the Orange County portion of the district with 54% of the vote, but Lowenthal swamped him in the Los Angeles County portion by over 38,000 votes, more than the overall margin of 30,100. He took office on January 3, 2013. Lowenthal is the first non-Hispanic Democrat to represent a significant portion of traditionally heavily Republican Orange County in Congress since Jerry M. Patterson, who served from 1975 to 1985. He was reelected in 2014, 2016 and 2018 by similar margins.
Until the Democrats swept every seat in Orange County at the 2018 elections, Lowenthal was the only elected white Democrat above the county level in much of the Orange County portion of the district. But the Los Angeles County portion has more than double the population of the Orange County portion; the district's share of Long Beach alone accounts for over half of its population.
Lowenthal is a strong supporter of Israel. He said that the "historical denial about the right of Jewish people to have their own homeland" and the Palestinian "refusal to acknowledge Israel as a Jewish state, that is a critical issue that needs to be addressed."[13]
Lowenthal has been critical of Brazil's president Jair Bolsonaro. In March 2019 he and 29 other Democratic lawmakers wrote Secretary of State Mike Pompeo a letter that read in part, "Since the election of far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro as president, we have been particularly alarmed by the threat Bolsonaro’s agenda poses to the LGBTQ+ community and other minority communities, women, labor activists, and political dissidents in Brazil."[14][15]
On December 16, 2021, Lowenthal announced that he would retire from the U.S. House at the end of his term on January 3, 2023.[1]
Political positions
As of 2020, Lowenthal has a 100% rating from NARAL Pro-Choice America and an F rating from the Susan B. Anthony List for his abortion-related voting record.[21][22] He opposed the overturning of Roe v. Wade, calling it "devastating to every American woman who has, with the stroke of a pen, had their rights curtailed and their status as free and equal citizens abridged."[23] Noted for his work on environmental issues, among other things he has supported banning the use of hydrofluoric acid (HF) at oil refineries.[24]
^"Members". House Baltic Caucus. Archived from the original on June 19, 2022. Retrieved February 21, 2018.
^"Membership". Congressional Arts Caucus. Archived from the original on June 12, 2018. Retrieved March 13, 2018.
^"Our Members". U.S. House of Representatives International Conservation Caucus. Archived from the original on August 1, 2018. Retrieved August 2, 2018.
