Rep. Jared Huffman (D-CA), Co-Chair

Congressman Jared Huffman is an original co-founder of the Congressional Freethought Caucus. He announced the founding of the Caucus at the Secular Coalition for America’s 2018 Secular Awards Dinner, where he was presented the National Visibility Award.

Representative Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael) was sworn in as a member of the 113th Congress on January 3, 2013 to represent California’s second district. The district spans from the Golden Gate Bridge north to the Oregon border, covering six counties including all of Marin, Mendocino, Humboldt, Trinity, and Del Norte, and much of Sonoma Counties.

Huffman is a member of the Committee on Natural Resources and the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure.

Prior to his election to Congress in November of 2012, Huffman served six years in the California State Assembly where he authored more than 60 pieces of successful legislation and received numerous awards for his legislative leadership. Huffman chaired the Water, Parks, and Wildlife Committee, served on the Budget Committee and was co-chair of the Legislative Environmental Caucus.

In the Assembly, Huffman distinguished himself as a legislator who tackles complex public policy challenges, works tirelessly, and gets results – often by forging bipartisan consensus on difficult issues.  He played a leading role in crafting and passing the historic package of water reforms in 2009.  Other notable laws authored by Huffman include 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 election to public office, Huffman was 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 he joined NRDC, Huffman 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 Marin County’s largest special district, the Marin Municipal Water District (MMWD), from 1994 to 2006.

Huffman graduated magna cum laude from the University of California at Santa Barbara, where he was also 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.

Huffman lives in Marin with his wife Susan and their two children, Abby and Nathan.  In his free time, Huffman enjoys all types of fishing, as well as tennis and home winemaking.