Mike Feuer was elected to represent California’s 42nd Assembly District in 2006.  He currently chairs the Assembly Judiciary Committee.  Mike is also a member of the Budget, Environmental Safety and Toxics, and Insurance Committees.  In addition, he serves on the Assembly working group addressing California’s water crisis and is a participant on the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy.

Mike has emerged as a leader on improving state and regional transportation; fighting to diminish the significant health threat posed by toxics; public safety; health; environmental protection; water and education issues.  In 2008 he authored legislation to authorize Los Angeles County voters to decide whether to impose a .5% sales tax increase to fund transportation priorities, including a westward extension of the subway and adding north/south routing to the San Fernando Valley's Orange Line bus way.  In 2007 he played an instrumental role in directing more than $700 million to relieve congestion on the 405 Freeway on Los Angeles’ west side—one of the most crowded freeways in the world.  For these and other efforts Mike was named, “State Traffic Fighter of the Year” by Building L.A.’s Future.

Also in 2008, Mike authored the biggest leap forward in chemicals policy in decades.  The Legislature passed Mike’s AB 1879 with strong bipartisan support, granting California officials broad authority to regulate hazardous chemicals found in consumer products.  Under the bill, the Department of Toxic Substances Control will determine what chemicals pose potential health risks, identify substitutes for these chemicals in products families use, and establish what regulations, from labeling to banning, are necessary to protect public health and safety.

Mike also authored one of the major accomplishments of the 2007 term--the Crime Gun Identification Act. Endorsed by more than 65 police chiefs, sheriffs and prosecutors, the Act requires that starting in 2010, semi-automatic handguns be equipped with microstamping technology that marks an ejected bullet casing with the make, model and serial number of the gun from which it came. Law enforcement leaders believe this requirement will provide valuable leads in gun crimes, and deter illegal weapons trafficking. The bill gained national prominence: The New York Times twice joined The Los Angeles Times and other California newspapers in supporting the Act, and key federal legislators have introduced legislation modeled on it. Calling Mike a “true champion of public safety” the California Chapters of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence named Assemblymember Feuer their 2007 “Gun Violence Prevention Legislator of the Year”.

In addition, Mike authored important laws to protect public safety officers, assist victims of traumatic brain injury and major burns, and assure access to justice.   He also has been active on a number of other significant bills.  For example, he was a co-author of AB 43 (marriage equality).  Mike played a key role on legislation that prohibited the investment of California public employee retirement funds in companies with energy or defense related operations in Iran. 

Prior to his service in the Assembly, Mike represented Los Angeles’ Fifth City Council District from 1995-2001. Mike oversaw the city’s budget as the chair of the Council’s Budget and Finance Committee, was the Vice-Chair of the Public Safety Committee, and led the Council’s committees on business tax reform and issues relating to children and seniors. He authored numerous laws combating gun violence, worked aggressively to ensure San Fernando Valley residents received their fair share of City services, spearheaded the creation of Los Angeles’ 311 non-emergency city services phone system and the first playgrounds accessible to disabled children, initiated Los Angeles’ successful charter reform process in the Council, co-authored the Affordable Housing Trust Fund, funded meals for 75,000 indigent seniors and jobs for at-risk youth, and wrote a successful ballot measure bolstering the city’s ethics commission.

In addition to holding elected office, Mike served for eight years as the Executive Director of Bet Tzedek Legal Services, the House of Justice. During his tenure Bet Tzedek provided free legal representation to more than 50,000 primarily aging or disabled clients on elder abuse, Holocaust restitution, slum housing conditions, access to medical care, consumer fraud and other critical issues. The Los Angeles Daily Journal wrote that Mike transformed Bet Tzedek into a “national success story.”

Mike taught public policy at UCLA’s School of Public Affairs, and litigation techniques at UCLA Law School. He has been a commentator on National Public Radio member station KPCC, and written dozens of commentaries for California’s leading newspapers. Mike has practiced law at two of California’s leading firms, Hufstedler, Miller, Carlson & Beardsley, and Morrison & Foerster. Mike began his career as a judicial clerk to California Supreme Court Justice Joseph R. Grodin. His first formal political experience was as the director of research and issues for Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley’s 1986 campaign for Governor.

The recipient of numerous awards for his work to promote education reform, affordable housing, violence reduction, and the rights of seniors and children, Mike is a Phi Beta Kappa, magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, and a cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School. He and his wife, Superior Court Judge Gail Ruderman Feuer, have been married twenty-five years. They live with their two teenaged children, Aaron and Danielle, in the Fairfax neighborhood of Los Angeles.