Mike Feuer was elected to represent California’s 42nd Assembly District in 2006.  The chair of the Assembly Judiciary Committee and the Assembly Committee to Improve State Government, Mike has emerged as a leader on many of the most significant issues confronting California:  improving state and regional transportation; reforming public education and the structure of state government; diminishing the health threat posed by toxics; confronting California’s water crisis; combating dangers posed by gun violence and drunk driving; and fighting for equal civil rights.

Mike wrote the law authorizing Los Angeles’s Measure R, which will fund $40 billion in dramatic transportation improvements throughout Los Angeles County.  In 2007 he played an instrumental role in directing more than $700 million to relieve congestion on Los Angeles’s 405 freeway—one of the most crowded freeways in the world.  For this and other work Mike was named “State Traffic Fighter of the Year” by Building L.A.’s Future, and Legislator of the Year by the Los Angeles and California chapters of the American Planning Association.

In 2008 Mike authored the biggest leap forward in chemicals policy in decades, granting California officials broad authority to help break the link between toxics and cancer by regulating dangerous chemicals found in consumer products.  He wrote water conservation legislation mandating a 20% cut in per capita urban water use by 2020, and successfully mediated two major environmental lawsuits which had threatened to derail 2008 budget negotiations.  For his leadership on environmental issues Mike received awards from both the California and Los Angeles Leagues of Conservation Voters. 

Long a champion of public safety, Mike wrote the Crime Gun Identification Act, endorsed by more than 65 police chiefs and sheriffs, establishing the nation’s first requirement that semi-automatic handguns be “microstamped”--equipped with technology that imprints bullet cartridges with data establishing who purchased the gun that fired them.  The Act gained national prominence, with the New York Times twice joining the Los Angeles Times and other newspapers in supporting it, and federal legislators introducing bills modeled on it.  Calling Mike a “true champion of public safety” the California chapter of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence named Feuer “Gun Violence Prevention Legislator of the Year.”  Mike is the author of legislation—the number one legislative priority in the nation for Mothers Against Drunk Driving—creating a pilot project requiring that convicted drunk drivers install ignition interlock devices to prevent their vehicles from starting unless they are sober.  He also wrote the law to encourage Good Samaritans to intervene in emergencies by protecting them from lawsuits when they act responsibly, for which the Civil Justice Association of California presented him its Civil Justice Leadership Award of 2009.

Throughout his career Mike has been one of California’s leaders on improving the lives of senior citizens and people with disabilities.  He wrote legislation providing emergency funding to California’s Long-Term Care Ombudsman, which investigates claims of nursing home abuse and neglect.  Mike authored the law requiring nursing homes prominently to post ratings of the care they provide so patients and their families can make the best possible choices, and a law extending important new consumer protections to seniors contemplating reverse mortgages.  He also wrote the law extending assistance to victims of traumatic brain injury.  Both the Congress of California Seniors and the disability rights group Protection and Advocacy have honored Mike for this leadership.

Mike has a long record of fighting for equal rights for all Californians.  Mike wrote the Sargent Shriver Civil Counsel Act, creating a pilot project establishing the nation’s first right to counsel in civil cases where basic needs are stake.  For this and other work, the Consumer Attorneys of California named Mike its Legislator of the Year. Equality California named Mike its Legislator of the Year for his extensive leadership on marriage equality.  Prior to his election, Mike received the Education Advocacy Award from the American Civil Liberties Union for his extensive pro bono work on Williams v. California, which brought sweeping education improvements to many of California’s least advantaged students. 

Prior to his service in the Assembly, Mike represented Los Angeles’s Fifth City Council District from 1995-2001.  Mike chaired the City Council’s Budget and Finance Committee, delivering budgets that were on time, balanced and effective.  He also served as Vice-Chair of the Public Safety Committee, and led Council committees on business tax reform and issues relating to seniors and children.  He wrote numerous laws to combat gun violence, spearheaded the creation of Los Angeles’s 311 non-emergency city services phone system and first playgrounds accessible to disabled children, initiated Los Angeles’s 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.

Mike served for eight years as the Executive Director of Bet Tzedek Legal Services, the House of Justice, which provided free legal assistance to more than 50,000 primarily elderly and disabled clients during his tenure.  The Los Angeles Daily Journal wrote that Mike transformed Bet Tzedek into a “national success story.”  Mike has practiced law at two of California’s leading law firms, taught both law and public policy at UCLA and been a commentator on National Public Radio station KPCC.  He began his career as a judicial clerk to California Supreme Court Justice Joseph Grodin.  His first formal political experience was as director of Research and Issues for Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley’s 1986 gubernatorial campaign.

In addition to the recognition discussed above Mike has received dozens of honors for his leadership throughout his career.  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, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Gail Ruderman Feuer, have been married for twenty-six years.  They have two teenage children.