1. Jim Costa previously represented the 20th congressional district from 2005 to 2013 and the 16th congressional district from 2013 to 2023.
39 Facts About Jim Costa
1. 2.
Jim Costa served in the California State Assembly from 1978 to 1994, and then in the California State Senate from 1994 until 2002.
3.
Jim Costa chaired the Blue Dog Coalition in the US House of Representatives during the 116th Congress and chaired the Subcommittee on Livestock and Foreign Agriculture during the 117th Congress.
4.
Jim Costa was born on April 13,1952, in Fresno, California.
5.
Jim Costa's grandparents immigrated from the Azores, a Portuguese archipelago in the North Atlantic, in the early 20th century.
6.
Jim Costa's parents grew up speaking Portuguese and did not learn English until they started school.
7.
Jim Costa attended San Joaquin Memorial High School, a private Catholic school in Fresno, where he graduated in 1970.
8.
Jim Costa then enrolled at California State University, Fresno, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science in 1974.
9.
Jim Costa later became chief of staff to California State Assemblyman and future US Representative Rick Lehman.
10.
In 1978, Jim Costa was elected to a seat in the California State Assembly.
11.
Jim Costa represented part of Fresno County in the legislature for 24 years, serving in the state Assembly for 16 years and in the state Senate for eight years.
12.
Jim Costa was a sponsor of the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act, a bill signed into law in 1995 that prohibits rent control on single-family homes, condominiums, and any rental unit constructed after February 1,1995.
13.
In 2004, Jim Costa entered the Democratic primary for the 20th Congressional District, which was opened up by the retirement of Cal Dooley, its seven-term incumbent.
14.
The Democrats won control of the House in that election, and Jim Costa became chair of the Natural Resources Committee's Energy and Mineral Resources Subcommittee.
15.
Jim Costa is a member of the House Agriculture Committee.
16.
In 2010, Jim Costa was challenged for re-election by Republican Andy Vidak.
17.
In February 2012, Jim Costa announced that he would run in the newly formed 16th district, a much more compact district that included most of Fresno as well as most of Merced.
18.
In November 2011, the League of Conservation Voters ran a series of television ads in Jim Costa's district criticizing his environmental record.
19.
Jim Costa faced an unexpectedly close race in 2014 against Republican Johnny Tacherra, a dairy farmer from rural Fresno County.
20.
Tacherra's lead narrowed as counting continued, and Jim Costa ultimately defeated him by 1,319 votes.
21.
In 2016, Jim Costa was the sole Democratic candidate in the "top two" primary, and received 50,917 votes.
22.
Jim Costa called in July for Joe Biden to withdraw from the 2024 United States presidential election.
23.
On March 6,2025, Jim Costa was one of ten Democrats in Congress who joined all of their Republican colleagues in voting to censure Democratic congressman Al Green for interrupting President Donald Trump's State of the Union Address.
24.
Jim Costa co-sponsored the bipartisan Agricultural Certainty for Reporting Emissions Act.
25.
Jim Costa was a co-sponsor and voted for Washington, DC Admission Act, which would grant statehood to the residential areas of the current District of Columbia as the State of Washington, Douglass Commonwealth.
26.
Jim Costa was one of five House Democrats to vote to continue selling arms to Saudi Arabia and to support the Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen.
27.
Jim Costa voted to provide Israel with support following the 2023 Hamas attack on Israel.
28.
In February 2023, during the Russo-Ukrainian War, Jim Costa signed a letter advocating for President Biden to give F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine.
29.
Jim Costa has been a regular attendee of the Yalta European Strategy annual meetings founded and sponsored by Ukrainian oligarch Victor Pinchuk.
30.
Jim Costa was reportedly a holdout vote on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, in March 2010.
31.
Jim Costa is an original co-sponsor of the American Dream and Promise Act, which provides a pathway to citizenship for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals recipients.
32.
Jim Costa was instrumental in crafting the bipartisan Farmworker Modernization Act, which would give undocumented farmworkers and their family members a path to legal immigration status.
33.
In 2025, Jim Costa was one of 46 House Democrats who joined all Republicans to vote for the Laken Riley Act.
34.
In 2008, Jim Costa wrote a piece in Capitol Weekly calling for high-speed rail in California.
35.
Jim Costa advocated creating a high-speed rail system that would go up and down California as well as across the nation at speeds of 225 miles per hour.
36.
In 2015, Jim Costa was one of 28 House Democrats to vote to build the Keystone XL pipeline.
37.
In 2021, Jim Costa joined a group of conservative Democrats, dubbed "The Unbreakable Nine", who threatened to derail the Biden administration's $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation package meant to tackle the nation's infrastructure.
38.
In December 2017, Jim Costa introduced legislation to allow some Hmong- and Laotian-American veterans to be buried in US national cemeteries.
39.
Jim Costa is Roman Catholic, and has been described as a liberal Catholic who favors abortion rights.