Tom Lantos was elected to his 13th term in the U.S. House of Representatives in November 2004 with 68% of the vote. He was first elected to Congress in November 1980; as a Democrat running in the year of the Reagan landslide, he narrowly defeated the Republican incumbent in California’s 12th District by the lowest plurality of any Member of Congress that year — 46% to his opponent's 43%.

An American by choice, Tom Lantos was born in Budapest, Hungary, on February 1, 1928. He was 16 years old when Nazi Germany occupied his native country. As a teenager, he was a member of the anti-Nazi underground and later of the anti-Communist student movement. He is the only holocaust survivor ever elected to Congress. Tom was awarded an academic scholarship to study in the United States, and he arrived here in 1947. He received a B.A. and M.A. in Economics from the University of Washington in Seattle and later earned a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of California, Berkeley.

For three decades before his election to Congress (1950-1980), Tom Lantos was a professor of economics, an international affairs analyst for public television, and a consultant to a number of businesses. He also served in senior advisory roles to members of the United States Senate.

Since his election to the House of Representatives, Tom Lantos has worked diligently to address quality of life issues in Bay Area communities. He has a strong record on environment protection and has fought for reform of our nation's energy policy. As a former Professor and Chairman of the Millbrae Board of Education, Tom has been a consistent supporter of public education. Tom led a major investigation of waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and he has been a leader in Congressional oversight over Federal government programs. As the Ranking Democratic member of the House International Relations Committee Tom Lantos is a strong voice for responsible international involvement, and advocate for participation in international organizations, and particularly for Human Rights. In 1983 he was the founder of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus, and he continues to serve as its Co-Chairman.

Tom and his wife Annette are the parents of two daughters — Annette and Katrina — and they have seventeen grandchildren.

Rep. Tom Lantos's Official Website

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Dirty air contributes to over 60,000 American deaths every year. (Commission on Risk Assessment and Risk Management)