Biography

Congressman Adam B. Schiff represents California's 28th Congressional District, including the communities of Alhambra, Altadena, Burbank, Glendale, Griffith Park, Monterey Park, Pasadena, San Gabriel, South Pasadena, and Temple City.

During his tenure in Congress, Schiff has focused on bolstering national security, strengthening our communities, helping small businesses, and introducing a "Kids First" agenda of initiatives to improve education, safety, and health care for our kids. 

Schiff serves on the powerful House Appropriations Committee, which is responsible for setting all funding priorities for the federal government.  He currently sits on the Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Subcommittee and the State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Subcommittee. 

Schiff also serves on the important House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, which oversees the nation’s intelligence agencies including components of the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security, Justice, State and Energy.  As a senior Member of the House Intelligence Committee, he is the Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Technical and Tactical (T & T) Intelligence. T & T oversees the technical aspects of intelligence gathering, including space-based assets, as well as cyber security. T & T also has primary oversight over the National Security Agency, the National Reconnaissance Office, the National Geospatial Agency and other military intelligence programs.

Schiff’s top priority is to create jobs.  He believes small businesses have always been the true engine of growth in challenging economic times and has been fighting to enact tax deductions for small businesses that can be used for start-up expenses, to eliminate payroll taxes for new hires, and to remove burdensome regulation for small businesses. Schiff also believes we must once again establish America as a manufacturing powerhouse. Through these efforts, small businesses can begin growing and adding jobs again so that all Americans can enjoy a brighter, more prosperous future.

Schiff has been a leader on national security efforts and has pushed for a broader strategy that emphasizes diplomacy, intelligence reform, and efforts to stabilize countries that are at risk of becoming future failed states and havens for terrorists.  He has advanced efforts to ensure the safety of all Americans by improving nuclear safety, and is the author of the Nuclear Forensics and Attribution Act, which President Obama signed into law on February 16, 2010.

In March 2003, Schiff co-founded the Democratic Study Group on National Security in an effort to explore emerging national security issues with other Members of Congress.  The group has hosted a wide range of speakers on topics such as international terrorism, postwar planning, defense, military transformation, shifting alliances, Afghanistan, Iraq, homeland security, non-proliferation, Iran, Korea, the United Nations, and missile defense.

Schiff also co-founded the Congressional Caucus for Freedom of the Press in May 2006.  The bipartisan, bicameral caucus is co-chaired by Representatives Schiff and Mike Pence (R-IN) and Richard Lugar (R-IN).  It aims to advance press freedom around the world by creating a forum to combat and condemn media censorship and the persecution of journalists around the world.   Schiff is the author of the Daniel Pearl Freedom of the Press Act, signed into law by President Obama on May 17, 2010.

Schiff has long been a champion of the environment and mass transit.  He is the author of the Rim of the Valley Corridor Study Act, which was signed into law by President Bush on May 08, 2008.  As a State Senator, he wrote the legislation establishing the Gold Line Light Rail Authority and in Congress has led efforts to extend the light rail throughout the San Gabriel Valley.

Schiff is a leader on efforts to combat intellectual property theft and the piracy of copyrighted materials.  He is a co-chair of the Congressional International Anti-Piracy Caucus, a bipartisan group of House and Senate lawmakers dedicated to working with America’s international trade partners to secure the enactment of strong copyright laws and the vigilant enforcement of those laws.

Prior to serving in the House of Representatives, Schiff completed a four-year term as State Senator for California's 21st State Senate District, chairing the Senate Judiciary Committee, the Senate Select Committee on Juvenile Justice and the Joint Committee on the Arts.  He led legislative efforts to guarantee up-to-date textbooks in the classroom, overhaul child support, and pass a patient's bill of rights.  Before serving in the Legislature, Schiff served with the U.S. Attorney's Office in Los Angeles for six years, most notably prosecuting the first FBI agent ever to be indicted for espionage.

Adam Schiff, born June 22, 1960, is a graduate of Stanford University and Harvard Law School.  Adam and his wife, Eve (yes, it's true), have two children, a daughter, Alexa Marion, born in July 1998, and a son, Elijah Harris, born in July 2002.