About
Doug LaMalfa (R-Calif.) has represented California’s 1st Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives since 2013. He ran for reelection in 2022 with Trump’s endorsement and won in his solidly Republican district.
LaMalfa was previously a member of the California State Senate from 2010–12 and a member of the State Assembly from 2002–08. Prior to holding public office, he managed his family’s rice farm in northern California.
As a congressman, LaMalfa has long been a vocal Trump defender, backing his family separation policy at the border and echoing his equivocation about the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville. He claimed that mainstream media fabricated the narrative that Trump supports white supremacists.
After the 2020 presidential election, LaMalfa adhered to the GOP playbook by casting doubt on the legitimacy of the voting process nationwide. He objected to certifying Biden’s Electoral College win and voted against both impeaching Trump for inciting the mob and establishing a special House committee to investigate the insurrection, among other measures.
January 6, 2021
- Just hours after pro-Trump rioters stormed the Capitol, LaMalfa and 146 other congressional Republicans objected to certifying Biden’s win of the 2020 presidential election..
- LaMalfa voted against impeaching Trump for his role in inciting the attack on Congress and the Capitol. Instead, he criticized Democrats, who “talk about the need for unity now, [saying] we have to come together now. Well, [impeachment is] not the way to make 70 million Americans who are still questioning the election feel good.”
- He also defended Trump, claiming that he did not incite or fan the flames of violence, and that both his action and inaction that day were perfectly normal: “At every rally don’t you hear, ‘We’re going to take it back,’ ‘We’re going to take our country back,’ ‘We’re going to win, we’re going to fight, we’re going to battle in order to get the things we believe in.’ Those are standard words at any rally, aren’t they?”
- LaMalfa voted against establishing a House committee to investigate what led to the violent assault on the Capitol and the congressional procedure underway that day.
The Big Lie
- Once Biden won the election, LaMalfa claimed that there had been widespread fraud, including late-arriving ballots, ballot-counting irregularities, after-hours voting, missing ballots and illegal voting. On Nov. 11, he said, “I’m skeptical that we should shut it all down and not finish counting the ballots before we crown the new president…. There are many questions to be answered and many lawsuits and investigations underway—a lot of irregularities that I think are deserving of scrutiny.”
- In a press release, LaMalfa defended his objection to the Electoral College certification by noting that Democrats had similarly objected in 2001, 2005, and 2017.
- On Nov. 6, 2020, LaMalfa and 38 other House Republicans signed a letter to then Attorney General Bill Barr asking that the Justice Department investigate the presidential election results based on “widespread reports of irregularities” during ballot counts.
- On Dec. 10, 2020, LaMalfa signed an amicus brief in a lawsuit filed by the state of Texas urging the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the results of the presidential election in four swing states: Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. In justifying his support, he explained, “the reports we’ve seen of non-residents, deceased voters, potential mail fraud, and partisan poll watching are deeply concerning, and must be challenged.”
- In December 2020, LaMalfa introduced the Election Certainty Act, which would “end ballot harvesting” and require that all ballots be signed and delivered by election day.
- In April 2022, LaMalfa joined 19 other members of Congress in accusing Twitter of “news censorship and subsequent meddling in the 2020 presidential election.” He went on to claim that “the behavior of Twitter in the fall of 2020 raises huge concerns about stifling breaking, accurate news because it was unhelpful to a candidate they preferred. Big media and big tech deliberately covered up [the Hunter Biden] story and mislead [sic] the public.”