Waxman, Henry A. (Henry Arnold), 1939- (original) (raw)

Henry Arnold Waxman (born September 12, 1939) is an American lawyer and politician. A member of the Democratic Party, he served in the U.S. House of Representatives from California's 24th (1975-1993), 29th (1993-2003), 30th (2003-2013), and 33rd (2013-2015) congressional districts.

Born in Los Angeles, California, he attended public schools there before earning B.A. and J.D. degrees from the University of California, Los Angeles. After graduating, he worked as a lawyer. He was elected to the California State Assembly in 1968, and served three terms. Along with U.S. Representative Howard Berman, Waxman co-founded the Los Angeles County Young Democrats. In 1974, Democratic U.S. Representative Chet Holifield retired after 16 terms in Congress. Waxman gave up his state assembly seat to run for the district, which had been re-numbered from the 19th to the 24th in a mid-decade redistricting. Waxman won the Democratic nomination for the district, and easily won the general election, as this was tantamount to election in this heavily Democratic district. He was re-elected 17 times, with no substantive opposition.

Waxman was considered to be one of the most influential liberal members of Congress, and was instrumental in passing laws including the Infant Formula Act of 1980, the Orphan Drug Act of 1983, the Drug Price Competition and Patent Term Restoration Act of 1984, the Clean Air Act of 1990, the Ryan White CARE Act of 1990, the Food Quality Protection Act of 1996, the State Children's Health Insurance Program of 1997, the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006, the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act of 2009, and the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010. He served as Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform from 2007 to 2009, Chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce from 2009 to 2011, and was the ranking member of the Energy and Commerce Committee from 2011 until 2015. On January 30, 2014, Waxman announced he would not seek re-election to a 21st term in 2014.

Waxman now serves as chairman at Waxman Strategies, a D. C.-based communications and lobbying firm, working on health care, environmental, energy, technology, financial services, labor, and telecommunications issues. In addition, he serves as a Regent Lecturer for University of California, Los Angeles, and as an advisor and lecturer at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.