Mike Honda


Michael Makoto Honda is an American politician. A member of the Democratic Party, he served in Congress from 2001 to 2017.
Initially involved in education in California, he first became active in politics in 1971, when then San Jose mayor Norman Mineta appointed Honda to the city's Planning Commission. Mineta later joined both the
Bush and Clinton cabinets. After holding other positions, Honda was elected to the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors in 1990, and to the California State Assembly in 1996, where he served until 2001.
In November 2003, Democratic National Committee chair Terry McAuliffe appointed Honda as deputy chair of the DNC. In February 2005, Honda was elected a vice chair of the Democratic National Committee under the chairmanship of Howard Dean. In 2009, Honda was reelected for a second term as DNC vice chair, under the chairmanship of former Virginia governor Tim Kaine; he served in this role until 2013.
Honda became the subject of an ethics investigation by the United States House Committee on Ethics in 2015 for the alleged use of taxpayer resources to bolster his successful 2014 re-election campaign against fellow Democrat Ro Khanna. Honda faced Khanna again in 2016 and was defeated.

Early life and teaching

A third-generation Japanese American, Makoto Honda was born in 1941 in Walnut Grove, California, the son of Fusako and Giichi Honda. His father, Giichi, was one of 6,000 Military Intelligence Service agents, although the family was subjected to internment. His grandparents were from Kumamoto prefecture and immigrated to the United States in the early 1900s, and both of his parents were born in California.
When he was one year old, he and his family were sent to Camp Amache, a Japanese-American internment camp in southeastern Colorado. In 1953, his family returned to California, where they became strawberry sharecroppers in Blossom Valley in San Jose.
Image:Honda Teacher.jpg|thumb|upright|Honda as a teacher at Sunnyvale High School
Honda started at Andrew P. Hill High School, and then transferred to and graduated from San Josė High Academy. He entered San Josė State University, but interrupted his studies from 1965 to 1967 to serve in the United States Peace Corps in El Salvador, where he learned to speak Spanish. He returned to San Jose State, where, in 1968, he received a bachelor's degree in biological sciences and Spanish. He earned a master's degree in education from San Jose State in 1974.
In his 30-year career as an educator, Honda was a science teacher, a principal at two public schools, and a school board member. He also conducted educational research at Stanford University.

Political career

Teaching and state positions

In 1971, San Jose Mayor Norman Mineta appointed Honda to the city's Planning Commission. In 1981, Honda was elected to the San Jose Unified School Board. He was elected to the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors in 1990, and to the California State Assembly in 1996, where he served until 2001.

DNC and national positions

In the 2000 United States House of Representatives elections, Honda won the Democratic nomination for the 15th district, which had once been represented by Norm Mineta, and won the general election by a 12-point margin. He was re-elected in the resultant elections of 2002, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2010, and 2012.
In November 2003, chairman of the Democratic National Committee Terry McAuliffe appointed Honda as deputy chair of the DNC. In February 2005, Honda was elected a vice chair of the Democratic National Committee under the chairmanship of Howard Dean. In 2009, Honda was reelected for a second term as DNC vice chair, under the chairmanship of former Virginia Governor Tim Kaine; he served in this role until 2013.
Due to redistricting after the 2010 US census, Honda's district was renumbered as the 17th district at the beginning of the 113th Congress on January 3, 2013. The district was the only Asian American-majority district in the continental United States. The district, like its predecessor, is anchored in Silicon Valley, and encompasses northern San Jose and all or part of Cupertino, Milpitas, Santa Clara, and Sunnyvale. However, the 2013 redistricting pushed it into Alameda County, including part of Fremont and all of Newark. Honda was narrowly re-elected in 2014 against Ro Khanna, who lives in the Alameda County portion of the district. Honda lost a rematch to Khanna in 2016.

Early committees and caucuses

From 2001 to 2007 Honda served on the United States House Committee on Science, Space and Technology and was the ranking member of its Energy Subcommittee from 2005 to 2007. He also served on the United States House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure from 2001 to 2007. In 2007, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi appointed Honda to the United States House Committee on Appropriations. From 2011 to 2013, he was ranking member of the Legislative Branch Appropriations Subcommittee. From 2001 to 2003, and again from 2011 to 2013, Honda also was appointed to serve on the House Budget Committee.
Honda was a member of the following committees, commissions, and caucuses:
As of August 2015, Honda had secured over $1.3 billion in appropriations since 2001.
Some of Honda's most notable appropriations were for the extension of the BART system into Silicon Valley. During his five years on the House Transportation Committee, he secured $11 million in direct earmarks attached to a number of bills. Also during his time on that committee, he facilitated the BART projects qualification for the New Starts Program, which authorized another $900 million in funds, the first $400 million of which Honda managed to appropriate over the three-year period of FY2012-14. During the 2014 midterm election cycle, Honda's opponent Ro Khanna alleged that Honda only secured $2 million for the project. In response, a number of local officials including a Congresswoman, a state senator, a former US Secretary of Transportation, and former and current Valley Transportation Authority chairs, sent the Khanna campaign an open letter refuting its claims and requesting that they correct their campaign language.
The $11 million in direct appropriations was part of:
  • H.R. 2673
  • H.R. 4818
  • H.R. 3058
The $400 million from the New Starts Program was allocated as follows:
  • $100M for FY 2012 in H.R. 2112, The Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act, 2012, which became Public Law 112-55
  • $150M for FY 2013 in H.R. 933, the FY 2013 Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act, which became Public Law 113-6
  • $150M for FY 2014 in H.R. 3547, the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2014, which became Public Law 113–76.

    Legislation

Raising the minimum wage

Honda has been a long-time supporter of organized labor, and has supported numerous bills for creating a living wage. In 2013 and 2014, he cosponsored the Original Living American Wage Act, the WAGES Act, and the Fair Minimum Wage Act, which would raise the federal minimum wage. Honda was also a supporter of the San Jose's successful ballot initiative that raised the city's minimum wage to $10 per hour.

Defense

As former chairman of the Afghanistan Taskforce for the Congressional Progressive Caucus, and former co-chair of the CPC's Peace and Security Taskforce, Congressman Honda has consistently critiqued the war strategy through a series of Congressional briefings, legislation, published opinion pieces, and Congressional letters to the Administration. Honda advocated an orderly withdrawal of U.S. military forces from Afghanistan and a significant realignment of U.S. aid to focus on strengthening government institutions, capacity building, economic development, and humanitarian assistance in Afghanistan. Honda criticized the Obama administration for failing to seek Congressional approval for U.S. military operations in Libya. He is critical of the wide-scale use of drones and is a cosponsor of the Targeted Lethal Force Transparency Act requiring an annual report on the number of civilians and combatants killed and injured in drone strikes.

Education

In 2008, Honda worked with then-Senator Barack Obama to introduce the Enhancing STEM Education Act. Honda introduced the House version, H.R. 6104, and Obama introduced the Senate version, S.3047, on the same day.
The bills sought to enhance the coordination among state and federal governments to improve STEM education by creating a committee on STEM education at the Office of Science and Technology Policy and an Office of STEM at the Department of Education, instituting a voluntary State Consortium on STEM education, and creating a National STEM Education Research Repository. Portions of this bill, as well as Honda's INVENT Act, were eventually included in the America COMPETES Act reauthorization, which President Obama signed into law on January 4, 2011.
Honda led the Congressional authorization for The Equity and Excellence Commission, a commission that began in 2011 and reported its findings to the Secretary of Education in late 2012. The commission is a federal advisory committee chartered by Congress, operating under the Federal Advisory Committee Act ; 5 U.S.C., App.2. The commission had 27 members from a range of backgrounds, including education, law, tax, government, business, and civil rights. The committee met 17 times in Washington, DC and across the country. In November 2012, the commission presented its findings in a report titled "For Each and Every Child: A Strategy for Education Equity and Excellence." The findings focused around five recommendations: restructuring the financing of schools, focusing on equitable resources; supporting quality teachers and school leaders; supporting early childhood education; promoting increased parental engagement; and, addressing changes in accountability and governance in the education system. Opposed by special interests, including the teachers' unions, the commission's recommendations went largely ignored.