United States California Members of the United States House of Representatives Congressperson Ami Bera

After the 2020 US Census, redistricting changed the boundaries of Ami Bera’s former district, leading him to run in the redrawn District 6, which includes incorporated suburban sections of Sacramento, the cities of Citrus Heights and Rancho Cordova, and the neighborhoods of Arden Arcade, Carmichael, Fair Oaks, Natomas and Rio Linda.

A centrist, Bera has served as Democratic co-chair for the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus, though the caucus subsection on his Congressional website indicates he is no longer part of this group. His time in Congress hasn’t come without controversy, with Bera’s father being sentenced to federal prison after participating in money laundering to help fund two of Bera’s campaigns.

Background

The son of Indian immigrants, Bera was born in Los Angeles in 1965 and earned his bachelor’s and medical degrees from University of California, Irvine. Prior to serving in Congress, Bera’s work included serving as chief medical officer for Sacramento County and teaching at University of California Davis School of Medicine.

He has been married since 1991 to Janine Bera and has one child.

Select Legislation

In a sign of how sharply divided Congress has become, Bera has never had a piece of legislation he sponsored become a law, with five bills passing the House but not being able to complete the rest of the legislative process. (Bera has had better luck as a cosponsor, with 74 pieces of legislation he supported in this method becoming law.)

Bera’s sponsored bills that have passed the House but not made it any further are essentially three bills that he’s introduced five times cumulatively:

• H.R. 2118 (117th): The Securing America from Epidemics Act would allow the United States to take part in an international coalition of countries and private partners with a stated mission “to finance and coordinate the development of vaccines for high-priority, epidemic-potential threats,” according to a summary of the bill on a Congressional website.
  
  The bill, which was introduced in March 2021 and passed the House four months later, was read twice in the Senate before being referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations. Bera suffered the same fate with a similar bill during the 116h Congress in 2020.
  
  


• H.R. 1480 (117th): Known as the HERO Act, this would create some public health programs for first responders, including an officer suicide reporting program at the CDC. After passing the House in May 2021 and being received and read twice in the Senate, it was referred to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions. As with H.R. 2118, Bera had the same thing happen with a similar version of this bill during the 116th Congress in 2019.
  
  


• H.R. 5760 (116th): This bill, which is known as the Grid Security Research and Development Act, passed the House in September 2020, read twice in the Senate, and referred to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.

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