Sam Liccardo
Sam Liccardo is one of Silicon Valley's most accomplished and versatile public servants — a former prosecutor, two-term mayor of San José, and now a freshman member of Congress whose career has been defined by a relentless, pragmatic drive to solve the problems that most directly affect everyday Californians. Born on April 16, 1970, Liccardo is of Sicilian, Irish, and Mexican Californio ancestry, with roots tracing to the early Californio inhabitants of the Bay Area and to more recent Mexican immigrants who worked in the Almaden mines. His paternal grandfather owned and operated a neighborhood grocery store in downtown San José, the Notre Dame Market, giving him a deep, multigenerational connection to the city he would eventually lead.
Liccardo holds degrees from Harvard Law School, Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, and Georgetown University. After completing his education, he launched a legal career as a criminal prosecutor. He prosecuted felony crimes of sexual assault and child exploitation in the Santa Clara County District Attorney's Office and also served as a federal prosecutor in the Southern District of California — experience that grounded his approach to public safety in both legal rigor and a personal commitment to protecting the vulnerable.
Liccardo served on the San José City Council before being elected the 65th Mayor of San José in November 2014. He was reelected in 2018 with 75.8% of the vote. As mayor, his record was broad and ambitious. Under his leadership, San José became the largest U.S. city to commit to carbon neutrality, delivering cleaner, more affordable energy while cutting emissions. He spearheaded the country's most ambitious gun violence prevention measure and expanded community-based policing, making San José the safest large city in America during his tenure. On homelessness, Liccardo pioneered the conversion of motels to housing in 2016 — four years before California adopted it as a statewide model — and piloted the development of quick-build prefabricated housing communities constructed at a fraction of the time and cost of traditional apartments. On the economy, San José enjoyed the greatest expansion of tech growth in its history under his tenure, with new or expanded campuses from Google, Adobe, Amazon, Apple, and dozens of other major employers. He also led efforts to expand free broadband to 250,000 East San José residents and launched an innovative digital micro-scholarship platform for 1,700 first-generation students.
As mayor, Liccardo led the California Big City Mayors coalition, served as Chair of the Valley Transportation Authority twice, and served on the boards of the Association of Bay Area Governments and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission.
He now proudly represents California's 16th Congressional District, a dynamic region stretching from the coastal communities of Half Moon Bay and Pacifica to the heart of Silicon Valley, including San José, Palo Alto, and Mountain View. He was sworn in on January 3, 2025. In Congress, he serves on the House Committee on Financial Services and chairs the New Democratic Coalition's Innovation & Technology Working Group. In July 2025, he spearheaded the New Dems' first-ever Innovation Agenda, a policy framework to guide America to win the 21st century. His early legislative priorities in Congress have focused on housing affordability, homelessness, public safety, financial services reform, and positioning the United States to lead globally in clean energy and artificial intelligence.
Liccardo and his wife Jessica García-Kohl, a nonprofit leader dedicated to child health, education, and leadership development, live in Saratoga. His published works have appeared in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post. He is widely regarded as one of the most substantive and results-driven figures in California Democratic politics — a lawmaker who arrived in Congress having already delivered, at the local level, many of the solutions he is now working to scale nationally.