• Member of the Progressive Caucus
• Voting record received a 95 percent rating from the Leftwing group Americans For Democratic Action
• Co-sponsored a bill to ease trade restrictions against the Communist dictatorship in Cuba

Sam Farr is a Democrat Member of Congress who represents the 17th District of California. Born on July 4, 1941 in San Francisco, he grew up in a political home; his father served for many years as a California state senator.

Farr earned a degree from Willamette University in Oregon in 1963, then studied Spanish at the Monterey Institute of International Studies, and did Peace Corps work in Colombia from 1963-65. After returning to California, he worked as a staffer in the lower house of the California legislature from 1965-75. In 1975 he was elected to the Monterey County Board of Supervisors and served there for five years. From 1980-93 he was a California State Assembly member.

In 1993, when veteran Democratic congressman Leon Panetta resigned in order to take a position as head of President Bill Clinton's Office of Management and Budget, Farr won Panetta’s vacated seat in a special election. He has been re-elected in every congressional race since then.

Farr belongs to the Progressive Caucus in the House of Representatives. Americans for Democratic Action rates his voting record as 95 percent on the left side of legislation. During his legislative career, Farr has voted:

• against the development of a national missile defense system;
• against the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2001;
• against the post-9/11 anti-terrorism measure known as the Patriot Act;
• against allowing the U.S. government to use electronic surveillance to investigate suspected terrorist operatives;
• against a bill permitting the government to combat potential terrorist threats by monitoring foreign electronic communications which are routed through the United States;
• against an October 2002 joint resolution authorizing U.S. military action in Iraq;
• against the establishment of military commissions to try enemy combatants captured in the war on terror;
• in favor of withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq immediately and by a preordained date;
• against President Bush’s 2007 decision to deploy some 21,500 additional U.S. soldiers in an effort to quell the violent insurgents in Iraq;
• in favor of a proposal to expedite the transfer of all prisoners in the Guantanamo Bay detention center;
• against requiring hospitals to report (to the federal government) illegal aliens who receive emergency medical treatment;
• against the Real ID Act, which proposed to set minimal security requirements for state driver licenses and identification cards;
• against separate proposals calling for the construction of some 700 miles of fencing to prevent illegal immigration along America's southern border;
• against a proposal to grant state and local officials the authority to investigate, identify, and arrest illegal immigrants;
• against major tax cut proposals in September 1998, February 2000, March 2000, July 2000, May 2001, May 2003, October 2004, and May 2006;
• against separate welfare reform bills designed to move people off the welfare rolls and into paying jobs;
• in favor of prohibiting oil and gas exploration in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR); and
• against a proposal to fund offshore oil exploration along the Outer Continental Shelf.

In 2003 Farr co-sponsored a bill to ease trade restrictions against the Communist dictatorship in Cuba.

One of the top contributors to Farr's political campaigns is the American Association for Justice (formerly known as the Association of Trial Lawyers of America).