Primary Approved 
Sam Liccardo served as mayor of San Jose, the Bay Area’s largest city, from 2015 until 2023. He spearheaded innovative efforts to confront homelessness including pioneering the conversion of motels to housing in 2016, four years prior to California adopting it as a statewide model. He led a regional effort to boost the minimum wage, making San José’s minimum wage ($17.55 per hour) among the highest in the nation. Liccardo also focused on leveraging technology to expand opportunity for residents long excluded from the Valley’s growth by expanding free broadband to 250,000 East San José residents and launching an innovative digital micro-scholarship platform for 1,700 first-generation students.
Prior to his service in elected office, Liccardo 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. He is now continuing his public service in the race to fill CA-16's vacancy following Anna Eshoo's retirement.
Liccardo has committed to supporting J Street’s values in Congress. He has said that “to protect the Jewish–and every–community, we must recommit ourselves to the foundational values of free expression, respect for open inquiry, respect for due process and the rule of law, and the respect for each other.” Liccardo believes that “we should hold Israeli leaders accountable where their use of military force falls short of our common values, [and] we must do so with full cognizance that Israel is fighting both a war and an asymmetrical moral battle with Hamas, Hezbollah, and other terrorist organizations.” If elected to Congress, he has pledged to “urge Israel to follow its better angels, as US policy must.”
