Palo Alto Councilmember Pat Burt Endorses Sam Liccardo
Longtime leader and former mayor says Liccardo is “clearly the best pick”
SAN JOSE, CA — Today, Pat Burt, a long time Palo Alto City Councilmember and three time former Mayor, announced his endorsement of Sam Liccardo for California’s 16th Congressional District.
“I know Palo Alto, and I know Sam,” Burt said. “As a longtime supporter of Joe Simitian, I was proud to endorse him in the primary. But today, Sam Liccardo is clearly the best pick to represent us. I have worked with and respected Sam for years. He has a deep understanding of the issues facing our community; climate change, affordable housing, fiscal responsibility, equal opportunity, and public safety. Sam has a clear policy plan to address those issues. I’m proud to endorse his campaign.”
Burt has an extensive record of public service to the residents of California’s 16th Congressional District, having also served as a board member and former chair of the Valley Transit Authority, and a board member of Caltrain. He also founded and led multiple successful medical technology companies that made healthcare safer for patients across America.
“I’m very honored to have Pat’s endorsement,” Liccardo said. “Pat is a thoughtful leader who is unafraid to have the difficult but necessary conversations to move his city and region forward. He cares about his community, and prioritizes policy over politics to achieve outcomes that improve the lives of his constituents. He is smart, principled, and data driven.”
Liccardo is endorsed by the NorCal Carpenters Union, Laborers’ International Union of North America, Defend the Vote, California State Controller Malia Cohen, U.S. Representatives Nanette Barragan, Tony Cárdenas, Lou Correa, Robert Garcia, Linda Sanchez, and Scott Peters, Santa Clara County Assessor Larry Stone, San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, and more than100 local elected officials and community leaders. In the primary election, he was endorsed by the Mercury News and the San Francisco Chronicle. A full endorsement list can be seen here.
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About Sam Liccardo
Sam Liccardo is running for Congress to focus Washington on the big issues like homelessness, climate change, reproductive rights, and the punishing cost of living. To a Congress that has been called the least productive in decades, Liccardo says “Let’s Get it Done!” on the problems that matter most to the Peninsula, the Coastside, and Silicon Valley.
As Mayor of San José, the Bay Area’s largest city, Liccardo’s innovative efforts to confront homelessness include pioneering the conversion of motels to housing in 2016, four years prior to California adopting it as a statewide model. He piloted the development of quick-build prefabricated housing communities that were constructed at a fraction of the time and cost of traditional apartments, helping thousands come off the streets. Liccardo also launched a successful program that employs unhoused residents cleaning the city in exchange for housing and pay (“San José Bridge”). Though San José long struggled with growing homelessness, it became one of the very few California cities to reduce street homelessness in Liccardo’s final year in office, 2022.
Under Liccardo, San José resolved chronic deficits, reduced city debt, and improved its credit rating, particularly through a 2016 ballot measure that saved taxpayers $3 billion over three decades. He took on the gun lobby and crafted a first-in-the-nation requirement for gun owners to pay annual fees to support violence-prevention programs and to purchase liability insurance. He launched San José Clean Energy for the city’s one million residents which now procures 95% of its electricity from renewable and GHG-free sources. Liccardo also led a series of successful ballot measures to preserve open space and hillsides, rebuild city streets and other infrastructure, and provide hundreds of millions in funding for housing affordable to vital workers such as teachers, nurses, firefighters, and police officers. Liccardo led efforts to expand BART and was part of the regional coalition that supported the successful efforts to electrify Caltrain.
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 a graduate of Harvard Law School, Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, and Georgetown University. His published works have appeared in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and other national publications. He and his wife, Jessica García-Kohl, live in San José.
About California’s 16th Congressional District
California’s 16th is an open Congressional District that covers parts of Santa Clara and San Mateo counties, home to Silicon Valley. The district covers all or part of the cities of Menlo Park, Los Altos, Woodside, Pacifica, Half Moon Bay, Atherton, Pescadero, Portola Valley, Campbell, Los Altos Hills, Los Gatos, Monte Sereno, Mountain View, Palo Alto, San Jose, Saratoga and Stanford.