With the election results finalized, several legislators who gave extraordinary effort in service to our industry are leaving public service. Western Growers wishes to extend special gratitude to Reps. Jeff Denham and David Valadao, and to former state Senator Andy Vidak.

Jeff Denham’s career has been defined by public service, first in active and reserve duty for the United States Air Force, where he served for 16 years, then as a member of the California State Senate from 2002 to 2010. In 2010, Denham won election to the first of four terms in the U.S. House of Representatives.

David Valadao’s political career begin with a single term in the California State Assembly from 2010 to 2012. Then he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, where he served three terms.

While in Washington, D.C., Denham and Valadao were vocal supporters within the Republican caucus for immigration reform to help farmers and farmworkers in the produce industry, and both worked tirelessly for water supply reliability, both issues of critical importance to the Western Growers membership.

Andy Vidak joined the California Senate in 2013 following a special election, and won the seat outright in 2014. During his tenure, Vidak was active in water infrastructure and clean drinking water issues and supported the water bonds in 2014 (Prop 1) and 2018 (Prop 3). He was also a vocal critic of the Agricultural Labor Relations Board’s indefensible collusion with the UFW to suppress the votes of Gerawan Farming workers who sought to decertify the union.

“Western Growers owes each of these individuals a debt of gratitude for their steadfast support for California agriculture and rural America,” said Western Growers President and CEO Tom Nassif. “Their collective leadership will be difficult to replace, and we hope we haven’t seen the last of any of them.”

All three former representatives have strong ties to agriculture. Denham owns and operates Denham Plastics and farms almonds in Merced County, Valadao is a partner in his family’s dairy farm in Kings County, and Vidak is a cherry farmer in the Hanford area.