California’s Congressional delegation is made up mostly of Democrats and only seven Republicans. Rep. Ken Calvert is one of those Republicans and he represents the 42^nd District in Riverside County.

Before that, he ran the family restaurant, the Jolly Fox, and he worked in real estate.

He said he got into politics after being encouraged by a group of people. He wanted to bring change, be more pro-business and more proactive in making sure that unintended consequences did not occur in the law as much as he could.

Calvert has been in Congress since 1992 and said he knows what it takes to work with colleagues on both sides of the aisle, how to get something accomplished through the United States Senate and ultimately, signed into law.

“It takes a while to learn that and to be able to be successful at that. It’s easy to vote no. What’s the hardest thing about this is getting something done and that means getting a consensus not only from your Republican colleagues, but from your Democratic colleagues, because nothing really happens here without a bipartisan effort,” he said.

He is most proud of passing the Legal Workforce Act, H.R. 250, which requires employers to check the eligibility of future hires through the E-Verify system, after people were gaining employment by using false social security numbers to get jobs.

“I thought there has to be a way for us to verify social security numbers to make sure Americans were given preference in the job market and there was no process to do that in America. Not even in the Department of Defense or in secure places where you wanted to make sure people were who they were,” he said.

Some of the more frustrating parts of working in Congress involve maintaining the party balance. In recent years, the number of Republicans in the State House have been cut in half – from 14 down to seven.

“Many of those individuals were not only colleagues, but friends and so it’s always difficult when that occurs,” he said.

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