Jim Costa
U.S. Representative from California
James Manuel Costa (born April 13, 1952) is an American politician serving as the U.S. representative for California's 21st congressional district since 2023. He previously represented the 20th congressional district from 2005 to 2013 and the 16th congressional district from 2013 to 2023. A member of the Democratic Party, his district includes most of Fresno.
Costa served in the California State Assembly from 1978 to 1994, and then in the California State Senate from 1994 until 2002. During his time in the Assembly, he served as Majority Caucus Chair. Costa chaired the Blue Dog Coalition in the U.S. House of Representatives during the 116th Congress and chaired the Subcommittee on Livestock and Foreign Agriculture during the 117th Congress.
Early life and education
Costa was born on April 13, 1952, in Fresno, California. His parents were Manuel and Lena Cardoso Costa. All of his four grandparents immigrated from the Azores, a Portuguese archipelago in the North Atlantic, in the early 20th century. Three of them were unable to read or write and initially found work as laborers on dairy farms before eventually establishing their own.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q675869. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1952, 2023, 2005 and 2013.
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This entry incorporates text from “Jim Costa” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.