FFRF Endorses Rep. Jared Huffman
Jared Huffman, running for his seventh term, has represented California’s 2nd District since 2012, spanning from the Golden Gate Bridge to the Oregon border. Huffman has shown staunch commitment to keeping religion out of the government and promoting critical secular values during his years in office.
Huffman is the only open nonbeliever in Congress, describing himself as a humanist. He received FFRF’s Emperor Has No Clothes Award, reserved for public figures who make known their dissent from religion, at FFRF’s 2018 conference in San Francisco. Opening FFRF’s 2022 annual convention with a welcoming video, Huffman said, “I feel like I have sort of become the surrogate representative for countless folks across the United States that identify as nonreligious. As many of you know, I am the token humanist in Congress.”
He founded the Congressional Freethought Caucus with Reps. Raskin and Jerry McNerney in 2018, which works to “protect the secular character of our government by adhering to the strict constitutional principle of separation of church and state.” He has overseen the activism of the Freethought Caucus, such as its recent memo warning about House Speaker Mike Johnson’s Christian nationalism and objecting to Johnson’s invitation to hate preacher Jack Hibbs to open the House with a prayer. Huffman has been interviewed several times on Freethought Radio and FFRF’s TV show, “Freethought Matters,” most recently to offer his analysis of Speaker Johnson’s Christian nationalist pronouncements last month. He has specifically championed the Health Share Transparency Act, which is one of FFRF Action Fund’s signature bills, to rein in religious health insurance entities. Huffman’s career gives us an ideal image of how a secular political leader governs.
Numerous other organizations have endorsed Huffman, such as California Environmental Voters, California Labor Federation, Equality California, League of Conservation Voters, Planned Parenthood Action Fund and Progressive Action PAC.