Longtime California congressman running for state Senate. Why he’s back in politics

Longtime Congressman George Radanovich is coming out of retirement to run for the California state Senate.

Radanovich announced his candidacy Tuesday for the California state Senate in the new 4th district, which stretches from Nevada County south to Inyo County and includes the Republican’s home county of Mariposa.

The 66-year-old previously served in the U.S House of Representatives for 16 years before not seeking election in 2010.

“This is the district where I was born, lived and farmed and where my family started a business in 1955,” Radanovich said in a news release. “Over the last several weeks, I have heard from community leaders urging me to run because our district needs a state Senator who understands the agricultural, resource and recreational based economy of our district and who has the proven ability to get things done.”

Radanovich cited water, the economy, transportation and infrastructure and public safety as key issues facing rural California.

He also champions himself as a leading advocate for California’s agricultural, resources and recreational communities.

During his time in Congress, Radanovich represented California’s 19th District, which at that time covered parts of Fresno, Madera, Mariposa, Tuolumne and Stanislaus counties.

He served as a member of the House Resources Committee, chairman of the National Parks, Recreation and Public Lands Subcommittee, chairman of the Water and Power Subcommittee, chairman of the Western Caucus, and co-chair of the Water Caucus and Wine Caucus.

In 1994, Radanovich defeated incumbent Democrat Richard Lehman to win his House seat.

According to a 2011 story in The Fresno Bee that highlighted some of Radanovich’s career as a congressman, he sometimes struggled legislatively.

Radanovich’s proposal to designate California’s Highway 49 as a “national heritage corridor” alienated fellow conservatives who feared it would invite more federal control. Other proposals, too, fell by the wayside.

“It was never my dream to finally become a chairman and enact legislation that had my name on it,” Radanovich said then.

Radanovich’s most far-reaching legislative achievement, pushing the House version of a San Joaquin River restoration bill, is one he calls “a necessary evil.”

The 2009 bill was a key to settling a nearly two-decade-old federal lawsuit over restoring salmon runs, which had died after Friant Dam was built in the 1940s.

The bill authorized new water flows, channel improvements and eventually the return of salmon to the river. It also aggravated bad relations with then-Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Tulare.

Nunes, who represented the heavily Republican 22nd Congressional District that covered Tulare and Fresno counties, went on to become a key member of the U.S. House of Representatives during the presidency of Donald Trump.

Nunes stepped down at the end of 2021 to lead Trump’s social media venture.

Prior to Randanovich’s time as a congressman, he served as a member of the Mariposa County Board of Supervisors from 1988 to 1992.

Radanovich is a Cal Poly alumnus. He began growing grapes in Mariposa County in 1982 and four years later opened the Radanovich Winery, the first winery in the region. He was the first winemaker to serve in Congress since Thomas Jefferson.

In his post-Congress life, Radanovich led a small family retail business founded by his parents in 1955. In 2016, Radanovich became president of the California Fresh Fruit Association. He left that position in 2019.