Farmer and congressman Doug LaMalfa dies at 65

Agricultural leaders and lawmakers from across the political spectrum mourned the sudden death last week of Doug LaMalfa, a fourth-generation Butte County rice farmer who represented California’s 1st congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives from 2013 until his death Jan. 6 at age 65.

“Doug’s impact on California agriculture was felt not only through his policy work but through his presence in farming communities,” California Farm Bureau President Shannon Douglass said in a statement. “As a lifelong Northern California rice farmer and business owner, Doug never lost touch with his family’s multigeneration farming heritage. He invested in the people he represented—advancing their communities, their causes and their way of life—because he lived that way of life himself.”

On the evening of Jan. 5, LaMalfa was rushed from his home in Richvale to a Chico hospital due to a medical emergency, the Butte County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement. He died during emergency surgery at Enloe Medical Center in Chico.

LaMalfa, a Republican, frequently made headlines in recent months as his rural Northern California district was redrawn by California’s Proposition 50, a ballot measure that gave the state Legislature permission to redraw California’s congressional map.

Before his death, LaMalfa planned to fight for his seat in Congress despite the likelihood the new map would deliver his district to a Democrat in this year’s midterm elections in November. 

A special election will be held, possibly in June, to fill LaMalfa’s seat. It will be held prior to the midterm elections and before the new congressional map approved by the passage of Proposition 50 takes effect. 

“Doug believed deeply in securing a strong future for farming and ranching,” Douglass said. “His passion for agriculture, his love of community and his commitment to service will leave a lasting legacy.”