Year" for 2007, he said, "Receiving this award today from the California Rifle and Pistol Association is a truly humbling honor." Committee assignments Joint Committee on Legislative Audit Public Safety West Nile virus California Senate 2010 election In 2010, LaMalfa ran for the California State Senate in the 4th District. In the Republican primary, he defeated State Assemblyman Rick Keene 58%–42%. In the general election, he defeated Lathe Gill 68%–32%. Tenure In November 2011, LaMalfa opposed a proposed bullet train, saying, "In light of the High Speed Rail plan that was submitted and that the numbers still do not work, California in this dire fiscal crisis that we're in, we're going to introduce legislation to repeal the HSR Authority and the funding for that the state was going to put forward". LaMalfa opposed a bill that would require history teachers in all California public schools to teach history of homosexuality and gay civil rights. He said that Governor Jerry Brown was "out of touch with what I think are still mainstream American values. That's not the kind of stuff I want my kids learning about in public school. They've really crossed a line into a new frontier." LaMalfa strongly opposed the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, which would bypass the Electoral College, saying, "I think this is dangerous. It flies in the face of 220 years of election law. We have an electoral college; it was put there for a reason." Committee assignments Agriculture Budget and Fiscal Review Elections and Constitutional Amendments (Vice Chair) Governance and Finance Natural Resources and Water (Vice Chair) Veterans Affairs Joint Committee on Legislative Audit Joint Committee on Fairs, Allocation, and Classification (Chair) Joint Committee on Fisheries and Aquaculture U.S. House of Representatives Elections 2012 In January 2012, 2nd district Congressman Wally Herger announced that he was retiring after 13 terms. Hours after his announcement, Republican consultant Dave Gilliard told Flash Report that Herger had endorsed LaMalfa as his successor. Herger's district was renumbered the 1st in the 2010 round of redistricting. LaMalfa's state senate district was largely coextensive with the western portion of the congressional district. LaMalfa finished first in the June 2012 Republican primary election with 38% of the vote in an eight-person race, winning 10 of the district's 11 counties. On November 6, 2012, LaMalfa defeated Democratic Party nominee Jim Reed 57%–43%. 2014 LaMalfa defeated Democratic nominee Heidi Hall in the general