\"California Congressman\" Robert Lagomarsino Hand Signed FDC For Sale

Up for sale "California Congressman" Robert Lagomarsino Hand Signed First Day Cover Dated 1950. 

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Robert John "Bob" Lagomarsino (born

September 4, 1926) is an American politician and lawyer from California. He is a began his service in the United

States House of Representatives in 1974 and was re-elected

every two years until 1992, when he was defeated for renomination by Michael Huffington. Prior

to serving in the House, Lagomarsino served in the California State Senate from

1961 until 1974, and prior to that, he served as the mayor of Ojai, California. A native of Ventura County, Lagomarsino served in the United States Navy from

1944 to 1946. He is an alumnus of the University

of California, Santa Barbara (1950) and of the Santa Clara

University School of Law (1953).

 In 1974, Congressman Charles Teague, of what was then California's 13th

congressional district, where Lagomarsino resided, died suddenly. Lagomarsino

was elected to replace Teague as the 13th district congressman in a special

election in 1974. During his service as a United States Congressman,

Lagomarsino was an active member of two major House Committees: the Foreign Affairs Committee,

as the third-ranking Republican and the Committee on Interior and Insular

Affairs, as the second-ranking Republican. He was a Congressional Observer to

the Geneva Arms Controls Talks and Vice Chairman of the Subcommittee on Western

Hemisphere Affairs, which oversaw U.S. relations with Canada, Central America, and South America. He was also Chairman of the National Republican

Institute for International Affairs, Co-Chairman of the Congressional Task

Force on Afghanistan, and a member of the Asian and

Pacific Affairs Committee. In addition, Lagomarsino served as Chairman of the

POW/MIA Task Force and was House author of a measure creating the Prisoner of War Medal. Lagomarsino

made several trips abroad as a congressman. He toured South America, the Far

East, the Pacific Region, the Soviet Union, and Europe numerous times, but held a particular interest in

Southeast Asia; meeting with the Laos government

in 1989 and, later, the Vietnamese government in 1990, to

obtain information on American POW/MIA's in Southeast Asia.

He toured the Panama Canal as part

of President Carter’s

diplomacy and was an observer to the Panama's national elections and Kuwait invasion under President Bush. Lagomarsino also attended annual

interparliamentary conferences held in Mexico and on the European continent. During his service

in Washington, Lagomarsino specialized in environmental concerns, foreign

affairs (particularly Latin America), and

illegal drug trafficking. He authored legislation which created the Channel Islands National

Park, the Dick Smith Wilderness Area, the Los Padres National Forest,

and co-authored the Drug War Bond Act and the Violent Crime and Drug Control

Act. He was a leader in efforts to open overseas markets to U.S. products and

to ban transfer of strategic goods or technology. Lagomarsino maintained a

voting record of 99% and took pride in voting against all proposed

congressional pay raises.