Jim Leach

Member of U.S. Congress (R-Iowa)

A fifth-generation Iowan, Congressman Jim Leach was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1976 and is now completing his 15th term.

From 1995 to 2001, he was chairman of the Committee on Banking and Financial Services and led the most sweeping reform of banking law since the New Deal. He is also a senior member of the International Relations Committee, chairing the Subcommittee on East Asia and the Pacific.

Prior to his service in the U.S. Congress, Mr. Leach served as a Foreign Service Officer assigned to the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. He was a delegate to the United Nations General Assembly and the Geneva Disarmament Conference. He resigned from the Foreign Service in 1973, in protest against President Nixon’s order to fire the special Watergate prosecutor.

Congressman Leach has received numerous awards for his integrity and support of the rule of law. These include the Way Morse Integrity Award in Politics, the Woodrow Wilson Award, the Adlai Stevenson Award and the United Nations Association’s Congressional Award for Commitment to the Principles of the U.N. Charter.

He received his B.A. from Princeton University, M.A. from the School of Advanced International Studies of Johns Hopkins University and did research in economics and Soviet politics at the London School of Economics.

Congressman Leach is a trustee of Princeton University and member of the board of directors of the Century Foundation. He and his wife Deba make their home in Iowa City with their son Gallagher and daughter Jenny.