New and Old
New and Old
There are an unusually large number of new faces in the California Legislature. In terms of legislative history, this may well be the least experienced lineup of Golden State lawmakers in a very long time, given that the majority of State Assembly and State Senate members – 72 of 140 – have held office for a maximum of two years. Yet, many of the newcomers bring interesting stories and accomplishments along with them.
They say that in order to be a politician one need not be a rocket scientist. Bill Quirk is one, anyway. The second-term Democratic Assembly member, whose home office is located in Hayward, earned a Ph.D. in Astrophysics from Columbia University at the tender age of 24. He may not have much experience as a lawmaker, but he has plenty as a scientist, having worked at Lawrence Livermore National Lab for 26 years. The Boston area native is the oldest of seven siblings, and an Eagle Scout who first came to California as a postdoctoral fellow at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.
The path that brought Janet Nguyen to Sacramento is considerably different. The first-term Republican Senator whose home office is situated in Santa Ana was born in Saigon, Vietnam. Her family were among the “boat people” who fled the war ravaged nation in the years following 1975. Arriving in California when Janet was 5, her family first settled in San Bernardino before making their way to Garden Grove. Janet graduated from U.C. Irvine and, at the age of 30, became the youngest person ever elected to the Orange County Board of Supervisors. She is now the first Vietnamese-American state senator in the United States.
Ben Allen is a member of the California Senate’s freshman class who, at the ripe old age of 37, arrives with an impressive resume. The native Californian, a Democrat whose district office is located in Redondo Beach, earned degrees from Harvard, Cambridge, and UC Berkeley. An attorney and litigator who also serves as a Lecturer at UCLA’s School of Law, Senator Allen is also deeply involved in education. Not only did he play an instrumental role in launching The Spark Program, a non-profit organization that connects at-risk middle school students with apprenticeships, he is a former board president of the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District. And he’s fluent in Spanish.
Jimmy Gomez is also the child of immigrants. The second-term Assembly member, a Democrat whose district office is located in the city of his birth, Los Angeles, is the youngest of six children born to parents who moved from Mexico to California in the early 1970s. After working at a fast-food restaurant following his graduation from high school, the young man realized that a higher education offered the surest route to upward mobility. He enrolled in a community college, then transferred to UCLA, where he graduated magna cum laude. Ten years later, he earned a Master’s Degree in Public Policy from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.
Tom Lackey worked as a cop for 28 years. If you ever developed a heavy foot while driving through the Antelope Valley, you may have participated in a “meet and greet” with the former Highway Patrol officer. A first-term Republican member of the State Assembly whose home office is found in Palmdale, Mr. Lackey is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints who was born in the small high desert mining town of Boron, became an Eagle Scout, and served his faith by completing a two-year stint as a missionary prior to earning a Bachelor of Science degree from Utah State University. Before becoming a peace officer, Mr. Lackey worked as a special education teacher.
These are just a few of the new (or relatively new) cadre of state legislators who represent us. We may not recognize them by face, but their stories are well known to us. They are, after all, our stories. Collectively, we know them as the story of America.
At present, our nation faces considerable unrest. We see strife in the streets of Baltimore and divisiveness before the U.S. Supreme Court. Such tensions are nothing new to our nation, and we will continue to endure as long as we maintain the ability to see our own stories in those of others. That’s something worth remembering, and teaching.
