Get to know candidates for Assembly seats
This year marks first term when dramatically redistricted areas go into effect for Legislature
How do state Assembly races play out in districts 34, 39, 40, 42, 46, 51 and 55 in the upcoming March 5 primary election?
All of these state assembly districts have been redistricted since the incumbents were elected, and often their key cities were switched out for other key cities. Some candidates see the redrawing of their borders as an advantage, giving them a better shot at winning the race. Others do not.
34th District
Incumbent Assemblymember Tom Lackey, R-Apple Valley, faces Democrat Ricardo Ortega following a dramatic Dec. 22 redistricting which moved Lackey's district south from the Bakersfield area to Barstow, Palmdale, Lancaster and Needles. Lackey, 65, has represented the 34th District since 2014, and served on Palmdale Elementary School District Board of Trustees and City Council
and had a 28-year career with the California Highway Patrol. He has championed efforts to combat drugged driving and to provide funding aimed at people with developmental disabilities.
Ricardo Ortega grew up in the welfare and foster-care system and today is a peer advocate with the Children's Law Center of California, and the inaugural Los Angeles County Youth Commission. He is endorsed by the California Democratic Party. His platform focuses on economic development, infrastructure and health care. At age 17 in 2017, Ortega worked on Assembly Bill 2247, known as A Place to Call Home, to create stability for foster youths. At 20, he worked on AB 46 focused on the California Youth Empowerment Commission, whose aim is to promote civic engagement for youth.
39th District
Assemblymember Juan Carrillo, D-Palmdale, faces a challenge from Republican Paul Marsh. The 39th District underwent a dramatic December 2022 redistricting, moving the district away from the San Fernando Valley area to Victorville and parts of Palmdale and Lancaster.
Carrillo, a former city planner and former Palmdale city councilmember, has several endorsements including from the Service Employees International Union. He was elected to the Assembly in 2022 and has authored 16 bills, six of which became law. Before serving the High Desert area in the Legislature, Carrillo was known as Antelope Valley's only Democratic city councilmember, though local offices are officially nonpartisan. As a Palmdale City Councilmember, he focused on affordable housing, homelessness, green space and small businesses.
Marsh, an Army veteran and resident of the High Desert for four decades, resident, built a career in the mortgage industry. He
is a Victorville Planning Commissioner and a member of Victorville's Homelessness Solutions Task Force. His platform touts “making housing affordable by slashing burdensome regulations, reducing inflation by cutting reckless government spending, lowering gas prices by cutting the gas tax and fighting crime by giving law enforcement the tools they need.”
40th District
Republican candidate Patrick Gipson is in a fight against incumbent state Assemblymember Pilar Schiavo, D-Santa Clarita, who represents a redrawn district whose boundaries were moved in December 2022 from Wrightwood and San Bernardino to Santa Clarita and part of the San Fernando Valley.
Gipson, a 24-year former Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy, is running on a platform of protecting parental rights and and helping small businesss. He vows to take on career politicians “who continue to limit individual liberties and God-given freedoms.” He say thousands of Californians' lives have been impacted by government overreach.
Schiavo, elected in November 2022 by a narrow margin, was a small-business owner and nurse advocate in the labor movement for 20-plus years. Schiavo, 49, has many endorsements including the California Democratic Legislative Women's Caucus and raised more than $1 million for this race. As a legislator she was appointed Assistant Majority Whip in 2022 and introduced AB 1820, to simplify housing developer fees and provide information meant to ensure that affordable housing does not come with surprise costs.
42nd District
Redistricting moved the 42nd District from inland Palm Springs to the cities of Calabasas, Simi Valley and Thousand Oaks and pits state Assemblymember Jacqui Irwin, D-Thousand Oaks who has raised $1 million against her Republican
challenger Ted Nordblum, a 59-year-old small business owner who has not held an elected position and has raised $45,455. The district has 517,000 residents.
Irwin, 62, is an environmentalist, homeless advocate and former mayor of Thousand Oaks. Irwin's Assembly Bill 531, which appears on the upcoming March 5 ballot and was signed by the governor in October, is a $6.38 billion bond to build new behavioral health housing and treatment settings in California. That bill and Senate Bill 326 will appear jointly on the March ballot as Proposition 1. Irwin also helped secure $27 million in Project Homekey funds for the construction of Thousand Oaks' first homeless housing facility.
Nordblum says he is the only candidate in this race committed to protecting Proposition 13, the popular 1978 voter-backed amendment to the state Constitution that restricts the state's power to increase property taxes. His platform emphasizes cutting gas taxes, supporting law enforcement, strengthening the education system, defending parental rights and eliminating crime and homelessness. He has been endorsed by the California Republican Party and Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association PAC.
46th District
Redistricting moved the 46th District from primarily east San Fernando Valley to mostly west San Fernando Valley and is strongly held by state Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel, D-Encino. Challenger Tracy Schroeder, a Republican, doesn't present a serious challenge according to pollsters.
Gabriel, 42, a former constitutional rights attorney, authored the Gun Violence Prevention and School Safety Act, a first-in-the-nation measure which taxes industry profits to fund gun violence prevention and school safety in California. He also authored the California Food Safety Act banning several toxic food additives linked to cancer and developmental issues in children.
Schroeder, a teacher, is running on reducing gas and small business taxes, increasing public safety by working to make the streets
clean and safe, ensuring consequences for criminal behavior, stopping human trafficking and fighting the influx of Fentanyl. She is also focus on homelessness and calls for increasing mental health facilities and enforcing vagrancy laws. Protecting parental and children's rights are also on her radar.
51st District
District 51's boundaries were dramatically redrawn in 2022, removing the communities of Eagle Rock, Mount Washington, Lincoln Heights, Highland Park, City Terrace, Chinatown and Echo Park and shifting the district to the west to include Hollywood, Franklin and Beachwood canyons, West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, and Santa Monica. The 51st District has about 497,000 residents.
Incumbent state Assemblymember Rick Chavez Zbur, D-Los Angeles, has two Republican challengers in Shiva Bagheri and Stephan Hohil.
The 67-year-old Zbur, elected in November, 2022, graduated with a J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1983 and spent decades at a downtown Los Angeles law firm as an environmental attorney. He is a wellknown LGBTQ+ rights advocate and his unsuccessful run for Congress in 1996 softened barriers for gay candidates. Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Zbur's AB1620, to strengthen housing security for tenants with permanent disabilities.
Shiva Bagheri is a Beverly Hills resident, small-business owner and conservative activist fighting for Constitutional rights since 2020, according to her campaign website. She claims L.A. District Attorney George GascÓn convicted only a handful of the 2,088 people arrested in her hometown in the last two years. Bagheri says she is an advocate for the homeless, legal immigrants and parents' rights and says teachers and social workers should not undermine parents.
Stephan Hohil is a 53-year-old entrepreneur and conservative, who says he wants to tackle crime and clean up the streets, including the homeless, rid the schools of “leftist Marxists” and protect students'
rights. He said he aims to change legislation and government leadership. Holhil hasn't raised campaign funds and has no endorsements. He says he's a believer of the First and Second Amendments and that the 51st District is a “leftist disaster.”
55th District
Incumbent state Assemblymember Isaac Bryan, D-Culver City, was elected in November 2022 in a lopsided win of 83.7% against his challenger, Keith Cascio. The two face men each other again in March to represent a district dramatically redrawn in 2022, moving it from inland areas such as Diamond Bar to encompass the Crenshaw district, Culver City, Ladera Heights, Mar Vista, Del Rey, Palms, Pico-Robertson, Beverly Grove and Mid-Wilshire.
Bryan has been busy in the Legislature. He secured funding to found the Center on Reproductive Health, Law, and Policy at UCLA School of Law, the first Climate Change Education Center in the California Community College system at West Los Angeles College, a stipend program for students in the trades — and millions of dollars for projects in the 55th District, he says. He pushed for phasing out the Inglewood Oil Field and other oil drilling near communities through SB 1137, protecting students from predatory insurance practices through AB 1823 and strengthening online campaign finance disclosure requirements through AB 1848.
Republican candidate Kevin Cascio wants a shot at the action. He lists his platform as fivefold, starting with freedom and prosperity, reining in government spending and making it costeffective. He wants to create economic opportunities in low-income areas, support law enforcement and apply laws equally. Cascio wants to reorient the healthcare system towards less expensive preventive medicine. He doesn't support illegal immigration but says he understands that legal immigrants want to “chase the American dream.” Protection of the environment and economic growth are also listed on his platform.