Middleton sets plans to run in 19th District
Candidate could be state’s first transgender legislator
Honesty is often demanded from politicians. It’s something Lisa Middleton learned to ask of herself.
“I think the lessons that I have learned from my life are the importance of being open and honest with who you are,” said Middleton, who made history in 2017 as the first openly transgender person elected to public office in Cal- ifornia. “And I spent far too many decades trying to hide who I was.”
Being transgender “is one of the more unique parts of my identity,” she added. “And it’s something that I am proud of and I am proud to represent the transgender community and the larger LGBTQ community.”
Middleton, a Palm Springs city councilmember who in 2021 became California’s first openly transgender mayor, wants to make history again as California’s first openly transgender state lawmaker, according to the LGBTQ Victory Fund and the LGBTQ civil rights group Equality California.
On Tuesday, she announced her intention to run as a Democrat in 2024 for the 19th state Senate District, an open seat representing parts of Riverside and San Bernardino counties.
The San Gorgonio Pass, cities in the Coachella Valley and San Bernardino County’s high desert and parts of Colton, Grand Terrace, Hemet, Highland, Loma Linda and Redlands are in the district, which was created in 2021 political redistricting.
State Sen. Rosilicie Ochoa Bogh, R-yucaipa, who represents many of those communities, has filed paperwork stating her intention to run in the 19th. Democrats hold a roughly 2-percentage-point edge over the GOP in the district’s voter regis
tration.
A retired State Compensation Insurance Fund employee who served on Palm Springs Planning Commission, Middleton said she’s running because “I think I can make a difference in Sacramento.”
“I plan to be a very pragmatic candidate and a problem solver and we’ve got some major problems that need to be solved,” she said.
If elected, Middleton said she’d work to upgrade the Inland Empire’s transportation infrastructure, which she sees as strained by imports from the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach to the region’s booming logistics sector.
“They are essentially on the same freeways (and) in the same transportation networks that existed when I was growing up in the 1950s and 1960s in Bell Gardens,” Middleton said.
As demand for large Inland warehouses continues, “we need to start planning for this kind of growth,” Middleton said. “And that is going to require the state getting involved in that planning process.”
As state senator, Middleton, who served as a vice president of the League of California Cities, said she’d focus on “the basics” such as making sure the region can handle emergencies like the recent blizzard that stranded San Bernardino Mountains residents.
California should play a larger role in helping the homeless, Middleton said.
“We need to be much, much more involved in preventing people from ending up on our streets and providing the kind of support for those who have mental health issues and addiction issues (so) they do not spiral down into homelessness.”
While she lives in Palm Springs, Middleton said she’s familiar with other parts of the 19th District, having lived in Loma Linda in the 1980s.
“I am not gonna sit here and promise that I can agree with everyone in my district 100% of the time,” she said. “What I can promise is that I will always be listening and I will always be working.”