STATE SENATE ENDORSEMENTS
 |
ADA SoCal Endorses Caroline Menjivar State Senate District 20 Chair, Vice Chair, Senator Caroline Menjivar (she/her/ella) took the Oath of Office on December 5, 2022, and represents Burbank and the San Fernando Valley in California’s 20th Senate District. She is a first-generation American, daughter of Salvadorean immigrants, who was born and raised in the very communities she now represents.
Vote for Caroline Menjivar for Congress on June 2nd, 2026. Learn more at her website click here
|
|
ADA SoCal Endorses John Erikson for State Senate District 24 Councilmember. Chief of Staff at Alliance for a Better Community. Former VP of Planned Parenthood Los Angeles. John Erickson, represents a new kind of Democratic leader—one who has proven to be a courageous, proactive, and effective leader who will never give up a fight for what’s right. As a community organizer and skilled policymaker, John builds coalitions and works across the aisle to get things done. He has been advocating for a better world ever since he was a young boy in Ripon, Wisconsin. His trajectory from advocate for all to nonprofit executive, community organizer and public servant began at the age of 6 when he started accompanying his grandmother Gladys to volunteer at the local food bank. Still in elementary school, John started accompanying Gladys to the state capitol to lobby for veterans’ and women’s rights. While organizing and advocacy have always been part of John’s life, it was when he was selected to become a City Council intern that he saw the importance of having outspoken, bold advocates in public office. After completing his internship with the Council, John went on to become a council deputy for former Mayor Abbe Land and a city staffer tasked with advancing policies and initiating programs around women’s rights, LGBTQ+ rights, the environment, and civic engagement. In 2020, John was elected to city council on a platform of neighborhood preservation, housing and homelessness, renters’ rights, healthcare, equity, and sustainability. After leaving the city, John served as a Legislative Representative for LAX—Los Angeles Airport—and then went on to work as the VP for Planned Parenthood Los Angeles. During his tenure at Planned Parenthood Los Angeles, John was instrumental in protecting access to healthcare and reproductive freedom for all. After the Dobbs decision, John was instrumental in helping California become a sanctuary state for reproductive freedom. On the City Council, when COVID and MPOX hit the community hard, John made sure the city protected residents and small businesses, especially those most at risk. Already skilled at navigating Sacramento, John was part of the End Statute of Limitation on Rape (ERSOL) Campaign, which overturned California’s statute of limitations on rape and sexual assault in 2016. He led state efforts for Grab-and-Go legislation, which cracked down on small business thefts, created a program to distribute drink-spiking test strips in bars to crack down on date rape, and initiated a remarkably successful drone program and anti-gun violence ordinance that has led to a reduction in violent criminals. In his city, John authored groundbreaking legislation on aging in place for seniors and the successful homelessness program, WeHo Cares. He has made healthcare more accessible to reduce the city’s carbon footprint. Many of his initiatives have become models for cities throughout the country. Under his leadership as mayor, he helped amass a $31 million budget surplus while expanding city services for public safety and city services. Learn more click here. Vote for John Erikson for State Senate on June 2nd, 2024. |
|
|
|
|
 |
ADA SoCal Endorses Sara Hernandez FOR STATE SENATE DISTRICT 26
With working families struggling and our communities becoming too expensive to live, we can’t just wait around for change. It’s time for us to act.The California Dream. My family has pursued it across generations. My great-grandfather came to Los Angeles from Guanajuato, Mexico in the 1920s with nothing but hopes and dreams. His labor helped lay the very sidewalks we walk on today. My grandparents as children were migrant farmworkers in the 1930s, picking fruit across California and dreaming of a better life. My grandfather later worked in a cement factory and was active in his local union—he taught his children that education was the pathway out of poverty and in the 1950s, when they became the first Mexican family to move into a white neighborhood, he showed them that the dream for equality was always worth fighting for. As the daughter of two civil rights attorneys who fought for better working conditions for migrant farmworkers in the '60s and '70s, I was raised to believe that leadership is not measured by the words you say—but by the lives you change, the dreams you ignite, and the future you help shape. California and the 26th Senate District is rooted in that legacy—built by the hopes, hard work, and resilience of those who came before us. But today, that dream is slipping away. I’m part of the first generation expected to do worse than our parents. Too many people feel that the promise of California is no longer for them. They’ve lost faith in the government's ability to deliver—to create a society where working people can build a good life and pass it on to their kids. The cost of housing and childcare is crushing, good jobs with benefits are harder to find. Just living your life in LA feels so unaffordable especially when saddled with a lifetime of student debt and the public institutions we once trusted to help us climb the ladder- schools, governments, public services feel further and further out of reach. I’m running because we are at an inflection point. We can let the dream fade—or we can fight to renew it. This means real action: building more housing, expanding world-class public transit, providing debt-free higher education and good-paying jobs, creating safe and walkable neighborhoods, investing in green space and universal childcare, keeping our iconic industries like film and TV rooted in L.A., and protecting our immigrant communities. I don’t just understand these issues, I’ve lived them in the classroom as a teacher, in the courtroom as a lawyer, in the boardroom as a non-profit founder and executive director, in the halls of power as a trustee for the LA Community College District and in our community as a 20 year resident and mom. Good policy only happens when our leaders know how it actually plays out on the ground. Most importantly though, these separate struggles are really one: a quest for a better life, a chance to raise your children to live a life better than your own. A chance to grow old in the community that you love. This campaign is for everyone who still believes in the promise of the California dream—and wants to make sure it’s within reach for the next generation. Vote for Sara Hernandez for California State Senate on June 2nd, 2026. |
You can download a pdf file having all the endorsements to print out. Click here to download.