John Pérez
Encyclopedia
John A. Pérez is a union organizer and politician from Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...

, who has been the Speaker of the California State Assembly since March 1, 2010. A Democrat
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...

, he represents the 46th district
California's 46th State Assembly district
California's 46th State Assembly District is one of 80 districts in the California State Assembly. It is currently represented by Democratic Speaker John A...

 in the California State Assembly
California State Assembly
The California State Assembly is the lower house of the California State Legislature. There are 80 members in the Assembly, representing an approximately equal number of constituents, with each district having a population of at least 420,000...

.

Early life and career

Pérez grew up in El Sereno
El Sereno, Los Angeles, California
El Sereno is a district in Eastern Los Angeles, California.El Sereno sits atop the Monterey Hills that separate the Los Angeles Basin from the San Gabriel Valley, and is the easternmost district in the city of Los Angeles...

 and Highland Park
Highland Park, Los Angeles, California
Highland Park is a neighborhood in Northeast Los Angeles.-Geography:Highland Park is located along the Arroyo Seco. It is situated within what was once Rancho San Rafael of the Spanish / Mexican era...

 before attending the University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...

. He did not graduate from Berkeley but instead dropped out after his junior year due to family medical reasons, choosing not to return for a fourth year in the fall of 1990. Various biographies of Pérez dating back to the 1990s had falsely stated that he was a Berkeley graduate, an assertion included in several press releases issued by mayors of Los Angeles and in 2004 remarks inserted by then-Congresswoman Hilda Solis
Hilda Solis
Hilda Lucia Solis is the 25th United States Secretary of Labor, serving in the Obama administration. She is a member of the Democratic Party and served in the United States House of Representatives from 2001 to 2009, representing the 31st and 32nd congressional districts of California that include...

 into the Congressional Record
Congressional Record
The Congressional Record is the official record of the proceedings and debates of the United States Congress. It is published by the United States Government Printing Office, and is issued daily when the United States Congress is in session. Indexes are issued approximately every two weeks...

. When the San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle
thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...

wrote about these inconsistencies in May 2011, Pérez's office clarified that he was not, in fact, a Berkeley graduate.

Pérez is the cousin of Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa
Antonio Villaraigosa
Antonio Ramón Villaraigosa , born Antonio Ramón Villar, Jr., is the 41st and current Mayor of Los Angeles, California, the third Mexican American to have ever held office in the city of Los Angeles and the first in over 130 years. He is also the current president of the United States Conference of...

 and has spent seven years handling political matters for the United Food and Commercial Workers
United Food and Commercial Workers
The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union is a labor union representing approximately 1.3 million workers in the United States and Canada in many industries, including agriculture, health care, meatpacking, poultry and food processing, manufacturing, textile, G4S Security, chemical...

, a union representing supermarket workers, and also has served as political director of the California Labor Federation. He was a member of the Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency until 2008, when he resigned from the board in order to run for the Assembly.

Background in politics

Long active in the labor movement, Pérez is a member of the Democratic National Committee
Democratic National Committee
The Democratic National Committee is the principal organization governing the United States Democratic Party on a day to day basis. While it is responsible for overseeing the process of writing a platform every four years, the DNC's central focus is on campaign and political activity in support...

, which made him a superdelegate
Superdelegate
"Superdelegate" is an informal term commonly used for some of the delegates to the Democratic National Convention, the presidential nominating convention of the United States Democratic Party....

 to the 2008 Democratic National Convention
2008 Democratic National Convention
The United States 2008 Democratic National Convention was a quadrennial presidential nominating convention of the Democratic Party where it adopted its national platform and officially nominated its candidates for President and Vice President of the United States. The convention was held in Denver,...

 in Denver
Denver, Colorado
The City and County of Denver is the capital and the most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Denver is a consolidated city-county, located in the South Platte River Valley on the western edge of the High Plains just east of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains...

. He endorsed Barack Obama
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...

 on June 3, 2008, the day of the final contests in the Democratic presidential nominating calendar.

Election to the Assembly

The 46th district
California's 46th State Assembly district
California's 46th State Assembly District is one of 80 districts in the California State Assembly. It is currently represented by Democratic Speaker John A...

 includes the Los Angeles neighborhoods of Boyle Heights
Boyle Heights, Los Angeles, California
Boyle Heights is a neighborhood east of Downtown Los Angeles on the East Side of Los Angeles. For much of the twentieth century, Boyle Heights was a gateway for new immigrants. This resulted in diverse demographics, including Jewish American, Japanese American and Mexican American populations,...

, Little Tokyo, Westlake
Westlake, Los Angeles, California
Westlake is a neighborhood in Los Angeles, California. It should not be confused with Westlake Village, an independent municipality in Los Angeles County near Thousand Oaks and close to the Ventura County line....

, Vernon
Vernon, California
Vernon is a city five miles south of downtown Los Angeles, California. The population was 112 at the 2010 United States Census, the smallest of any incorporated city in the state....

 and part of South Los Angeles
South Los Angeles
South Los Angeles, often abbreviated as South L.A. and formerly South Central Los Angeles, is the official name for a large geographic and cultural portion lying to the southwest and southeast of downtown Los Angeles, California. The area was formerly called South Central, and is still widely known...

. Pérez succeeded Fabian Núñez
Fabian Núñez
Fabian Núñez has been a labor union adviser and a Democratic politician. He served three two year terms as a member of the State Assembly, leaving office late in 2008...

, the former Assembly speaker who was forced out by term limit
Term limit
A term limit is a legal restriction that limits the number of terms a person may serve in a particular elected office. When term limits are found in presidential and semi-presidential systems they act as a method to curb the potential for monopoly, where a leader effectively becomes "president for...

s, as the district's assemblyman. Pérez faced only a little-known primary challenger in the race to succeed him, winning convincingly. In the general election held on November 4, 2008, he won 85% of the vote.

Election as Speaker

Rather than seek the speakership of the Assembly, Pérez had been intending to run for the California Senate in 2010 with Kevin de León
Kevin de León
Kevin de León is a Democratic member of the California State Senate, elected to serve Los Angeles County's 22nd Senatorial district in November 2010. The district includes Downtown Los Angeles, East Hollywood, Echo Park, Elysian Valley, Mt...

 slated to be elected speaker. An agreement had apparently been reached by Los Angeles power brokers that would have seen Pérez support de León for speaker while Pérez would run unopposed in the 22nd senate district
California's 22nd State Senate district
California's 22nd State Senate District is one of 40 Senate Districts. It is currently represented by Democrat Kevin de León of Los Angeles. The 22nd Senate district encompasses a part of Los Angeles County, including all of Alhambra, Maywood, San Marino, South Pasadena, Vernon, and Walnut Park,...

, the seat being vacated by term-limited Gil Cedillo
Gil Cedillo
Gilbert Anthony Cedillo is a politician and a member of the Democratic Party. He is currently serving in the California State Assembly....

. Cedillo, in turn, would seek Pérez's seat in the Assembly.

The deal appears to have been derailed by opposition amongst Assembly Democrats to de León becoming speaker and by a desire to elect a speaker who could serve longer than two years - de León, unlike Pérez, will be forced out by term limits in 2012. The leadership battle came to a head on December 3, 2009, when Assembly Speaker Karen Bass
Karen Bass
Karen Ruth Bass is the U.S. Representative for . She is a member of the Democratic Party. Prior to her election to Congress in 2010, she had served as a member of the California State Assembly representing the 47th district since 2004...

 announced that Pérez had enough support to succeed her. On December 10, the Assembly Democratic caucus met to select the next speaker. During the meeting, de León threw his support to Pérez, who was elected unopposed. He was formally elected by a 48–26 vote of the full Assembly on January 7, 2010 and replaced Bass on March 1, 2010.

Personal

Pérez is openly gay – he is the first openly LGBT
LGBT
LGBT is an initialism that collectively refers to "lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender" people. In use since the 1990s, the term "LGBT" is an adaptation of the initialism "LGB", which itself started replacing the phrase "gay community" beginning in the mid-to-late 1980s, which many within the...

 Speaker of the California State Assembly and, after Minnesota's Allan Spear
Allan Spear
Allan Henry Spear was an American politician and educator from Minnesota who served almost thirty years in the Minnesota Senate, including nearly a decade as President of the Senate.-Biography:...

, only the second LGBT person to be elected to lead a state legislative chamber. Gordon D. Fox
Gordon D. Fox
Gordon D. Fox is an American politician from Providence, Rhode Island and the Speaker of the Rhode Island House of Representatives. A Democrat, he was first elected to the legislature in 1992 and was elected speaker on February 11, 2010....

, an openly gay Democrat, was elected speaker of the Rhode Island House of Representatives
Rhode Island House of Representatives
The Rhode Island House of Representatives is the lower house of the Rhode Island General Assembly, the state legislature of the U.S. State of Rhode Island. It is composed of 75 members, elected to two year terms from 75 districts of equal population. The Rhode Island General Assembly does not have...

 in February 2010 (after Pérez had been elected Speaker) but took office immediately (i.e. before Pérez).

Pérez's 2008 election won the endorsement of the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund
Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund
The Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund is an American political action committee dedicated to increasing the number of openly LGBT public officials in US political life.The Victory Fund was founded in 1991...

.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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