Endorsement: Jessica Caloza for Assembly District 52

Assembly District 52 candidate Jessica Caloza.

Sept. 23, 2024 5 AM PT

State Assembly District 52 covers much of the eastern part of Los Angeles County, stretching from Glendale and Eagle Rock to Los Feliz, Silver Lake, Echo Park, East Los Angeles and City Terrace. Lack of affordable housing, public safety and homelessness are among the issues its residents grapple with.

Two Democratic candidates are vying to represent this district. Both have remarkable life stories that have helped form them and motivated them to seek office. Jessica Caloza, a first-time candidate, immigrated here, to Eagle Rock, as a child with her family from the Philippines. They all worked multiple jobs to survive, and Caloza attended UC San Diego, becoming the first person in her family to graduate from college. Since then, Caloza has worked in Los Angeles city government, the Obama administration and the state attorney general’s office, from which she is currently on leave.

Franky Carrillo was 16 when he was wrongly accused of murdering a Lynwood man in a drive-by shooting in 1991. He was convicted and sentenced at 18 in 1992 to life in prison, where he spent time combing police reports and investigators’ notes from his case, looking for evidence that would help clear him, and eventually enlisting the help of lawyers who got him exonerated and released from prison two decades later. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Loyola Marymount University, won a $10-million settlement from Los Angeles County and became a policy advisor to the Los Angeles Innocence Project at Cal State L.A. He was also appointed to the county’s Probation Oversight Commission. If he is elected, he will be the first formerly incarcerated exoneree elected to the state Legislature.

There is no doubt Carrillo could be an extraordinarily valuable voice on criminal justice reform. However, for this seat, The Times’ editorial board recommends Caloza. She has a stronger grasp of the many issues facing the district and more experience for the job.

In the Obama administration, Caloza, 35, worked on higher education policy, immigration policy and gender equity issues. She also worked for Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, who appointed her to the city’s Board of Public Works commission.

She has a strong track record on reproductive rights as deputy chief of staff for California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta and she has worked to reduce the state’s backlog of rape kits. Though California has put in place many protections for abortion access, Caloza says one of her first orders of business would be to pass a bill that supports more funding for Planned Parenthood health centers across the state. She rightly points out that even in California, there are not enough abortion care providers in certain areas of the state outside the bigger urban centers to handle the needs of residents as well as women coming from out of state to seek abortion care.

She also wants to invest in community colleges calling them “the most underfunded part of our education system.” She would also prioritize increasing wages for teachers and staff in public schools.

She is opposed to Proposition 36, which would roll back portions of Proposition 47, and smartly says that it would increase penalties for crimes committed by people who need mental health or substance abuse treatment, not time in jail.

Caloza is supported by pro-housing groups. Although she notes that she is a renter and supports efforts to create more housing in the state, she is cautious about allowing multi-unit housing in neighborhoods zoned for single-family homes. “I want to make sure that it makes sense for that neighborhood,” she says, adding that homeowners are concerned about the character of their neighborhoods changing.

Too bad; the state is unlikely to ever build enough housing if cities are allowed to block all multi-family housing in single-family zoned areas. We would like to see her be more tough-minded and creative in considering legislation to open up more opportunities for housing construction. There will always be residents who don’t want any change to the structure or density of their neighborhoods. If elected officials give in to all of them, there will be no increase in desperately needed housing.

She has compiled an impressive array of endorsements from women’s rights organizations, environmental groups, labor groups and dozens of current and past members of the Assembly. Those coalitions could be crucial for her to get important legislation passed.

Carrillo has a few troubling issues bedeviling his campaign. One is an allegation in a contentious divorce proceeding that he left firearms out at his ranch house when his children were around. Carrillo says it was a pellet rifle — which he used on rodents on his ranch in Lake Hughes — and acknowledges he shouldn’t have left it out. Another is the concern that he’s not living in the district, which is required. He says the house in the district is under extensive renovation, but he stays overnight “sometimes” and otherwise is at his ranch or at his girlfriend’s home in Pasadena.

Those issues aside, Caloza is a better, more prepared choice to occupy this seat and begin the hard work of helping the state.