Assemblyman Kevin Mullin

South San Francisco Assemblymember Kevin Mullin, with a focus on election reform and climate protections, is running to represent the Peninsula in Congress following the retirement of longtime US Rep. Jackie Speier.

Mullin, the current speaker per tem, has served in the Assembly since 2012, prior to which he served on the South San Francisco City Council for five years. Now, he said he hopes to build on his accomplishments at the state level with a bid to represent the 15th congressional district.

“I’m going to continue my work on democracy and climate resilience, and more broadly the affordability crisis, building an economy that works for everybody,” he said during an interview this week. “We need federal leadership on all of those issues.”

Also in the race is San Mateo County Supervisor David Canepa, Burlingame Councilmember Emily Beach and Republican businessman Gus Mattammal. The Daily Journal has run profiles on each of the candidates and will be following up with coverage on the various issues of the race.

Mullin is a South San Francisco native and son of former South San Francisco Mayor and Assemblymember Gene Mullin — but he said he didn’t always have his eyes set on a career in politics. After receiving a communications degree from the University of San Francisco, and DJing for the student radio station, he said his early aspirations included being a radio DJ or a journalist.

“I always was interested in public affairs, I grew up in a house of a government teacher, so I followed civic affairs but if you asked me in college if I’d be running for Congress someday, I would have not believed you,” he said.

Mullin, however, would go on to earn a master’s degree in public administration from San Francisco State University and, at 23 years old, he began working for then East Bay Assemblymember Johann Klehs. A year later, he got a job with Speier’s office, who at the time was a member of the State Assembly. He served as her district director when she was elected to the state Senate, and also worked as a political director for his father’s Assembly office.

“I certainly caught the public service bug once I was working in the Assembly, and really got turned on to the ability of government to help people’s lives,” he recalled. “I got hooked helping people in the community that I had grown up in.”

In the Assembly, Mullin passed more than 60 pieces of legislation, key among them a move requiring mail-in ballots to be sent to all registered voters in the state, a law he said boosts participation from youth and people of color. He’s also worked to increase transparency regarding ballot initiatives and candidate funding.

“We’ve done incredible work in California on democracy, voting rights, voter access to the ballot, that is being taken away in red states across the country and what it points out to me is that we need federal protections built into the law, the For The People Act, the John Lewis Voting Rights Act,” he said.

More recently, Mullin helped move $3.7 billion from last year’s state budget for climate resilience, some of which he said he hopes to bring to the district for Bay and wetland restoration. Mullin also authored a bill establishing OneShoreline, the county’s new agency tasked with addressing sea level rise.

He said while voter access would be top priority, his first piece of legislation in the House would be tax exemptions for transit agencies to purchase electric buses.

“The habitability of the planet itself is at risk with climate change, we need to transition to 100% clean energy,” he said. “America needs to lead, needs to follow California’s lead.”

While Mullin would have been termed out of the Assembly in 2024, new district maps drew him out of his district, barring him from seeking reelection this year given his home address. Speier’s retirement announcement followed shortly after draft maps indicated the boundary shift.

“The timing was gratuitous in terms of this opportunity to move up to the Congress,” he said. “But I, like most of her constituents, are sad to see her retire because she’s been such an incredible champion for this Peninsula. She is nothing short of an icon, so these are enormous shoes to fill but I’m deeply touched and honored to have her endorsing me.”

In addition to Speier, Mullin is endorsed by US Rep. Anna Eshoo, the California Democratic Party, the state Labor Federation, Attorney General Rob Bonta, state Senate President per Tem Toni Atkins and a host of other US representatives and members of the California Assembly and Senate.

“My track record has been established and that is why I have the support of so many individuals,” he said. “When you’re talking about being the voice of the San Francisco Peninsula in Congress, you need to have demonstrated the ability to be effective, to get things done in a partisan atmosphere like I have had to deal with in Sacramento.”

A poll released by Mullin’s campaign this week shows he leads over competitors, at 31% compared to Canepa’s 17%, Mattammal’s 9% and Beach’s 8%. The survey was reportedly conducted by questioning 427 likely voters in the district.

His campaign reports having raised more than $605,000.

California’s primary will be held June 7, narrowing the field to two candidates. The general election will be held Nov. 8.

The post South San Francisco assemblymember seeks Congress seat | Native Information appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

Retired NFL player Burgess Owens explained why he was for 4th. “

Owens, a Fox News employee, told Sunday Morning Futures in an exclusive interview that Democratic leaders are people who “have no compassion for others” and “love misery”.

“Misery is a strategy and you look at every single blue city in our country, you see death, you see destruction, you see anger,” Owens said, referring to the violent protests in cities across the country after the death of George Floyd, a Black man, in Minneapolis Police custody.

“If you want to see systemic racism, look for democratic cities and you see more black people angry and hopeless than ever before, so we have to understand that it’s all about politics,” he continued.

He added: “I don’t care if you are poor, middle class or very wealthy, if you care about our children, if you care about our children’s future, we need to make sure that we give the Democrats control over their future and from this party that uses misery as a political strategy. ”

The former security for the New York Jets and Oakland Raiders emphasized that America “must now go in the right direction”.

Owens expressed support for President Trump during the Republican National Convention last month.

In his RNC speech, Owens shared that he lost everything after his Super Bowl championship with the Oakland Raiders and moved his family of six to a one-room apartment in Brooklyn, where he took a daytime job as a chimney sweep and a security guard at night.

“We live in a country where we are encouraged to dream big, where second chance is at the core of our American DNA,” Owens said during his RNC speech.

“We don’t hear the same message from [House Speaker] Nancy Pelosis Congress, professional politicians, elites and even a former bartender who want us to believe that it is impossible. They want us to believe that what I did, what my great-great-grandfather did, is impossible for ordinary Americans. “

Host Maria Bartiromo noted that President Trump got a slap in the pole from black voters after the RNC.

Then she asked Owens, “How do you think the feeling in the black community is about President Trump and his politics?”

“What we have to understand about our country is that we all want the same thing, regardless of our skin color, our background, our creed, our religion; Life, freedom and the pursuit of happiness, and the black community has grappled with death for life, freedom and the pursuit of happiness for decades because we trusted the Democratic Party, “Owens said in response.

EX-NFL PLAYER JACK BREWER “FED UP” WITH MEDIA CALLING TRUMP A RACIST

He added, “What happened today is [in] the last three years … Black Americans, Hispanics, Asians, women, veterans are finally realizing that we have a president who just doesn’t talk and promise, he’ll get results. ”

Owens continued, “We’re experiencing things we haven’t seen in decades, and that’s why black Americans wake up and leave the plantation.”

“The best thing President Obama did was that he was such a bad president that one day people woke up and said, ‘What happened to hope and change?’ And that’s what happens today, ”he continued. “We recognize that the middle class and the poor have suffered tremendously in the eight years of Obama-Biden and now see that it doesn’t have to be that way.”

Owens stressed that Americans “don’t have to have the low expectation that we had for people at risk, so let’s wake up now.”

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

“We have black Americans across the country wearing MAGA hats because they’re far from being intimidated and verbally abused,” he added. “We love our country, we love our children, we love our future and we want to be hopeful, so we’re seeing this right now.”

The post Owens says he is operating for Congress as a result of younger folks ‘don’t have an opportunity’ with Democrats in energy appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.