Caloza was once a community organizer for President Obama and a Los Angeles Board of Public Works commissioner. She also served in the Obama administration’s Department of Education and as a staffer to former L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti.
Her main priorities are protecting reproductive health and access to abortion by fully funding Planned Parenthood and making it easier for the organization to open more locations across California. She also plans to focus on how artificial intelligence is replacing jobs and making sure public education in the state is fully funded.
Carrillo (no relation to the outgoing Assembly member) is a late addition to the field, having first launched a campaign for California’s 27th Congressional District. According to his campaign manager, Carrillo ended his congressional bid to help consolidate support behind Democrat George Whitesides. A senior policy advisor at the Los Angeles Innocence Project, Carrillo was wrongfully convicted of murder as a teenager and spent 20 years in prison before his conviction was overturned in 2011. If elected, Carrillo would be the first previously incarcerated person elected to the Legislature in decades. He has put more than $250,000 of his own money into his campaign.
He said his main priorities would include ensuring the court system is “more equitable” and can bring a more diverse crowd of people onto juries. “As someone who has been through that process,” he said, “having a broad representation of a jury of peers is very important to me.”