Newsom fills Harris Senate seat with Padilla
By : Brody Levesque via THE WASHINGTON BLADE, COURTESY OF THE NATIONAL LGBT MEDIA ASSOCIATION
December 28, 2020
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ABOVE: Sen.-designate Alex Padilla, photo via Padilla’s Facebook page.
SACRAMENTO | In 1994, after California voters passed Proposition 187, the sweeping anti-immigrant measure, his parents finally applied for citizenship and Padilla, now a recent MIT graduate, resolved to put an engineering career aside and dedicate his life to public service.
In his first run for elected office Padilla was elected to the Los Angeles City Council as a political outsider at the age of 26. Later, in 2001, Padilla’s LA city council colleagues elected him the youngest Council President in Los Angeles history. In 2006, he was elected to the State Senate to represent the more than 1 million people in the San Fernando Valley.