Simitian, Brownley are CSBA Legislators of the Year
Published: October 18, 2010
CSBA has selected state Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto, and Assembly Member Julia Brownley, D-Santa Monica, as Outstanding Legislators of the Year for 2010. Both lawmakers have been outspoken advocates for public schools’ interests throughout their legislative careers and in 2010—a year marked by difficult fiscal and policy challenges for K-12 education.
Brownley authored the CSBA-sponsored Assembly Bill 572 to hold charter school governance teams to the same conflict-of-interest standards that public schools’ leaders meet. A former member of the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District school board who now chairs the Assembly Education Committee, she worked very closely with CSBA and others in the education community to craft legislation related to California’s bid for federal dollars in the Race to the Top competition. She’s also a member of the Assembly Budget Committee and of its subcommittee on education finance, and she serves on the State Allocation Board, which allocates funds for school construction and modernization.
Simitian, a member of the Senate education and budget committees, was the floor manager for Brownley’s conflict-of-interest bill in the state Senate, and he also exerted strong leadership on the Race to the Top legislation. A former member of the Palo Alto Unified School District’s school board, he authored legislation to reduce the required majority for parcel tax votes to 55 percent.
Unfortunately, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed the conflict-of-interest bill, and Brownley’s Race to the Top legislation lost out to competing measures. However, Brownley and Simitian have sustained their support for schools despite such setbacks. Simitian, for example, continued to speak out regarding the Race to the Top legislation in personal testimony before State Board of Education concerning regulations to implement provisions of the Open Enrollment Act.
This is the second time that each lawmaker has been honored as CSBA’s Legislator of the Year. The awards will be presented at CSBA’s Annual Education Conference and Trade Show in San Francisco Dec. 2-4.