Democratic Rep. Julia Brownley, who’s finishing her seventh time period in Congress, mentioned Thursday, Jan. 8, that she won’t search reelection on this 12 months’s midterm elections.
Shortly after, Assemblymember Jacqui Irwin, D-Thousand Oaks, introduced that she is going to run to succeed Brownley within the U.S. Home of Representatives, with the endorsement of the present workplace holder.
Irwin was first elected to the Meeting in 2014 and might’t search reelection as a consequence of time period limits. As a state lawmaker, Irwin has represented communities in Ventura and Los Angeles counties.
Previous to becoming a member of the legislature, she served as mayor of Thousand Oaks.
“Jacqui’s file of standing up for all of us and constructing coalitions to get issues accomplished provides her the expertise and instruments wanted to characterize us,” Brownley mentioned in a press launch issued by Irwin’s marketing campaign.
Irwin, in flip, thanked Brownley for her service and mentioned that she is “prepared to face up for our district and state in Congress, combating (President Donald) Trump’s assault on our democracy and values whereas prioritizing public security, affordability and the wants of Ventura County.”
Irwin added that she seemed ahead to “making new pals in … northern components of Los Angeles County.”
The twenty sixth Congressional District at the moment covers most of Ventura County and a small portion of northwestern L.A. County, together with Westlake Village, Calabasas and Agoura Hills – three communities that Irwin represents within the Meeting.
And underneath new congressional maps that California voters accepted throughout November’s particular election on redistricting, the twenty sixth District will, beginning with this 12 months’s midterm elections, prolong east to Quartz Hill in L.A. County’s Antelope Valley.
In saying her retirement from Congress, the 73-year-old Brownley didn’t say why she selected to not search one other time period, however she referred to as her expertise in serving her neighborhood and nation “the honour of my lifetime.”
“Each step of this journey has been formed by the individuals I characterize, by their resilience, their dedication, and their perception that authorities can and will work for the widespread good,” Brownley mentioned in a press release.
She highlighted her work over time in pushing to develop entry to reasonably priced well being care, strengthen help for veterans and their households, shield pure sources and confront local weather change.
“We now have helped hundreds of constituents navigate the federal authorities, returned hundreds of thousands in earned advantages, and by no means overpassed the straightforward fact that public service is about exhibiting up for individuals once they need assistance essentially the most,” she mentioned.
Brownley is the rating member of the Home Veterans’ Affairs Subcommittee on Well being. She additionally serves on committees centered on transportation and infrastructure and on pure sources.
The congressmember’s political profession started when she was elected to a neighborhood faculty board in 1994 and continued along with her election to the Meeting in 2006, the place she chaired the Meeting Training Committee and served on different education-related panels.
In 2012, Brownley defeated state Sen. Tony Strickland, a Republican, within the race to characterize the then-newly redrawn twenty sixth Congressional District.
It was one of the vital costly races within the nation that 12 months for what some on the time thought of a toss-up district with numerous impartial voters.
The newest voter registration numbers from the California secretary of state had Democrats with a 12-point registration benefit over Republicans within the twenty sixth District (42% to 30%), with “no social gathering choice” voters making up one other 21% of the district’s citizens, heading into final November’s statewide election.
On account of redistricting, this district will develop into barely bluer, with an citizens that’s 43% Democrat, 28% Republican and 28% “no social gathering choice” or different voters.
Brownley didn’t say Thursday what particularly she plans to do after retiring from Congress however spoke of remaining “within the combat … for a greater and brighter future.”
“Regardless of the immense challenges we’re at the moment dealing with, I stay deeply optimistic about the way forward for our nation,” she acknowledged. “The American experiment has endured not as a result of it’s good, however as a result of generations of People proceed to imagine in it and work to make it extra simply, extra equal, and extra reflective of these it serves.”
