Los Angeles — Equality California today announced the endorsements of five LGBT candidates in local races across California.
“The enormous progress the LGBT community has seen over the past two decades was possible because of the strides we have made in electing LGBT candidates at the local level,” said Rick Zbur, executive director of Equality California. “Each of our endorsed candidates has years of experience serving the LGBT community, and we’re pleased at the depth and breadth of knowledge that they possess.”
Judy Appel (Berkeley School Board Director) – Judy Appel is seeking re-election to the Berkeley School Board and is the former executive director of Our Family Coalition (OFC), a Bay Area organization supporting LGBT-headed families. Under her decade of leadership, OFC joined Equality California as an organizational plaintiff in In re Marriage Cases, the California Supreme Court case that first brought marriage equality to California, and sponsored and supported various pieces of legislation advancing the rights of LGBT families, students and youth. Appel was closely involved with the implementation of the FAIR Education Act, a law mandating the inclusion of LGBT people in California social studies and history textbooks. She is committed to making Berkeley schools welcoming and supportive for LGBT students, and to fully implementing all-gender restrooms and the History-Social Science framework developed as a response to the FAIR Education Act.
Genevieve Flores-Haro (Oxnard City Council) – Genevieve Flores-Haro is associate director at Mixteco Indigena Community Organizing Project. The Oxnard native has been an LGBT leader since attending the University of Southern California. In addition to leading on-campus organizations, she volunteered on phone banks and as a canvasser during the campaign against Proposition 8. Flores-Haro is currently the only woman running for the city council and would be the first LGBT person to serve as a city councilmember. She views Oxnard’s lack of LGBT support organizations or a dedicated LGBT meeting space as a challenge she intends to address if elected.
Fred Jandt (Desert Community College District Board of Trustees, Area 3) –Longtime college professor and administrator Fred Jandt is seeking re-election to the Desert Community College District Board of Trustees, to which he was appointed earlier this year. Jandt helped develop and spent more than 10 years as dean of the Palm Desert Campus of California State University, San Bernardino, and served as a professor of communications at the university since 1983. His involvement in LGBT causes stretches back to the 1970s, when he campaigned against the Briggs Initiative, which would have banned gay men and lesbians from teaching in California schools. In 1979, Jandt helped successfully lobby the National Communication Association to start an LGBT caucus, of which he served as founding chair. Jandt has indicated he supports gender-neutral bathrooms on campus, a closer focus on on-campus bullying and sexual assault, and “safe and knowledgeable” campus healthcare services for LGBT people.
Cori Schumacher (Carlsbad City Council) – Cori Schumacher is seeking election to Carlsbad City Council. The three-time world women’s surfing champion and 10-year Carlsbad resident founded and heads The Inspire Initiative, a non-profit that seeks to enrich and empower women of all ages through participation in surfing. She is the first openly-LGBT person to come out as a reigning surfing champion and has used her platform as an elite athlete to work to make the sport of surfing more inclusive of LGBT people, women and people of color, as well as to highlight sexism in surfing. If elected, she would also be the first openly-LGBT person on the Carlsbad City Council. She has pledged to advocate for programs and resources directed at LGBT youth.
Shanell Williams (San Francisco City College Board) – Shanell Williams is a former student trustee of San Francisco City College and has spent the past four years working to save the school’s accreditation and to protect it from closure. Shanell currently is a community engagement specialist for the Preterm Birth Initiative at UCSF and spent eight years working and organizing for numerous nonprofit agencies and labor organizations, including the Center for Young Women’s Development, Youth Leadership Institute, UNITE HERE Local 2, and other organizations. If elected, she intends to focus on maintaining and increasing funding for the college’s LGBT studies program, making PrEP available through the student health center, and improving interaction between transgender students and faculty members.
The Equality California Political Action Committee endorses outstanding LGBT candidates at the local level.
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Equality California is the nation’s largest statewide lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender civil rights organization dedicated to creating a fair and just society. Our mission is to achieve and maintain full and lasting equality, acceptance, and social justice for all people in our diverse LGBT communities, inside and outside of California. Our mission includes advancing the health and well-being of LGBT Californians through direct healthcare service advocacy and education. Through electoral, advocacy, education and mobilization programs, we strive to create a broad and diverse alliance of LGBT people, educators, government officials, communities of color and faith, labor, business, and social justice communities to achieve our goals. www.eqca.org
