“Since Donald Trump’s election, the LGBTQ community has faced some of the greatest challenges in decades, and our legislative partners are more important to us than ever in the fight to ensure California makes progress in advancing LGBTQ equality and social justice. Today we are excited to announce Equality California’s endorsement of 47 members of the state legislature, who are up for reelection in 2018. These legislators’ strong support for our priority legislation, and the leadership of the California Legislative LGBT Caucus, is critical to advancing LGBTQ equality and social justice for our communities.

“Reelecting our slate of incumbents will allow us to build on the extraordinary 2017 legislative session and to maintain our stellar LGBT Caucus. We thank these endorsed legislators for their leadership in helping to advance pro-equality legislation and protections for LGBTQ people — and to elevate California as a beacon of hope for the rest of the country, demonstrating that embracing the values of acceptance, inclusion, respect and love improves the lives of everyone.”

The Equality California-endorsed candidates are as follows:

State Senate: 
Mike McGuire for Senate District 2
Richard Pan for Senate District 6
Bob Wieckowski for Senate District 10
Bob Hertzberg for Senate District 18
Connie Leyva for Senate District 20
Ben Allen for Senate District 26
Holly Mitchell for Senate District 30

State Assembly:
Jim Wood for Assembly District 2
Cecilia Aguiar-Curry for Assembly District 4
Kevin McCarty for Assembly District 7
Jim Cooper for Assembly District 9
James Frazier for Assembly District 11
Susan Eggman for Assembly District 13
David Chiu for Assembly District 17
Rob Bonta for Assembly District 18
Phil Ting for Assembly District 19
Bill Quirk for Assembly District 20
Kevin Mullin for Assembly District 22
Marc Berman for Assembly District 24
Kansen Chu for Assembly District 25
Ash Kalra for Assembly District 27
Evan Low for Assembly District 28
Mark Stone for Assembly District 29
Monique Limón for Assembly District 37
Chris Holden for Assembly District 41
Laura Friedman for Assembly District 43
Eloise Reyes for Assembly District 47
Blanca Rubio for Assembly District 48
Ed Chau for Assembly District 49
Richard Bloom for Assembly District 50
Freddie Rodriguez for Assembly District 52
Miguel Santiago for Assembly District 53
Eduardo Garcia for Assembly District 56
Ian Calderon for Assembly District 57
Reginald Jones-Sawyer for Assembly District 59
Sabrina Cervantes for Assembly District 60
Jose Medina for Assembly District 61
Autumn Burke for Assembly District 62
Anthony Rendon for Assembly District 63
Mike Gipson for Assembly District 64
Sharon Quirk-Silva for Assembly District 65
Al Muratsuchi for Assembly District 66
Tom Daly for Assembly District 69
Patrick O’Donnell for Assembly District 70
Todd Gloria for Assembly District 78
Shirley Weber for Assembly District 79
Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher for Assembly District 80

Candidates shown in bold are members of the California Legislative LGBT Caucus. Equality California previously endorsed Jacqui Irwin for Assembly District 44. For a full list of Equality California’s 2018 endorsements to date, visit eqca.org.

Equality California extends pro-forma endorsements to incumbent candidates in the California Assembly and Senate who have earned a 100 percent pro-equality rating in for their votes in both of the last two years on the organization’s sponsored or supported legislation and who meet Equality California’s code of ethics and standards of conduct. Candidates who took office in 2017 are rated on last year’s score only.  Please see the 2017 Equality California Legislative Scorecard for more information.