California Assembly
Job Description
This fall, California’s lower legislative chamber will again be filling all 80 of its elected member positions.
Working conditions will depend on the partisan breakdown of all new hires. With the current composition of the Assembly—55 Democrats and 25 Republicans—Democrats are holding on to their two-thirds supermajority by only one seat. A supermajority in both the Assembly and Senate would allow Democrats, if united, to raise taxes, override vetoes, place constitutional amendments on the ballot, and largely ignore their Republican colleagues.
Job duties include:
- Spend months drafting, discussing, and haggling over bills that will affect the lives of all Californians
- Retain the option of waiting until the very last week of session before passing or dumping most of said bills in a flurry
- Spend months drafting, discussing, and haggling over resolutions that will affect the lives of virtually no Californians
- Help craft a multi-billion-dollar budget for the state
- Strive to represent the interests of 500,000 constituents, most of them strangers
We especially seek applicants from the following regions of California, as the current position-holders are not re-applying for the job: Berkeley/Richmond (District 15), Gilroy/Salinas (District 30), Huntington Beach/Santa Ana (District 72) and Carlsbad/Oceanside (District 76).
Applicants from all other districts will be considered alongside those of the current job holders, who will be applying again. In the last hiring round (2016), 92 percent of reapplying incumbents were re-hired. So good luck to the newcomers.
Perks: $183, tax free, per day for every day in session—and higher salary for leadership positions.
Hiring Update
The H.R. department has provided additional analysis for ten competitive positions:
- AD-15 (current job holder: Tony Thurmond)
- AD-16 (Catherine Baker)
- AD-32 (Rudy Salas)
- AD-38 (Dante Acosta)
- AD-40 (Marc Steinorth)
- AD-44 (Jacqui Irwin)
- AD-60 (Sabrina Cervantes)
- AD-65 (Sharon Quirk-Silva)
- AD-66 (Al Muratsuchi)
- AD-74 (Matthew Harper)
A few other districts, less competitive, but still be of interest, include AD26, AD30, AD39, AD45, AD58, AD72, and AD76.
