Tony Thurmond, MSW, Elected to the State Assembly!

By Rebecca Gonzales, Director of Government Relations and Political Affairs

NASW-CA is pleased to announce the election of Tony Thurmond, MSW, to the 15th Assembly District! This was a hard fought victory since Thurmond came in second to his opponent in the June Primary. NASW staff and interns drove to the Bay Area to help Tony out on Election Day. In addition, Region C volunteers staffed a social work phone bank in the weeks leading up to the election.

Tony also benefited from the many NASW members in Tony’s district. NASW sent mail to more than 400 social workers asking them to vote, donate, and volunteer for Tony. We think this gave his campaign a significant boost! Lastly, our CalPACE committee voted to not only endorse Tony, but to send him a campaign contribution to help him with his campaign costs.

Tony’s victory is important for social workers for several reasons. Firstly, a social worker has a unique understanding of the profession of social work and the challenges social workers face.

Secondly, a person with social work values will protect the communities that social workers serve. Lastly, it is unfortunate, but one of our elected social workers, Mariko Yamada, MSW, is terming out of the Assembly on November 30. With Tony’s election, we will keep our caucus of two social workers in the Legislature since Susan Eggman, LCSW, PhD, was reelected to her second term in the State Assembly.

Hopefully, we will be able to elect more social workers in the future!

Other Election Day News

By Rebecca Gonzales

Besides the election of Tony Thurmond, MSW, to the State Assembly, social workers had other reasons to celebrate on Election Day. While nationally the results were discouraging, in California we held on to many important seats.

Our CalPACE committee met and made endorsements before the election. Of those vote recommendations, 81 percent of the candidates we endorsed won their race. This included winning every statewide race from the Governor’s office, to the State Controller, to the Insurance Commissioner. We also retained the Democratic majority in both the State Senate and the State Assembly. This is important because on our annual legislative scorecard we have found that Democratic legislators vote with us most of the time and Republican members vote against bills we support.

NASW members who checked off the box on their membership renewal form, members who have directly contributed to CalPACE, and members who have bought silent auction items at Lobby Days or at our annual conference, have all contributed to these election victories. This funding enabled us to contribute to our social work candidates and to a few candidates who were in tight races.

Thank you to everyone who, voted, volunteered or contributed to our candidates this Election Day!