On Board With… Senator María Elena Durazo (D-Los Angeles)
Senator María Elena Durazo was elected as State Senator of the 24th District in 2018. She represents the Los Angeles neighborhoods of Boyle Heights, Echo Park, Silver Lake and East Los Angeles. Senator Durazo is the Assistant Majority Whip of the Senate and sits on the Senate Committees on Appropriations, Banking and Financial Institutions, Education, Judiciary, and Housing. Senator Durazo is also Chair of the Senate Budget Subcommittee No. 5 on Corrections, Public Safety, Judiciary, Labor, and Transportation. Last October, she was elected to serve as the Chair of the California Latino Legislative Caucus (CLLC) for the 2021-22 legislative session. Senator Durazo had served as Vice Chair of the Latino Caucus since December 2018.
Other experiences include serving in 2008 as the Vice Chair of the Democratic National Committee and as National Co-Chair of the Barack Obama Presidential Campaign. In 2006 she became the first woman Secretary-Treasurer of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO, the second largest labor council in the country; a position she held until 2014. She has also served on the National AFL-CIO Executive Council. Besides her union work, she has served on many civic commissions and boards. Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley appointed her to the Los Angeles Commission on Airports, Mayor Richard Riordan appointed her to the Los Angeles Parks and Recreation Committee and California Speaker Herb Wesson appointed her to the California State Coastal Commission.
Transit California:
As the seventh child in a family of eleven children with migrant worker parents, you have noted that while growing up you traveled with your family, following the crops throughout California and Oregon. At that time you experienced first-hand the exploitative conditions and hardships that migrant laborers suffer. What is it like for migrant laborers and their children today? Were there specific priorities or changes that you pursued immediately when you came to office borne out of your own experience?
Sen. Durazo:
While there have been expansions to basic workers protections, such as shade, breaks, and overtime, the reality is that more significant changes are needed. The nature of this work is still among the most grueling and dangerous jobs performed by Californians.
Our sisters and brothers doing this work to sustain our food supply also sustain a critical sector of California’s economy – the world’s fifth largest economy. Unfortunately, their contributions to our society comes at the cost of subjecting people still to many harmful pesticides and herbicides, extreme weather exposure like wildfire smoke, and the lack of access to critical safety net services, especially for our undocumented sisters and brothers. Despite the exhausting physical toll of the job, many do not have access to healthcare, a livable wage, and are expected (and did in fact continue) to work with few workplace protections from the wildfires and pandemic.
The first bill I introduced when I took office was to extend eligibility for full-scope Medi-Cal benefits to undocumented adults ages 19 to 25, who are otherwise eligible for those benefits, but for their immigration status. We accomplished this in the Budget Act and we continued our movement to ensure that seniors would have healthcare. This was in the depths of a devastating pandemic that was claiming the lives of so many of our elders and hitting the Latino community especially hard. In the 2021 Budget Act California included eligible individuals aged 50 and older in the Medi-Cal program. Covering undocumented immigrants who are our parents, grandparents, and community members is essential to the continued strength of our economy and society and I will continue this fight for inclusion until all individuals have access to health care.
I also introduced a bill that sought to prohibit the use of chlorpyrifos, a damaging chemical used in the fields, including being sprayed on crops like citrus, grapes, and nuts that are popular with kids. Nearly a million pounds of chlorpyrifos were used on California’s crops each year—exposing farmworker children, pregnant women, and surrounding communities to a chemical that permanently damages the developing brain. Last year we were successful in ensuring that the use of chlorpyrifos is phased out of existence in California.
Transit California:
Early on, inspired to fight for equal rights by Cesar Chavez (and Dolores Huerta, founders of the United Farmworkers of America), you found a passion for laborer justice that put you on a path of activism. After earning your law degree, you entered the labor movement as an organizer for the International Ladies Garment Workers Union. What did you learn about empowering and organizing people in those early days that help and inform your legislative efforts as a Senator and influence your approach to stakeholder engagement?
Sen. Durazo:
I grew up in a migrant family of farmworkers; we traveled throughout California and Oregon picking crops. My family lacked a proper education, we did not have access to health care, our housing was a tent, or the grower’s barn, or a flatbed truck. I remember people calling us names because we traveled all packed in a flatbed of a truck in the fields. Our hands and clothes were dirty from working in the fields all day. But, I also remember my father telling me that in all work… no matter what it was… we had to do our best.
I learned the importance of hard work and determination at a very young age. Throughout my life, I have learned the “dignity of all work” to quote Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Families like my own came to the United States to pursue a brighter, bolder future for their children. Having devoted my life to elevating the workers’ voice, every moment of fear, trepidation and harm felt by these families undermines the values that we hold dear as Americans -- that this country is a place where hard work, dedication, and commitment to community and family is rewarded.
In California, we can work together to build a different reality for all families. I am actively working to ensure communities are able to tell their stories. We won a historic, industry transforming victory for garment workers this year. It was their voices that filled our hearing rooms. They came to the Capitol to fight for the wages they were owed from an insolvent restitution fund. After years of waiting, it was their voices that brought about an opportunity to stop wage theft. They fought for our laws to truly reflect our values so that all garment workers in California are paid legal wages for their skilled, essential work.
I decided to run for office because I want affordable health care for everyone. I want undocumented seniors to be seen by a doctor before a health crisis. After all, we don’t collect taxes on the basis of someone’s immigration status and these seniors have been subsidizing our safety net programs for all their working years. I want every Californian to have an education they can access and afford. Today, that means broadband, it means tuition fees, books, and tools, but it also means having a home and food to eat while pursuing college or a trade.
I see my role now to make change on a bigger scale. My job is to speak out with men and women on the ground, for meaningful legislative action, and the best use of our public dollars.
I have spent my life with the poorest of the working class. We created a coalition of labor and community leaders and mobilized—in the streets, marching, knocking on doors. They do not want charity. They want respect for their hard work, for their contributions to make California the fifth largest economy in the world, for their part in feeding this nation, for their part in taking care of our children, the old, ill, and disabled, for their part in moving this nation and our goods, for cleaning the rooms, for feeding tens of millions of visitors from all over the world, and for their commitment to family and our country.
We do the most good, for the most people, when we empower them to do it for themselves.
Transit California:
The California Latino Legislative Caucus (CLLC) is comprised of 30 State Legislators (Nine Senators and 21 Assemblymembers), including a record-high 16 Latinas. The CLLC serves as a forum to develop avenues to empower the Latino community throughout California. As the current Chair of CCLC what are your goals for the caucus? Is there a place in these goals for improving public transit?
Sen. Durazo:
The Latino Caucus serves as a forum for members from the State Senate and Assembly to identify key issues affecting Latinos and develop avenues to empower the Latino community throughout California.
For the past 18-plus months the caucus has been primarily focused on addressing the impacts of the pandemic on the Latino community and protecting essential workers. We continue to fight to expand health care, invest in education, support the immigrant community, and expand job opportunities.
The caucus will now take the next several months to determine our 2022 legislative and budget priorities. Though transportation issues have not been a primary focus of the caucus in recent years, our members know that large segments of the Latino community are dependent on public transit to get to work/school and to get around the community. So we are always looking for ways to promote its availability, expand access, and keep it affordable. This is an environmental issue, if we want clear air we need to get more vehicles off the road.
Transit California:
When the pandemic forced the closure of our state with an executive order for Californians to shelter in place, it laid bare essential workers, like our public transit operators. How have the experiences of many Californians of the last 18 months influenced the priorities you pursued, or impacted your policy goals, in 2020 and 2021?
Sen. Durazo:
This pandemic has pulled back the curtain on the inequities across our state. It has made clear who is hurt hardest in a health and economic crisis - communities of color and low-income families supported by low-paid essential workers. At the same time, this year presented a historic opportunity to invest in California’s families and our next generation.
COVID-19 laid bare these inequities. It was killing hundreds of Californians, every single day; hundreds of thousands of working families lost jobs overnight. Their health and economic security was compromised; their children lost access to education because of the technology gap; mothers and fathers already struggling to balance work and family lost childcare; many had to decide between their health and their paychecks; and existing equity gaps widened. A new term was created to describe the families who kept the trains and busses moving, the food supply going; people who worked 12-20 hours a day in consecutive shifts in our hospitals; farmworkers, truck drivers, domestic workers, and garment workers: we will never forget they are essential workers. And we will never forget the critical role of our transit system in ensuring essential workers get to where they need to go.
Transit California:
Throughout the pandemic, public transit proved how essential its service is to the fabric of society, as transit agencies transported the transit dependent – often low-income people, the elderly, and people with disabilities – to jobs, grocery stores, and medical appointments and took essential workers to their destinations. In addition, agencies throughout California served their communities by taking on new roles, like providing Wi-Fi hot spots so kids could participate in distance learning, transporting COVID-positive riders to medical facilities, taking the unsheltered homeless to motel rooms, and delivering meals to those who could not leave their homes.
You were quick to acknowledge the essentialism of public transit and utilized your position as Chair of the Senate Budget Subcommittee No. 5 on Corrections, Public Safety, Judiciary, Labor, and Transportation to deliver statutory relief to transit agencies. Why do you believe this relief was necessary, and what role do you hope to play in transit’s recovery from the pandemic?
Sen. Durazo:
Our budget makes multi-year, historic investments to address our needs in this pandemic and this devastating climate crisis. Our transit system is central to meeting our clean transportation goals and to facing the challenges of this pandemic. At the beginning of the year transit agencies in California were in a fiscal crisis and needed help dealing with billions in potential budget shortfalls in the coming year. The American Rescue Plan provided significant funding for transit agencies to help keep them solvent as they navigate the economic recovery. We provided statutory relief and flexibility for agencies with the hope that this would enable them to recover from the crisis.
I hope to continue to direct our budget toward strengthening our transit system. I hope to hear from industry and local partners about how we can provide resources to navigate this pandemic reality, while simultaneously moving forward on our green transportation priorities. Climate disasters are here and we cannot afford to lose ground on a clean energy future.
Transit California:
In 2021, you introduced SB 674, the California Jobs Plan Act, which aims to leverage transportation contracts to retain and create high quality jobs and to expand access to these jobs for communities historically excluded from them. What was the catalyst for the bill and how do you see public transit agencies fitting into its objectives?
Sen. Durazo:
Last year Governor Newsom issued an executive order to require that all transportation in the state be powered by clean energy in a few short years. Since that time, many have celebrated, but a lot of California workers have wondered what is going to happen to their good jobs in power plants, oil refineries, manufacturing of transportation equipment, buses, trucks and cars, if the new jobs are oversees or if they pay minimum wages, without benefits and without the benefit of a union. President Biden and Governor Newsom have committed themselves to creating good jobs, but the biggest question workers have asked is HOW?
SB 674 is an important answer to the question of how we will get to our goal of good, green jobs. Public transit agencies are in a position to help safeguard taxpayer dollars so that public spending prioritizes projects that are safe, high quality and beneficial to Californians and our economy. SB 674 is a crucial first step to getting to good, green jobs.
We have an opportunity to meet the goals of our own California “Future of Work Commission” – made up of businesses, community and labor – to help create inclusive, long-term economic growth. It is not enough to say we want to create good jobs. We need clear accountability for commitments to job creation, AND public access to information related to promises made in contracts that taxpayers’ fund.
Transit California:
As you know, the transit industry, inclusive of the California Transit Association, voiced concerns with several provisions of the bill. Will there be an opportunity – convened by your office or supporters of the bill – for discussing and addressing these concerns further before the bill is revisited in 2022? If yes, what will this process look like and how can our readers get involved?
Sen. Durazo:
I value the insight and expertise the Association has provided to us this year and will continue to provide. I am looking to the transit industry as a partner in meeting our jobs and climate goals. I want to thank you for the collaborative discussions and for all the time you spent with my staff on the language of our bill. We are committed to this collaboration. Your readers can email my legislative director to schedule future discussions. Her email is Bethany.Renfree@sen.ca.gov
Transit California:
Is there background on the importance of SB 674 and its relationship to public transit, specifically that you want to ensure our readers know and understand?
Sen. Durazo:
SB 674 will support equitable high-quality transportation and related manufacturing jobs in our state and will ensure that the benefits of the transition to clean transportation includes good paying, quality jobs, especially for communities that have been historically left out.
Last year’s AB 398 report to the Legislature - “Putting California on the High Road: A Jobs and Climate Action Plan for 2030,” - identifies goods movement and movement of people as the biggest single contributor of pollution. The report states: “At the same time, the transportation system underpins our economy. The freight system moves trillions of dollars of goods each year, supporting nearly one-third of the state economy and more than five million jobs” and emphasized that investments in infrastructure alone will not create high quality jobs. We need to incentivize both supply and demand side strategies that create high road, family sustaining jobs, while ensuring workers have the training necessary to be successful on the job.
According to the PERI Institute, for every $1 million invested in surface transportation, 20.6 jobs are created or sustained. California state dollars alone could create, sustain, and induce over 18,000 jobs. This is why partnerships with business can lead to prosperity for everyone and a sustainable, healthy future for our state. This is why we should have a clear understanding of the economic impacts of all our climate and transportation investments and the types and quality of jobs being created and accessed by Californians.
Transit California:
The California Transit Association staff and members look forward to continuing the conversation with you. What is the best way for Transit California readers to stay informed with your ongoing news and activities?
Sen. Durazo:
I encourage your readers to learn more by following us on social media. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and my website.