By Rachel Nguyen, 2025 CLA Intern
Between the Assembly Floor hearing and the legislative staff panel, I found that it wasn’t the bills themselves that moved me—it was what happened after on the ground. Erika Ngo, Legislative Director in the Office of Assemblymember Ash Kalra, discussed the development of AB 2542, the California Racial Justice Act. The bill, which was first passed in 2020, outlawed the use of national origin, race, or ethnicity to affect sentencing and/or decisions in criminal cases. However, its limitations quickly became apparent: it only applied to new cases filed after January 1, 2021, leaving thousands of people in prison without a way to appeal, many of whom had long been subjected to systemic injustice. To remedy this, AB 256 was proposed in 2022, progressively expanding the Racial Justice Act's protections.
Ellen Green, Legislative Director in the Office of Assemblymember Marc Berman, then shared the profound, yet short-lived journey of AB 1818. This bill would have introduced a pilot program within the California Community College and California State University systems, allowing students living in their cars to access safe overnight parking. Following its death in the First Chamber, California invested millions of dollars in Basic Needs Centers across all 116 community college campuses, offering food security, transportation, mental health, and so many other services that are foundational to student success. It’s incredible to see AB 1818’s vision live on in practice.
While the Capitol Summit reinforced my aspiration of working in government, it highlighted the fact that the legislative offices in Sacramento might not be the space for me. My work with Governor Newsom’s Los Angeles Office of External Affairs has further solidified this belief. There, I meet with local stakeholders, such as city officials, nonprofit coordinators, and community organizers, to evaluate the implementation of enacted bills and understand the needs of people experiencing the effects of legislation nearly 400 miles away from its origin.
That said, I have utmost admiration and gratitude for those who choose to work at the beating heart of California’s policyscape. Thanks to Assemblymember Caloza’s profound generosity, for instance, my CLA cohort and I had the rare chance to visit the Assembly Floor on short notice—a meaningful moment for me as someone who never imagined I would have access to these spaces. Beyond getting our foot in the door, representation is just as strategic as it is symbolic: Who makes the revisions and removals to legislation if no one moves to Sacramento? Who is the first to be on the menu when no one from our community has a seat at the table? Sacramento showed me where life-changing policy begins, but it also showed me where I belong: where policy lives, breathes, and takes root.