Celebrity Friday: Luis Lopez, Latino LGBT candidate for AD-45

Luis Lopez is an openly gay, Latino candidate for the 45th
 Assembly District, which is located in Los Angeles

Luis Lopez, a friend of mine, is running for a state Assembly seat in California (he would actually represent the 45th Assembly district in which my house and work is located).

Recently, Luis won the endorsement of the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, the national organization devoted to promote the election of openly LGBT candidates.

Also, this week The Advocate ran an article called "The Other Gay Contenders" which includes Luis:

Sacramento politics are not for the faint-hearted, but Luis Lopez just may have the chops to effectively take on such an unwieldy beast. Running next year to represent California’s 45th state assembly district, Lopez currently serves as a planning commissioner for the funky, diverse L.A. neighborhood of Silver Lake, where he lives with his partner. Lopez, 38, is also part of a parks oversight committee for his city, co-chaired his neighborhood council, and started a Latino LGBT political action committee (his full-time job is as a communications director for a health center).

Aside from that impressive resume, Lopez has some powerful friends who will help him when he faces a primary in June. Jackie Goldberg, a lesbian who represented the Democrat-friendly 45th district from 2000 to 2006, is supporting Lopez in his race, and Lopez’s good friend, John Perez, the out California Assembly speaker, will likely endorse him as well. It’s not yet clear who Lopez will face off against as the current assemblyman, Gilbert Cedillo, is termed-out next year and possible candidates are still coming forward.

“We need to look at leaders who’ve earned the respect of their peers,” Lopez says. ”People who are respected can move an agenda along—there were many times when my colleagues on a given board haven’t agreed with me, but we were still able to make decisions.”

Protecting labor is paramount to Lopez, who grew up in East Los Angeles and started working not long after his mother passed away when he was eight. Voters in his district, which stretches from Hollywood to Chinatown to East L.A. and includes thousands of diverse gay people, are inline with his platform, he says.

I strongly encourage all MadProfessah.com readers, especially if you live in the 45th Assembly District to support Luis Lopez.