Palisadians Are Introduced to 2012 Campaign Candidate Torie Osborn

Torie Osborn, a Democratic candidate for next year's election for representative of the 41^st State Assembly District, was in Pacific Palisades Saturday afternoon for a small campaign event at a private home.

Los Angeles City Councilman Bill Rosendahl, a friend of Osborn for nearly 30 years, and Palisadian Angelina Burnett hosted the gathering. Osborn will officially kick off her campaign Sunday with a larger event at the Palisades home of activists Cynthia and Tim Sexton.

Osborn has a lengthy resume of social activism and work in the nonprofit sector. She headed theLos Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center from 1988 to 1992 and the Liberty Hill Foundation, which funds various left-wing causes, from 1998 to 2005. Osborn recently worked for Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa as a senior policy advisor on homelessness, poverty and economic development.

"I've always found her to be a real, true progressive," Rosendahl said of Osborn. "She is somebody who stands for what we all in this room believe in."

Osborn said she was inspired to run for Assembly while working on Barack Obama's presidential campaign. She called his campaign "a civic uprising" where she got to see "this generation of young people come to life, [people] who hadn’t given a hoot."     

"It awakened something in me when I was working with all these people who would say,  'OK we don’t get it, why aren’t you running for office?' I started to really think about it."

Osborn said she is running for Assembly because "the state level is where the issues I care most about happen—education, health care, civil rights, environmental protection …. housing, economic justice, putting justice back in the criminal justice system."

The candidate has already picked up some major endorsements for her campaign, including Rosendahl, Villaraigosa and Sheila Kuehl, who is a former state senator and was the representative of the 41^st Assembly District from 1994 to 2000. Osborn's main opponent at this time is Santa Monica Mayor Richard Bloom, also a Democrat. He kicked off  his campaign Sunday morning with an event in Santa Monica.

The 41st District covers a large area that includes Malibu, Santa Monica, Pacific Palisades, Agoura Hills, Calabasas, Encino, Woodland Hills, Tarzana and a portion of Ventura County. At least that is how it looks for now. This could change once California's new legislative district maps are finalized later this year.

Julia Brownley, the current representative for the 41^st District, is not eligible to run again in 2012 due to term limits. Those seeking to replace her will be running in a different type of race than she did.

In the past, party primaries took place in June to decide who would move on to the general election in November. The real battle was in the Democratic primary, with the winner of that contest cruising to victory in November against the Republican candidate in this heavily Democratic district.

Under the new format, which was created with the passage of state Proposition 14 last year, there is one primary in June open to all candidates, regardless of party. The top two vote-getters of that contest face off in the general election in November.

Click on the video attached to the article to learn more about Torie Osborn.