Your guide to California’s Assembly District 41 race: Pasadena, Sierra Madre

The race in California’s 41st Assembly District brings in fresh candidates this year, as incumbent Assemblyman Chris Holden (D-Pasadena) is forced out by term limits and seeks election to the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.

Three Democrats and one Republican are running to represent the heavily Democratic district in the foothills east of the San Gabriel Mountains. The candidates include a former police officer, a prosecutor, an immigration attorney and a business consultant.

The California Democratic Party did not make an endorsement in this race. Regardless of their political party and share of the vote, the two candidates who get the most votes in the March 5 primary will advance to the general election in November.

• Phlunté Riddle, Democrat, a former law enforcement officer and public safety commissioner.

Riddle, a state Board of Juvenile Hearings commissioner, formerly served as Holden’s district director and unsuccessfully ran in 2016 for the state’s 25th Senate District seat against Sen. Anthony Portantino. She is endorsed by Holden, the president of SEIU California and state Treasurer Fiona Ma.

She spent 30 years working up the ranks in the Pasadena Police Department, where she became the department’s first Black female sergeant, lieutenant and adjutant to the chief of police, according to her campaign website.

In her campaign biography, Riddle said she is most concerned about issues involving climate, education, homelessness, transportation and equal rights. Her campaign donors include several law enforcement groups, the SEIU union and a local chapter of Planned Parenthood.

Riddle lives in Pasadena.

• John Harabedian, Democrat, a former prosecutor.

Harabedian was raised in Sierra Madre, where he has worked as a prosecutor at the Los Angeles district attorney’s office. He was a Sierra Madre City Council member from 2012 to 2020. He ran unsuccessfully for L.A. County supervisor in 2020.

He said his main legislative interests include reducing homelessness, combating climate change, defending reproductive rights and preventing gun violence. “I believe every Californian should have an affordable place to live, a job that pays a livable wage, access to quality affordable healthcare, access to natural resources like clean water and open space to survive and thrive, and access to the best free education possible,” he said in a statement to The Times.

His campaign donors include the Smart Justice group that advocates for criminal justice reform as well as unions representing teachers, nurses and electricians. Harabedian is endorsed by several state senators and Assembly members, the United Nurses Assns. of California and California Environmental Voters.

He lives in Pasadena.

• Jed Leano, Democrat, an immigration attorney.

Leano is an immigration attorney and first-generation American, born to Filipino immigrants. Since 2018, he has served on the Claremont City Council, where he advocated for housing affordability and homelessness issues, according to his campaign website.

“I spearheaded the creation of Claremont’s Psychiatric Assessment Care Team (PACT), which responds to behavioral crisis calls. This groundbreaking program relieves the workload of public safety officers while streamlining mental health services,” Leano wrote in a Times questionnaire.

Leano’s campaign has received support from several housing organizations, including the YIMBY (Yes In My Backyard) group, which advocates for developing more homes, and local tenants unions.

He lives in Claremont.

• Michelle Del Rosario Martinez, Republican, a community volunteer.

Martinez describes herself as the daughter of Peruvian immigrants. She was elected to the Altadena Town Council in 2014, where she said she helped launch new businesses in her district, according to her campaign biography. As a council member, she was quoted by The Times as saying that the GOP’s pro-business and low-tax agenda is good for California. Her biography states that she has lived in the district for most of her life and attended Pasadena schools.

She is endorsed by the California GOP. Martinez did not respond to The Times’ survey request.

About 75% of Assembly District 41 is in Los Angeles County, with the remaining 25% in San Bernardino County. It encompasses the cities of La Verne, Pasadena, Sierra Madre, La Cañada Flintridge, Bradbury, Claremont and San Dimas, as well as parts of Hesperia, Monrovia, Rancho Cucamonga, Upland and Duarte.

With many California communities confronting rising housing costs and an increase in homelessness, The Times asked candidates how they would address the issue in the Legislature.

Leano described himself as a leader on housing issues, saying that as a City Council member, he helped reduce homelessness in Claremont “through innovative policies creating more housing, addressing housing affordability, protecting tenants, preventing future homelessness, and providing supportive services.”

Riddle said she supports “rapidly moving people off the street into supportive housing with wraparound services.” She said she wants more permanent housing models that match people with services and will push to expand medical care “for veterans, seniors, and youth in need of job training opportunities.”

Harabedian said California should treat homelessness as an emergency. “Solutions involve promoting affordable housing, aiding at-risk families, addressing mental health issues, and requiring investments in infrastructure and supportive housing,” he said in a statement to The Times.

On the March ballot, Californians will also vote on Proposition 1, a $6.8-billion bond measure that aims to address homelessness by funding more than 11,000 new treatment beds and supportive housing units along with mental health and drug addiction treatment. Leano, Riddle and Harabedian all said they support Proposition 1.

California lawmakers have repeatedly considered overhauling the healthcare system to create a “single payer” system that would insure all state residents. The Times asked candidates whether there should be a change to the current healthcare system.

Riddle answered that she supports replacing the current system with a single-payer system.

Leano and Harabedian both answered that they support a different change to the existing healthcare system.

California is facing a budget deficit of tens of billions of dollars. The Times asked candidates how they think the state should address the budget shortfall, responding from a selection of multiple-choice answers.

Leano, Riddle and Harabedian all answered, “Combination of reducing spending and raising taxes.”

California created a task force that has recommended the state pay reparations to descendants of African Americans who were enslaved in the United States. State lawmakers will decide whether to move forward with any of the recommendations. The Times asked candidates whether they support paying reparations to eligible Californians and what kind of reparations they would support from a list of recommendations in the task force report.

Leano said he supports free tuition to state public colleges.

Riddle and Harabedian said they support free tuition to state public colleges and paying fair market value for jail and prison labor.