Assemblywoman Toni Atkins, D-San Diego, was formally sworn in as the 69th speaker of the California State Assembly on Monday.
Atkins, a former Democrat majority leader who was elected in March, is the first openly lesbian individual and the third woman to hold the position. She replaces former Speaker John Perez, D-Los Angeles, who held the position for four years and is running for state controller.
“We must work to ensure stability, and that includes an adequate reserve for those rainy days when the economy again takes a downward dive,” Atkins said at her swearing-in ceremony Monday. “And … our greatest challenge is, at the same time, expanding opportunity and lifting up the most vulnerable who’ve suffered a great deal and need us not to forget them now.”
On Monday, she said she would work to “reinvest” in and increase access to the University of California. She also said she wants to pass a new rainy day reserve for the state, improve affordable housing options for homeless veterans and expand health care coverage.
“California has been perceived as the Golden State as far as education, but we need to continue that commitment,” Atkins said in an interview with the Los Angeles Times.
The Speaker automatically serves on the University of California Board of Regents as a voting ex-officio member. The Speaker also appoints members to all committees and subcommittees of the Assembly and makes or recommends numerous appointments to state bodies.
Atkins served as an acting mayor of San Diego in 2005 after Mayor Dick Murphy resigned. She was first elected to the Assembly in 2010 and chaired the Assembly Select Committee on Homelessness.
During his tenure as speaker, Perez authored the bill for the Middle Class Scholarship and worked toward creating a California Higher Education Authority, a higher education watchdog and clearing house for information for the state’s higher education system. The California Postsecondary Education Commission, which served a similar role, was eliminated in 2011 by Gov. Jerry Brown.
Compiled by Jeong Park, Bruin contributor.