PRESS RELEASE:
December 21, 2020
PRESS CONTACTS:
David Campos 415.314.1786
SF PARTY CHAIR CAMPOS ANNOUNCES HISTORIC RUN AS FIRST FORMERLY UNDOCUMENTED CANDIDATE FOR CAL DEMOCRATIC PARTY LEADERSHIP
SAN FRANCISCO - Today David Campos, the Chair of San Francisco’s Democratic Party, announced his candidacy for Vice-Chair of the California Democratic Party. If elected, Campos will be the first formerly undocumented person in California history to serve in the State’s Democratic Party leadership.
Campos was brought to the United States by his parents at the age of 14. He carried his sister on his back as his family crossed the border escaping political turmoil in their native Guatemala. David's family settled in Southern California where he learned to speak English in South Central Los Angeles’ public schools before graduating first in his class from Thomas Jefferson High School. Campos worked various jobs to put himself through Stanford University.
“Attending school as an undocumented person had a profound impact on who I am as person,” said Campos. “Here I was this straight laced honors student, but I was scared every time I left campus that I might have a run-in with the police that could destroy my life.”
Campos’ experiences led him to attend Harvard Law School where he met his long-time partner and husband Phil Hwang. David then worked as a Deputy City Attorney representing San Francisco Unified School District in its school desegregation efforts.
In 2008 Campos ran for and won a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, winning a seat previously occupied by his mentor State Assemblymember Tom Ammiano. “When it comes to helping people David has never just taken no for an answer,” said former State Assemblymember Ammiano. “He’s always the person in the room asking why not and pushing to do more.”
As a San Francisco Supervisor representing the city’s Mission District, the Portola and Bernal Heights, Campos spearheaded numerous landmark progressive initiatives including: making public transportation free for youth; closing a loophole to ensure universal healthcare for all workers; ensuring San Francisco status as a sanctuary city; creating California’s first “equal pay for equal work” program; creating a first in the nation “Legacy Business” program to protect historic small business; creating the state’s first PrEP access program to stop the spread of HIV; and enacting legislation to create CleanPowerSF, the city’s community choice aggregation program that provides 100% renewable energy as an alternative to PG&E.
“David is a progressive voice who works with all people not just some people,” said progressive leader and former State Senate President Pro Tempore Kevin De León. “His values are California values, fighting to make life better for all working families.”
After terming out of office, Campos went to work as Santa Clara County’s Deputy County Executive where he oversaw multiple departments, including the creation of the Office of Labor Standard Enforcement and the Division of Equity and Social Justice as well as helping implement the county’s $950 million housing bond. Campos was also instrumental in helping to stop the spread of COVID in the county, serving as the county’s Chief Public Information Officer in the fight against the pandemic, focusing on protecting the county’s most vulnerable and impacted communities.
Since 2017, David has served as Chair of the San Francisco Democratic Party. Under David’s leadership, the San Francisco Democratic Party has worked with Speaker Nancy Pelosi to run operation RedToBlue in 2018 and VoteBlueSF in 2020, which worked to flip congressional districts and help defeat Trump at the ballot box. That work continues through December of this year as they focus on the Georgia Senate races.
In October of this year, David became Chief-of-Staff to Chesa Boudin, San Francisco’s newly elected progressive District Attorney. Boudin’s office has taken historic measures to reform the criminal justice system in San Francisco, including ending cash bail, among other initiatives.
As Vice-Chair of the California Democratic Party, Campos wants to make sure that California's growing progressive movement is represented in the party’s leadership. “This is an important moment in California history,” said Campos. “Post-Trump and post-pandemic we have an opportunity to reach out to communities that have felt disconnected or abandoned by our party and work with them to create real, meaningful change. There’s lots of work to be done.”
A long-time ally and supporter of organized labor, Campos is committed to continuing to push for and strengthen a strong partnership between the party and organized labor. “As challenging as the pandemic has been for California, things would be much worse without a strong union presence pushing for the interests of workers,” said Campos.
“David Campos has always been a strong ally of organized labor. David’s presence in the party leadership will ensure that the interests of all of California’s workers are priorities for the Democratic Party,” said Cindy Chavez, current President of the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors and former Executive Director of the South Bay Labor Council.
Even though David just announced his candidacy, he has already garnered the following endorsements (partial list)(titles for identification purposes only):
• National Union of Healthcare Workers
• Former California State Senate President Pro Tempore Kevin De León
• Former California Assembly Speaker John Pérez
• San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin
• Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón
• State Senator Dave Cortese
• Assemblymember Phil Ting
• Former Assemblymember Tom Ammiano
• Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors President Cindy Chavez
• San Francisco Supervisor Matt Haney
• San Francisco Supervisor Gordon Mar
• San Francisco Supervisor Dean Preston
• San Francisco Supervisor Hillary Ronen
• BART Director Bevan Dufty
• Democratic National Committee Member Sandra Lowe
• California Democratic Party Region 6 Director Hene Kelly
• California Democratic Party Region 8 Director Humberto Gomez Jr.