Richard Alarcón

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Richard Alarcón is a California politician, who is currently a member of the California State Assembly.

Alarcón first served as an assistant to Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley before gaining a seat on the Los Angeles City Council to represent the 7th Council District in 1993. One year into his second term as a City Councilman, Alarcón resigned to become a State Senator in 1998, representing the 20th Senate District. He left office in December of 2006. Among the accomplishments that Alarcón achieved while in the California Senate are Workers Compensation Reform and recovery of the city of Northridge following the deadly earthquake of 1994. Alarcón served as Senate Majority Whip during all 8 of his years in the State Senate.

Alarcón also created the Young Senators Program in 2000. The program enlists students to represent schools from across the San Fernando Valley to come together, interact, and learn about the Californian Legislative process. They can also discuss different issues that they feel warrant attention with others interested that they would otherwise rarely meet, due to the distances between some of the schools that the students represent.

In 2005, Alarcón ran for mayor of Los Angeles. He finished a distant fifth, gaining less the 2% of the vote, behind Bernard Parks, Bob Hertzberg, incumbent James Hahn, and Antonio Villaraigosa. After serving as a state Senator for 8 years, in 2006 Alarcón ran unopposed for, and won, California's 39th Assembly District seat representing the San Fernando Valley area.

Richard Alarcón has four children who were educated in public schools in the San Fernando Valley. He is a former teacher. Alarcón lost a son to a fatal car accident.