Candidate for
Secretary of State

Ann Menasche has devoted most of her life to working for economic and social justice, civil rights, environmental sanity, and peace.

She has 30 years of litigation experience in civil rights and public interest law, having worked since 2002 in the field of disability rights. She is a long-time activist in the peace, disability rights, and gay rights movements, and currently serves on the County Council of the Green Party of San Diego.

A granddaughter of Sephardic Jewish immigrants from Turkey, Ann committed herself from an early age to making the world a better place. At age 10, she circulated a petition in her suburban neighborhood on Long Island to save the woods and strawberry fields from being bulldozed to make way for a freeway. She never lost her childhood love of nature.

Ann came of age during the social movements of the 1960's and 70's. She attended Vassar College in New York and became a leader in the growing anti-Vietnam war, student, and feminist movements.

In 1972, she moved to San Francisco to attend law school where she continued her political activism. She participated in a successful struggle to win a childcare center at Golden Gate University. By 1975, she had come out as a lesbian and threw herself into the lesbian and gay liberation movement. She was in the leadership of the grassroots campaign to defeat the anti-gay Briggs Initiative in California 1978 (recently featured in the movie Milk). Throughout the 1980's, Ann was a key organizer of large pro-choice demonstrations in San Francisco. She co-founded a lesbian-feminist organization, Lesbian Uprising, in 1988 that lasted through the mid-1990's.

Ann ran a solo law practice for 20 years, specializing in housing discrimination and civil rights litigation. In 1998, Ann moved with her partner, Rochelle Glickman, to San Diego to be closer to Ann's parents and sisters. She took a job at Legal Aid advocating for parents on public assistance, where she was elected President of her union, the San Diego Legal Aid Workers Union. In 1999, Ann published a book on lesbian oppression entitled, "Leaving the Life." After September 11, 2001, she became involved with the San Diego Coalition for Peace and Justice in opposition to the war in Afghanistan and later, the war in Iraq.

Since 2002, Ann has worked as an attorney for Disability Rights California advocating and litigating on behalf of people with disabilities. Her job has provided the opportunity to participate in the Disability Rights movement; the movement for affordable, accessible housing; and in broad community/labor coalitions to oppose state budget cuts to healthcare and human services.

On August 21, 2008, Rabbi Lori Coskey married Ann and Rochelle in an intimate backyard ceremony. Since the passage of Proposition 8 later that year, Ann has submerged herself in the marriage equality movement and is currently the treasurer of the San Diego Alliance for Marriage Equality.

Ann has been a registered Green for over 13 years. She worked on the Nader campaign in 2000 and 2004 and has served for several years on the San Diego Green Party County Council. Throughout her years as an activist, Ann has observed Democratic party politicians time and again break their promises and fail to come through for ordinary people. This has strengthened her commitment to building the Green Party.

Ann and Rochelle and their cat, Flame, share a 100 year old home in San Diego.