Candidate for
Supervisor; County of Los Angeles; Supervisorial District 3

Sheila James Kuehl served eight years in the State Senate and six years in the State Assembly, and, in 2008, left the legislature under California's term limits statute. She is currently the President of Kuehl Consulting, serving as a consultant to cities and universities on a variety of public policy issues. She is also the Founding Director of the Public Policy Institute at Santa Monica College and has served as a Regents' Professor in Public Policy at UCLA. She is an announced candidate for the Third Supervisorial District in Los Angeles County. The election will be held in June, 2014.

During the 1997-98 legislative session, she was the first woman in California history to be named Speaker pro Tempore of the Assembly. She is also the first openly gay or lesbian person to be elected to the California Legislature.

A former pioneering civil rights attorney and law professor, Sen. Kuehl was the chair of the Senate Health and Human Services Committee, chair of the Senate Natural Resources and Water Committee, chair of the Senate Budget Subcommittee on Water, Energy and Transportation, Speaker pro Tempore of the Assembly and Chair of the Assembly Judiciary Committee.

Through Kuehl Consulting, she has worked with Planned Parenthood on women's health issues, co-authored a white paper and Model State Code on Discrimination in Schools for the Williams Institute at the UCLA Law School, as well as drafting Model State Codes on marriage and civil unions. She was also co-founder and co-facilitator for the Institute for Elected Women: California, a training program for women new to the Legislature.

In her fourteen years in the State Legislature, Sen. Kuehl authored 171 bills that were signed into law by three different Governors, including legislation to establish paid family leave, establish the rights contained in Roe vs. Wade in California statute, overhaul California's child support services system; establish nurse to patient ratios in every hospital; require that housing developments of more than 500 units have identified sources of water; further protect domestic violence victims and their children; prohibit discrimination on the basis of gender and disability in the workplace and sexual orientation in education; increase the rights of crime victims; safeguard the environment and drinking water; and many, many others. Beginning in 2003, she led the fight in the legislature to achieve true universal health care in California, and, in 2006, and again in 2008, brought SB 840, the California Universal Healthcare Act, to the Governor's desk, the first time in U.S. history a single-payer healthcare bill had gone so far. Undaunted by its veto both times, Senator Kuehl is continuing to work with advocates statewide and nationally to bring universal, affordable, quality health care to all Californians.

She was selected to address the 1996 Democratic National Convention on the issue of family violence and the 2000 Democratic National Convention on the issue of diversity. In 1996, George magazine selected her as one of the 20 most fascinating women in politics and the California Journal named her "Rookie of the Year." In 1998 and, again, in 2000, the California Journal chose her as the Assembly member with the greatest intelligence and the most integrity. In 2006, the Capitol Weekly picked her as the most intelligent member of the California Legislature.

Prior to her election to the Legislature, Senator Kuehl drafted and fought to get into California law more than 40 pieces of legislation relating to children, families, women, and domestic violence. She was a law professor at Loyola, UCLA and USC Law Schools and co-founded and served as managing attorney of the California Women's Law Center.

Senator Kuehl graduated from Harvard Law School in 1978 where she was the second woman in the school's history to win the Moot Court competition. She served on the Harvard University Board of Overseers from 1998 to 2005.

In her youth, she was known for her portrayal of the irrepressible Zelda Gilroy in the television series, "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis."