Limón Made New Assembly Assistant Whip
First-Time Santa Barbara Dem Legislator Named to Leadership Team
Newly elected to the State Assembly, Monique Limón was appointed this week to be Assistant Majority Whip, part of the house’s leadership team. Limón, 37, a former Santa Barbara school board member, won 64 percent of the vote in the race to represent the 37th Assembly District, which stretches from Buellton to Fillmore. She succeeds Das Williams, who was elected to the Board of Supervisors.
“It is a really neat place since I am coming in as a freshman,” Limón said of the appointment by Speaker of the Assembly Anthony Rendon, who is 48. The Assistant Majority Whip is expected to corral members to vote in line with the party. Limón explained the job entails mobilizing members around major issues, but exactly what those are depends on the year. Legislators have until February 17 to introduce new legislation. “If anything, I’ll have the ability to work with the leadership team to be a bigger voice,” she said. “It is a big deal. I am truly honored to serve in that capacity.”
Limón said she got to know the Speaker, whose district is in Los Angeles, over the past two years, and he greatly supported her campaign, attending a fund-raising event in Santa Barbara in early October. (In total, Limón brought in about $342,000, according to state records; she still has $252,000 left.) At the swearing-in ceremony on December 5, Limón was one of just three assemblymembers to second Rendon’s nomination for Speaker and the only freshman who spoke that day.
