‘I’ve got my work cut out for me’: Jordan Cunningham talks priorities, partisanship

As he raised his right hand and began to take his oath of office a week ago, Republican Jordan Cunningham said the gravity of his new role as California assemblyman for the 35th District finally sank in.

“I got a little — I don’t know if emotional is the right word — but when we were actually taking the oath, it’s like, ‘Wow. This is pretty cool, and this is a big deal,’ ” Cunningham said. “And I know I’ve got my work cut out for me.”

Cunningham, 38, was sworn in Dec. 5 at a ceremony in the state Capitol, following a long and increasingly testy race with Democrat Dawn Ortiz-Legg that Cunningham won with about 55 percent of the vote.

The 35th District encompasses San Luis Obispo County and a portion of Santa Barbara County.

A Templeton-based private attorney, Cunningham formerly served as a deputy prosecutor with the San Luis Obispo County District Attorney’s Office, a board member of the Templeton Unified School District and president of the Central Coast Taxpayers Association. During the race, Cunningham ran on a platform of easing regulations on small business, finding strategies to handle the state’s ongoing drought, and supporting education and public safety.

On Thursday, Cunningham spoke with The Tribune about his first week in office — including the swearing-in ceremony and two days of first-term legislative training — what he plans to accomplish in his first 100 days and how he plans to work with a Democratic supermajority when the Legislature reconvenes next month.

‘Sense of duty’

At his side during Monday’s swearing-in ceremony was his wife, Shauna, as their four children watched in the company of his parents. Asked to describe the experience, the freshman legislator said: “Pretty cool.”

“You’re in this amazing building, and it’s hard not to be impressed by all of it,” Cunningham said. “And you just have this overwhelming sense of duty.”

Following the ceremony, the Assembly voted for speaker in a vote that, for obvious reasons, splits along party lines and resulted in the re-election of Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, Cunningham and other first-term Assembly members attended legislative training sessions — which included refresher courses on how bills become law, current Assembly members speaking about what a day in their life entails, advice on how to balance work and family and advice on staffing.

Leading up to the start of the legislative session, Cunningham is completing logistical tasks such as interviewing and hiring staff to run his district and Capitol offices.

He is deciding whether to use the same district office that predecessor Katcho Achadjian kept at 1150 Osos St. in San Luis Obispo, although it may require some remodeling or other updates. He’s currently examining other possible leases, but said he wants to keep the district office in San Luis Obispo.

In his three terms in the Assembly, Achadjian earned a reputation as one of the few lawmakers to adopt — and adhere to — a no-gifts policy, even posting a sign on the door that read: “We appreciate your generosity; however, this office cannot accept gifts.”

Though the Democratic leadership may move Cunningham to a different office in the Capitol building, the gift policy will remain in place in the 35th District, he said.

“I’m going to continue that tradition,” he said.

When the Legislature is in session, Cunningham said his schedule will include driving to Sacramento on Monday mornings, staying in Sacramento through the Thursday morning session and returning to San Luis Obispo County.

“That last Thursday session is kind of variable; it depends on how much business they have to do,” Cunningham said. “But most weeks, hopefully, I can take off from there in time to pick the kids up from school.”

In an interview with The Tribune in September, Cunningham said his biggest hesitation about running for state office was spending time away from his young family.

“I think it’s tough, but running for any office is going to be a sacrifice,” he said. “Your spouse and kids have to kind of be all in on it. Look, military and those guys, they go for a year, 15 months, to a place that’s not particularly desirable and maybe see their family once. ... People do it, and that’s a part of public service.”

First 100 days

The last day to introduce bills into the Assembly is Feb. 17, and Cunningham said he has lots of work to do to draft or find colleagues interested in collaborating on bills to address several of his big issues.

He and his new chief of staff, Chris Finarelli, have already begun putting together a legislative package of issues that Cunningham would like in his first round of bills.

Finarelli — who previously served as Capitol director for Ling Ling Chang, the former Republican assemblywoman from the 55th District — has policy background in education, and Cunningham said he’s using Finarelli’s expertise in drafting future legislation to support technical and vocational training.

“My big education focus is career and technical ed, vocation education,” he said. “I firmly and strongly believe that the data show we need to be augmenting that because two-thirds of kids who graduate high school today do not finish college in five years.”

He added, “I think we have a mismatch, a big disconnect between the practical skills, the trades, the workforce needs, and what we’re teaching in our high schools and community colleges. And I think we need to bridge that gap.”

Though he doesn’t yet know if the issue is a legislative one, Cunningham said he will immediately begin working with players at different levels of government to repurpose the desalination plant at Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant.

“That’s going to be a long-term project, but expanding water supply generally and figuring out how we can get the water bond money that was passed (with Proposition 1 in 2014) and actually use it to build things. That’s a priority,” he said.

He said he also has a number of “pro-small-business reform ideas” that he would like to include in legislation, but given the Democratic supermajority in both the Assembly and state Senate, Cunningham admitted those may be a tough sell.

“But hopefully, I can partner up, try to find some business-friendly moderate Democrats that can help me out with that, because I really do think small business has a rough go in California,” he said.

On the public safety front — Cunningham, as a candidate, was endorsed by nearly every law enforcement and public safety group in the state — he said he wants to pursue some standard for evaluating intoxication levels for motorists driving under the influence of marijuana. Last month, California voters overwhelmingly passed Proposition 64, legalizing recreational use of marijuana.

“The science behind alcohol impairment, at 0.08 (blood alcohol content) is very well-established. The science behind marijuana impairment, in terms of correlation between THC level and your blood and driving impairment, is not well-established at all,” said Cunningham, using an acronym for the active ingredient of cannabis.

Cunningham said he is studying the science behind some proposed means to gauge marijuana intoxication, be that saliva or blood tests to determine nanograms of THC per a certain volume of blood.

“We’re studying that, and I want to work with the sheriffs, the police, the DA’s association and the defense attorneys, because I know it’s important to get all different sides of these things,” said Cunningham, noting that he’s the only member of the Assembly to work as both a prosecutor and a defense attorney. “They’re not simple questions.”

‘A partisan place’

Cunningham said even though Republicans are far outnumbered in the Legislature, he expects he will be able to follow Achadjian’s reputation as a moderate who can reach across the political aisle and find compromise on most of the issues, such as water and education, that are important to him.

“I knew it was a partisan place. That became very clear to me very early,” Cunningham said. “I think that makes it all the more important that certain people that come from and represent more moderate districts — and I would include this district in that group — are willing to work together on things.”

The 2017-18 legislative session begins Jan. 4.

This story was originally published December 11, 2016 at 7:19 PM with the headline "‘I’ve got my work cut out for me’: Jordan Cunningham talks priorities, partisanship."