Lola Smallwood-Cuevas | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Official portrait, 2024 | |
| Member of theCalifornia Senate from the28th district | |
| Assumed office December 5, 2022 | |
| Preceded by | Sydney Kamlager-Dove |
| Personal details | |
| Party | Democratic |
| Education | CSU East Bay |
| Website | State Senate website Campaign website |
Lola Smallwood-Cuevas is an American politician and a member of the California Senate. A Democrat, she has represented the 28th Senate District since 2022.
Smallwood-Cuevas succeeded the Senate seat vacated bySydney Kamlager-Dove, who was elected to theCalifornia's 37th congressional district seat vacated byKaren Bass after she was sworn in as theMayor of Los Angeles.[1]
Smallwood-Cuevas was raised by a single mother who worked as aregistered nurse and homecare worker.[2]
According toThe Sacramento Observer, the newspaper which featured her in their fifth installment of theirA Powerful Sisterhood series, "Smallwood-Cuevas spent more than two decades serving as alabor organizer,civil rights activist andcommunity advocate".[2] Prior to her election toCalifornia State Senate, Smallwood-Cuevas had worked for theUCLA Labor Center from 2004 to 2022, and she had served as its project director for 15 years.[3]
While working for the UCLA Labor Center, Smallwood-Cuevas founded the Los Angeles Black Worker Center at theUniversity of California, Los Angeles, with the mission of connecting working class black residents of Los Angeles to employment prospects andunionization resources.[1] She had also founded the Center for the Advancement for Racial Equity at Work.[2] By 2015, the LA Black Worker Center had become instrumental in providing training for black residents to enter the construction industry and advocating for governmental contractors to prioritize local hires, which culminated in black residents making up 20% ofMetro Crenshaw K Line's project workforce. In October 2015,President of the United StatesBarack Obama recognized the organization's success.[1]
In July 2020, Smallwood-Cuevas spoke out againstLos Angeles MayorEric Garcetti's announcement of an expansion to policing in communities of color as well as theLos Angeles City Council's vote to resume cleaning encampments in special zones, calling it "regressive thinking that we need to move beyond" and " part of our failure that the Black community is just 7% of the population, but 40% of those who are on the street".[4]
Her successful 2022 bid forCalifornia State Senate was endorsed by theLos Angeles Times.[1]
| Primary election | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ||
| Democratic | Lola Smallwood-Cuevas | 63,211 | 44.8 | ||
| Democratic | Cheryl C. Turner | 42,728 | 30.3 | ||
| Republican | Joe Lisuzzo | 20,785 | 14.7 | ||
| Democratic | Kamilah Victoria Moore | 9,162 | 6.5 | ||
| Democratic | Jamaal A. Gulledge | 5,267 | 3.7 | ||
| Total votes | 141,153 | 100.0 | |||
| General election | |||||
| Democratic | Lola Smallwood-Cuevas | 117,315 | 59.9 | ||
| Democratic | Cheryl C. Turner | 78,453 | 40.1 | ||
| Total votes | 195,768 | 100.0 | |||
| Democraticgain fromRepublican | |||||
Members of theCalifornia State Senate | ||
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2025–26 Session
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