Adrin Nazarian ( hy, Ադրին Նազարեան; born March 19, 1973) is an American
politician
A politician is a person active in party politics, or a person holding or seeking an elected office in government. Politicians propose, support, reject and create laws that govern the land and by an extension of its people. Broadly speaking, a ...
of Armenian descent who served in the
California State Assembly
The California State Assembly is the lower house of the California State Legislature, the upper house being the California State Senate. The Assembly convenes, along with the State Senate, at the California State Capitol in Sacramento.
The A ...
until 2022. A
Democrat
Democrat, Democrats, or Democratic may refer to:
Politics
*A proponent of democracy, or democratic government; a form of government involving rule by the people.
*A member of a Democratic Party:
**Democratic Party (United States) (D)
**Democratic ...
, he represented the
46th Assembly District which encompasses the central-southern
San Fernando Valley
The San Fernando Valley, known locally as the Valley, is an urbanized valley in Los Angeles County, California. Located to the north of the Los Angeles Basin, it contains a large portion of the City of Los Angeles, as well as unincorporated ar ...
.
He is of
Armenian
Armenian may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to Armenia, a country in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia
* Armenians, the national people of Armenia, or people of Armenian descent
** Armenian Diaspora, Armenian communities across the ...
descent and Chair of the California Armenian Legislative Caucus and a member of the California Legislative Jewish Caucus.
Biography
Adrin Nazarian was born in
Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
. As a child, he immigrated with his family to the
San Fernando Valley
The San Fernando Valley, known locally as the Valley, is an urbanized valley in Los Angeles County, California. Located to the north of the Los Angeles Basin, it contains a large portion of the City of Los Angeles, as well as unincorporated ar ...
in
Southern California
Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and Cultural area, cultural region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. It includes the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the second most po ...
. He grew up there and received his BA degree in Economics from
UCLA
The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...
in 1996.
After graduating UCLA, Nazarian participated in the
Coro Fellowship in Public Affairs. From 1997 to 1999, he served as an aide to Congressman
Brad Sherman
Bradley James Sherman (born October 24, 1954) is an American accountant and politician serving as the U.S. representative for California's 30th congressional district since 2013. A member of the Democratic Party, he first entered Congress in 19 ...
(D-CA), assisting him with business and labor community issues. In 1999, then-Governor
Gray Davis
Joseph Graham "Gray" Davis Jr. (born December 26, 1942) is an American attorney and former politician who served as the 37th governor of California from 1999 to 2003. In 2003, only a few months into his second term, Davis was recalled and remov ...
appointed Nazarian as Special Assistant to the California Trade and Commerce Agency. During his tenure at the agency, Nazarian helped establish the Division of Science, Technology and Innovation, which focused on creating and maintaining technology-based jobs in California.
Nazarian served as chief of staff to then-Assemblymember
Paul Krekorian
Paul Krekorian (born March 24, 1960) is an American politician, currently serving as the 26th president of the Los Angeles City Council since October 18, 2022. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, he has represent ...
from 2006 until Krekorian was elected to the
Los Angeles City Council
The Los Angeles City Council is the legislative body of the Los Angeles, City of Los Angeles in California.
The council is composed of 15 members elected from single-member districts for four-year terms. The President of the Los Angeles City Counc ...
in 2010. Nazrian then served as Krekorian's chief of staff at City Hall until 2012.
In February 2022, Nazarian announced that he would not seek reelection in the
2022 California State Assembly election, and also announced that he intends to run in 2024 to replace Los Angeles City Councilmember Paul Krekorian, who cannot seek another term due to term limits.
Nazarian has served on the boards of several community-based organizations including the East Valley
YMCA
YMCA, sometimes regionally called the Y, is a worldwide youth organization based in Geneva, Switzerland, with more than 64 million beneficiaries in 120 countries. It was founded on 6 June 1844 by George Williams in London, originally ...
and the YWCA. He was one of the founding members of Generation Next Mentorship program which worked with local public schools to give young people alternatives to a life of gangs and drugs.
Nazarian and his wife, Diana, reside in
Sherman Oaks
Sherman Oaks is a neighborhood in the city of Los Angeles, California located in the San Fernando Valley, founded in 1927. The neighborhood includes a portion of the Santa Monica Mountains, which gives Sherman Oaks a lower population density than ...
with their children Alex, David and Maggie.
Political positions
Affirmative action
Assembly Bill 979, enacted as law in 2020, requires publicly held domestic or foreign corporations whose principal executive office is in California to have a certain minimum numbers of directors from “underrepresented communities” in order to increase diversity on their boards. The term "underrepresented community" is defined as "an individual who self‑identifies as Black,
African American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
,
Hispanic
The term ''Hispanic'' ( es, hispano) refers to people, Spanish culture, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or Hispanidad.
The term commonly applies to countries with a cultural and historical link to Spain and to Vic ...
,
Latino
Latino or Latinos most often refers to:
* Latino (demonym), a term used in the United States for people with cultural ties to Latin America
* Hispanic and Latino Americans in the United States
* The people or cultures of Latin America;
** Latin A ...
,
Asian
Asian may refer to:
* Items from or related to the continent of Asia:
** Asian people, people in or descending from Asia
** Asian culture, the culture of the people from Asia
** Asian cuisine, food based on the style of food of the people from Asi ...
,
Pacific Islander
Pacific Islanders, Pasifika, Pasefika, or rarely Pacificers are the peoples of the list of islands in the Pacific Ocean, Pacific Islands. As an ethnic group, ethnic/race (human categorization), racial term, it is used to describe the original p ...
,
Native American,
Native Hawaiian
Native Hawaiians (also known as Indigenous Hawaiians, Kānaka Maoli, Aboriginal Hawaiians, First Hawaiians, or simply Hawaiians) ( haw, kānaka, , , and ), are the indigenous ethnic group of Polynesian people of the Hawaiian Islands.
Hawaii ...
, or
Alaska Native
Alaska Natives (also known as Alaskan Natives, Native Alaskans, Indigenous Alaskans, Aboriginal Alaskans or First Alaskans) are the indigenous peoples of Alaska and include Iñupiat, Yupik, Aleut, Eyak, Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian, and a numbe ...
, or who self‑identifies as
gay
''Gay'' is a term that primarily refers to a homosexual person or the trait of being homosexual. The term originally meant 'carefree', 'cheerful', or 'bright and showy'.
While scant usage referring to male homosexuality dates to the late 1 ...
,
lesbian
A lesbian is a Homosexuality, homosexual woman.Zimmerman, p. 453. The word is also used for women in relation to their sexual identity or sexual behavior, regardless of sexual orientation, or as an adjective to characterize or associate n ...
,
bisexual
Bisexuality is a romantic or sexual attraction or behavior toward both males and females, or to more than one gender. It may also be defined to include romantic or sexual attraction to people regardless of their sex or gender identity, whi ...
, or
transgender
A transgender (often abbreviated as trans) person is someone whose gender identity or gender expression does not correspond with their sex assigned at birth. Many transgender people experience dysphoria, which they seek to alleviate through tr ...
." In 2022, Nazarian attempted, through Assembly Bill 1840, to add
Armenians
Armenians ( hy, հայեր, ''hayer'' ) are an ethnic group native to the Armenian highlands of Western Asia. Armenians constitute the main population of Armenia and the ''de facto'' independent Artsakh. There is a wide-ranging diaspora ...
,
Assyrians,
Greeks
The Greeks or Hellenes (; el, Έλληνες, ''Éllines'' ) are an ethnic group and nation indigenous to the Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea regions, namely Greece, Cyprus, Albania, Italy, Turkey, Egypt, and, to a lesser extent, oth ...
,
Jews
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
,
Muslims
Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abraha ...
,
Sikhs
Sikhs ( or ; pa, ਸਿੱਖ, ' ) are people who adhere to Sikhism (Sikhi), a monotheistic religion that originated in the late 15th century in the Punjab region of the Indian subcontinent, based on the revelation of Guru Nanak. The term ...
and individuals with
disabilities
Disability is the experience of any condition that makes it more difficult for a person to do certain activities or have equitable access within a given society. Disabilities may be cognitive, developmental, intellectual, mental, physical, se ...
, to the list of underrepresented groups.
Armenia and Artsakh
In response to the
Second Nagorno-Karabakh War
The Second Nagorno-Karabakh War was an armed conflict in 2020 that took place in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding territories. It was a major escalation of an unresolved conflict over the region, involving Azerbai ...
, Nazarian stated "The United States and other world powers cannot continue to ignore
these crimes against the Armenian people. While western global leaders ask for “peace” Turkey has provided arms and even transported
Syrian mercenaries to Azerbaijan to fight with Aliyev’s army. Armenia is a thriving democracy, growing stronger each year. We know who the aggressors are and it is time that the international community acknowledges their complicity in these attacks. It's time the Western powers stopped prioritizing a few cheap barrels of oil over human life and peace."
In response to news coverage of the war, Nazarian called upon journalists to present the facts truthfully and in their entirety, stating "It’s your responsibility to make sure that people have a
historical context
Historiography is the study of the methods of historians in developing history as an academic discipline, and by extension is any body of historical work on a particular subject. The historiography of a specific topic covers how historians hav ...
and understand what is going on."
In response to the ongoing destruction of Armenian cultural and historical sites, Nazarian introduced a cultural heritage preservation bill (Assembly Bill 1815), which "would prohibit a museum in California that receives public funding from displaying any country-funded item or artifact, or sending to a country or receiving from a country any item or artifact, if that country has received an adverse judgment by the
International Court of Justice
The International Court of Justice (ICJ; french: Cour internationale de justice, links=no; ), sometimes known as the World Court, is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN). It settles disputes between states in accordanc ...
regarding its destruction of cultural heritage artifacts or sites."
LGBTQ+ Rights
In 2021, Nazarian introduced Assembly Bill 465, which requires that professional
fiduciaries
A fiduciary is a person who holds a legal or ethical relationship of trust with one or more other parties (person or group of persons). Typically, a fiduciary prudently takes care of money or other assets for another person. One party, for exampl ...
receive LGBTQ+
cultural competency and sensitivity training during their education and licensing process.
Nazarian hosted an October 2022 fundraiser brunch for
GALAS LGBTQ+ Armenian Society
GALAS LGBTQ+ Armenian Society (formerly Gay and Lesbian Armenian Society) is one of the first LGBTQIA+ rights non-governmental organizations founded by Armenian Americans. GALAS was founded in 1998 and is headquartered in West Hollywood, Californ ...
, where the organization and its members received awards and recognition from local elected officials, including Los Angeles County Supervisors
Kathryn Barger
Kathryn Ann Barger-Leibrich is an American politician, serving as a member of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors for the 5th District since 2016. A member of the Republican Party, Barger served as Chair of Los Angeles County from 2019 ...
and
Hilda Solis
Hilda Lucia Solis (; born October 20, 1957) is an American politician and a member of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors for the 1st district. Solis previously served as the 25th United States Secretary of Labor from 2009 to 2013, as par ...
and Los Angeles City Councilmember
Paul Krekorian
Paul Krekorian (born March 24, 1960) is an American politician, currently serving as the 26th president of the Los Angeles City Council since October 18, 2022. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, he has represent ...
.
Political career
California State Assembly 2012
The Campaign
The primary election was held on June 5, 2012, where Nazarian placed in first with 27.5% of the vote defeating a crowded field of 6 candidates; Andrew Lachman (D), Adriano Lecaros (D), Brian Johnson (D), Laurette Healey (D), and Jay Stern (R).
On November 6, 2012, Nazarian handily won over his opponent Jay Stern (R) with the support of 71% of the voting electorate.
Assemblymember representing the 46th district
![Official 1st Bill Intro 008 02-11-13](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ec/Official_1st_Bill_Intro_008_02-11-13.jpg)
On December 3, 2012, Adrin Nazarian was inaugurated into the California State Assembly, representing the
46th district, encompassing the central-southern
San Fernando Valley
The San Fernando Valley, known locally as the Valley, is an urbanized valley in Los Angeles County, California. Located to the north of the Los Angeles Basin, it contains a large portion of the City of Los Angeles, as well as unincorporated ar ...
in
Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...
. He is a member of the Assembly Committees on Budget, Education, Health, Rules, and Transportation. Assemblymember Nazarian also sits on the State Allocation Board.
=Legislation 2013-2014
=
AB 286 Film Industry Tax CreditAB 320 Tobacco-Free PolicyAB 422 School Lunch Health NoticeAB 442 Minimum WageAB 501 New Car Dealers Clean-UpAB 505 Language Access StandardsAB 580 Funding for ArtsAB 612 Traffic LightsAB 617 Exchange/Medi-Cal Notice & Appeal ProceduresAB 649 Fracking MoratoriumAB 650 NGS ProgramAB 850 JPA Rate Reduction BondsAB 1189 Film Industry Tax CreditACR 28 Armed Forces Day
California State Assembly 2014
California State Assembly 2016
California State Assembly 2018
California State Assembly 2020
In June 2021, Nazarian announced $11 million in state funding for three arts and educational institutions: $1 million to the
USC Institute of Armenian Studies, $1 million to the
Lark Musical Society, and $9 million to establish a
Tumo Center for Creative Technologies
The TUMO Center for Creative Technologies ( hy, Թումո ստեղծարար տեխնոլոգիաների կենտրոն) is a free education program for teenagers aged 12–18 specializing in technology and design, with education being provided ...
location in the southeast
San Fernando Valley
The San Fernando Valley, known locally as the Valley, is an urbanized valley in Los Angeles County, California. Located to the north of the Los Angeles Basin, it contains a large portion of the City of Los Angeles, as well as unincorporated ar ...
.
Electoral history
2012
2014
2016
2018
References
External links
* — ''California's 46th State Assembly district: Adrin Nazarian''
*
Campaign website then-candidate Adrin Nazarian
Join California Adrin Nazarian
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nazarian, Adrin
Democratic Party members of the California State Assembly
Living people
University of California, Los Angeles alumni
Ethnic Armenian politicians
People from Sherman Oaks, Los Angeles
1973 births
American people of Armenian descent
American politicians of Armenian descent
21st-century American politicians
American politicians of Iranian descent
People from Tehran
Iranian emigrants to the United States
Iranian people of Armenian descent