When Tony Cárdenas was elected to the California state Assembly in 1996, he made history as the first Latino from the San Fernando Valley to serve in the state Legislature.
Similarly, when he moved on to the U.S. House of Representatives, he became the first Latino elected to represent the Valley in Congress.
Now, 28 years after winning his first election, the 61-year-old Cárdenas – who has spent his career encouraging other Latinos to seek political office – is bidding farewell to life as an elected leader.
As he reflected on his long political career during a recent interview, Cárdenas spoke of how he had to be nudged and prodded to run for office the first time. Back then, Cárdenas, a young real estate broker who had studied engineering in college, was on the board of a nonprofit in Pacoima with a woman whose husband turned out to be James Acevedo. Acevedo is a developer active in the Valley’s Latino political scene.
Cárdenas said it was Acevedo who saw something in him and pushed him to run for the Assembly.
“I said, ‘Ha, people like me don’t run for office.’ What I meant was Brown people like me don’t run for office because I didn’t have those examples in my life, growing up,” recounted Cárdenas, who grew up in Pacoima. The youngest of 11 children, Cárdenas and his siblings were raised by immigrant parents.
When Acevedo said it was time that a Latino from his neighborhood run for office, Cárdenas kept giving him names of other potential candidates. After about six months of the back-and-forth, Cárdenas said Acevedo – who must have known how to push Cárdenas’ button – suggested that Cárdenas did not care about his community.
Cárdenas pushed back by rattling off a list of the various ways he was supporting the community – from hiring young people to work for him, to donating money, to volunteering to speak to students at local schools. When he stopped talking, Acevedo said, “that’s why you need to run,” Cárdenas recalled.
So Cárdenas went home and asked his wife Norma what she thought of him tossing his hat in the ring. A somewhat naive Norma – Cárdenas said the couple had no idea how much work would go into campaigning – gave him her blessing. The rest, as they say, is history.
From Sacramento to L.A. City Hall to D.C.
Cárdenas was first elected to the state Legislature in 1996 and served three terms in the Assembly before leaving due to term limits.
In 2002, he ran for a seat on the Los Angeles City Council but lost to Wendy Greuel in what has been described as a nasty and bitter contest. Cárdenas lost by fewer than 250 votes.
Cárdenas again ran for City Council in 2003 when a new opportunity opened up due to redistricting. He won that election and remained on the council for a decade.
Then in 2013, Cárdenas handily won the newly redistricted 29th Congressional District and became the first Latino to represent the Valley in the U.S. House of Representatives.
While Cárdenas was the first Latino to represent L.A.’s San Fernando Valley in various elected posts, he wanted to make sure he wouldn’t be the last. Many credit him for encouraging other Latinos – including Latinas – to run for office, from grooming them to become political candidates to helping raise money for their campaigns as past chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus’ BOLD PAC, which works to get more Latinos elected.
Last year, after Cárdenas announced that he would retire from Congress and not seek reelection in 2024, CHC BOLD PAC Chairwoman Linda Sánchez said in a statement that when when Cárdenas chaired the PAC from 2015 to 2020, he “brought the organization to the next level. His leadership in increasing Latina/o representation in Congress is unparalleled, and his role in making and defending Democratic majorities in the House and Senate cannot be understated.”
U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla, who also grew up in Pacoima and became Cárdenas’ campaign manager when the latter ran for the Assembly, said during a recent L.A. City Council meeting where Cárdenas was being recognized that he’s inspired by his longtime friend.
Padilla said there were a lot fewer Latinos in office when the two of them first got involved in politics and credited the retiring congressman for mentoring and opening doors for other people of color to participate in politics.
“If we’re better today than we were 25, 30 years ago, it’s in large part because of the work and passion of Congressmember Tony Cárdenas,” Padilla said.
L.A. City Councilmember Imelda Padilla, who grew up in the same part of the San Fernando Valley as Cárdenas and Sen. Padilla, is part of a younger generation of Latino politicians who were mentored by Cárdenas.
The councilmember, who was first introduced to Cárdenas when she was on the L.A. City Youth Council and who later received a scholarship from Cárdenas’ family foundation, said that as a young adult, she saw in him someone whose background mirrored her own.
Cárdenas was “someone that could be the son of a gardener, a graduate of (Los Angeles Unified School District) and make it into leadership,” she said. Councilmember Padilla’s own father was a gardener and, like Cárdenas, is a product of LAUSD.
“Doing the right thing”
For Cárdenas, uplifting Latinos and fighting for equality wasn’t just about getting more people from historically underrepresented groups to run for office. He wanted their stories told.
Fourteen years after a bill was introduced in Congress to open a national Latino museum and about 20 years after a bill to open a women’s museum was first brought up, Cárdenas, by 2018, was fed up with seeing those bills languish due to inaction.
“I got tired of waiting for it to happen and I decided to take it on, both of those museums, as my personal mission,” he said.
In all the years since both bills for the museums had been introduced, there had never been a committee hearing to advance the legislation.
“I said, ‘that’s enough. No, this is ridiculous.’ I went ahead and worked the process and got the chairmen and women of the various committees to commit to have a hearing. And we did and the ball got rolling,” Cárdenas said.
About a year-and-a-half later, Congress passed a law authorizing the building of the museums. Those museums are now slated to open around 2034, Cárdenas said.
The museums were among the things Cárdenas said he was proud of achieving while talking to reporters moments after being recognized by the L.A. City Council this month.
During that Dec. 13 council presentation, several current and former elected officials from the L.A. area highlighted Cárdenas’ work on issues related to criminal justice, youth development, environmental justice, immigration and mental health.
In remarks during the recognition ceremony, Cárdenas recounted a decision he made more than a decade ago that could have ended all of his future political aspirations – but which he chose to make because, as he saw it, it was the right thing to do.
He was referring to his decision to testify as a character witness on behalf of Alex Sanchez, a former gang member who started the L.A. branch of Homies Unidos, a nonprofit that focuses on gang prevention and supporting at-risk youth. In 2009, Sanchez was accused of conspiring to commit murder. But some community members – including Cárdenas – rallied to his defense.
The charges were eventually dropped.
Cárdenas, who at the time was on the City Council, said even his chief of staff advised him against being a character witness for Sanchez.
Cárdenas said, “99.99% of the time, you will listen to your advisors and your chiefs of staff and the people who love you and care about you. Because your career does matter and the decisions you make do matter. And how you can be labeled sometimes just by doing the right thing could end your career. And I knew that it could.”
But Cárdenas said it was important to him to be a character witness for a former gang member who had become a community member – someone who had earned a second chance and “did not deserve to be treated less than equal by our system.”
He urged those in elected office to do the right thing when presented with the opportunity.
“When you have a title and you have power, and you know it’s the right thing, I pray, I pray, I pray … (that you make) the right decision,” said Cárdenas, who became emotional as he finished telling that story of doing “what my parents would have wanted me to do.”
“Some people target you”
Several years after being a character witness for Sanchez, Cárdenas found himself dealing with his own negative press.
In 2018, a woman accused Cárdenas of drugging then fondling her years before when she was a teenager. Cárdenas denied the allegations, and his attorney reportedly said the woman, Angela Villela Chavez, was the daughter of a disgruntled former employee of Cárdenas.
Cárdenas’ accuser ultimately dropped her lawsuit after her attorney withdrew from the case for unspecified ethical reasons – but not before some community members and political rivals called for Cárdenas’ resignation.
At the time of the lawsuit’s dismissal, Cárdenas said “the truth prevailed.” During an interview this month, he continued to maintain his innocence.
“When you’re a public figure, some people target you. That case fell apart because there was no case there,” he said.
What past political rivals say
While Cárdenas may have had his political enemies, some of his past rivals praised the retiring congressman.
Greuel, whom Cárdenas lost to the first time he ran for City Council, admitted that things got “intense” when they were vying for the same seat. But after Cárdenas won another seat on the council a year after she did, the two ended up being colleagues for several years and worked together collegially to advocate for open space and to make sure the Valley got its fair share of city funds, Greuel said.
Cárdenas would go on to endorse Greuel years later when she ran for mayor, and she said she supported his subsequent campaigns.
“Tony was passionate about his community and service. It wasn’t just a five-day-a-week job; it was a seven-day job for him,” Greuel said. “I learned from him when we sat next to each other (at council meetings) about issues he had worked on when he was in the Assembly. He demonstrated that it was about serving the people.”
Like Greuel, former L.A. City Councilmember Richard Alarcon ran against Cárdenas once – during the 2016 Congressional election – but offered praise for Cárdenas this month. Alarcon said when he entered the 2016 House race, it wasn’t because he was unhappy with Cárdenas’ job performance but that he wanted to offer voters options.
And when Cárdenas announced that he planned to retire from Congress, Alarcon was surprised.
“Frankly, I was a little disappointed … in the sense that he had gained a certain amount of” seniority and influence, Alarcon said. “So going into the future years, he would’ve had a lot more ability to do things.”
Alarcon said Cárdenas’ fundraising prowess to support Latino candidates locally and nationally, and his ability to nurture future politicians, will be his legacy.
“His ability to raise money in Congress gave him more ability to support people far and wide as opposed to just in the San Fernando Valley. … He enabled other people to attain leadership. I see him more in that vein than I see him as a policy person,” said Alarcon, who described Cárdenas’ legislative agenda as fairly moderate.
“To me, he’s never been one to be most prominent in the legislative ring, but he was very prominent in developing leadership,” Alarcon said.
The future
Cárdenas said when he first ran for the Assembly, he figured he’d only be in politics for a couple of years.
Twenty-eight years later, Cárdenas is ready to start a new chapter in life.
He’s considering starting a business and doing consulting work. He’s also hoping to volunteer on nonprofit boards and is looking forward to spending more time with his family, including his two grandchildren, ages 8 and 6.
With people like U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla, state Assemblymember Celeste Rodriguez, L.A. City Councilmember Imelda Padilla and Rep.-elect Luz Rivas — who will take over Cárdenas’ seat in Congress on Jan. 3 — still active in politics, the retiring congressman said the future is bright for the L.A. region. All four elected officials hail from the Northeast San Fernando Valley and all were encouraged by Cárdenas to run for office.
As he leaves office, Cardenas said the L.A. area is well represented and he has no regrets about stepping aside.
“This place,” he said, “is in good hands.”
Related Articles
These new California laws will go into effect in 2025
Should California’s right-to-die law expand to include people with dementia? OC legislator wants to consider it
Why did Inland Empire Republicans do so well in Nov. 5 election?
Rep. Michelle Steel gives farewell address from the House floor
Josh Newman, recently ousted from state Senate, is already eyeing political comeback