Retiring Rep. Cárdenas leads Hispanic Democrats in endorsing a successor

Retiring California Rep. Tony Cárdenas (D) is bolstering support for California Assembly Member Luz Rivas as his successor, joining forces with the Hispanic Democrats’ campaign arm, an institution he grew into a major player.

Cárdenas and Bold PAC — the Congressional Hispanic Caucus’s (CHC) campaign arm — are throwing their weight behind Rivas, an MIT engineer and Harvard graduate who turned to politics after working at Motorola and founding a nonprofit to encourage young girls to pursue STEM degrees.

“Bold PAC is proud to endorse Luz Rivas in CA-29. Luz has devoted herself to creating opportunities for Latino families. She has helped countless young Latinas pursue careers in technology. And she has fought to help workers advance their careers and take care of their loved ones. In Congress, she will be a powerful voice for our future,” Bold PAC Chair Rep. Linda Sánchez (D-Calif.) said.

California’s 29th Congressional District is a safe Democratic seat. Rivas will compete in a so-called “jungle primary,” where all candidates compete against each other in a primary and the top two, regardless of party, move on to the general election.

So far, two other candidates have registered: Angélica María Dueñas, a Democratic progressive who lost the general election to Cárdenas in 2022, and Benito Bernal, a Republican who lost the 2018 general election to Cárdenas.

Cárdenas and Rivas, both electrical engineers, are graduates of the same elementary school in Pacoima, a historically disadvantaged neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley.

“I look at Luz as the new and improved member of the 29th District. She’s a lot smarter than me. She’s a lot younger than me. She’s a proven leader. She puts her heart and her efforts in the right place,” said Cárdenas. 

“I mean, you know, she left being an engineer to start a nonprofit from scratch, to help little kids in our community to believe in themselves and to believe that they can go to college, believe that they can be scientists and astronauts and live their dreams.”

Although Rivas is 11 years younger than Cárdenas, she attended school only one year behind Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), a mechanical engineer who recruited Rivas from Pacoima, Calif., to MIT.

Padilla entered politics as campaign manager for Cárdenas’s first California Assembly race in 1996.

“The water [in Pacoima has] always been the same. It’s just that we had to finally let everybody know that we know how to take care of our neighborhoods. We don’t need other people to do it for us. When Alex ran my campaign in ’96 for the State Assembly, that was the first breakthrough,” said Cárdenas.

If representation by STEM-educated Pacoima natives is Cárdenas’s personal legacy, Bold PAC is his lasting mark on the political landscape.

Cárdenas led Bold PAC over three campaign cycles; he inherited a group that raised just under a million dollars for the 2014 cycle and left it after the 2020 cycle, when Bold PAC raised a little over $18 million.

Bold PAC has since been led by Reps. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) and Sánchez, both of whom worked with Cárdenas to recruit successful candidates, including CHC Chair Rep. Nanette Barragán (D-Calif.).

“I’m gonna miss a lot of things about Washington, DC. I have a soft spot in my heart for Bold PAC but they’re in good hands. They’re doing amazingly well. Their fundraising is strong. Our numbers are getting better every cycle. We have more and more members of the Democratic Hispanic Caucus — the CHC,” Cárdenas said.