Nick Schultz, vice mayor of Burbank, on Friday announced his candidacy for the 44th Assembly District seat in the California Legislature.
“I’ve had the honor of working with my colleagues on the Burbank City Council to put forward bold policies that address our housing affordability crisis, protect tenants, provide a living wage and benefits to our workers, take aggressive climate action, and support the needs of our residents and businesses,” Schultz said in a statement.
“We have been well represented by Assemblymember Laura Friedman and she has set a very high bar. I’m running to protect our environment, help reform the criminal justice system, provide more housing opportunities, build a more equitable economy, and care for all Californians by expanding access to quality education and ensure universal health care coverage.”
Friedman has announced her candidacy in the 30th congressional district, represented by Adam Schiff, who in turn is running for U.S. Senate in the 2024 election.
Schultz was elected to the Burbank City Council in 2020, at the time receiving what a campaign news release said was the second highest number of votes in the city’s history for a council race.
The statement said that as a councilmember and vice mayor, he has played a key role in passing the city’s most robust greenhouse gas reduction plan, outlining a path to carbon neutrality for the city; helped implement policies that used resources and treatment to humanely reduce the city’s homeless population by nearly 10%; and was able to help reduce crime by about 10% while reallocating $2 million from the police budget to other city services.
Schultz currently serves as a deputy attorney general with the Special Prosecutions Section of the attorney general’s office in the California Department of Justice. He works with local, state and federal law enforcement officials to investigate and prosecute criminal cases primarily related to public corruption, officer-involved shootings, human trafficking, mortgage fraud, tax evasion and other forms of financial fraud, the campaign release said.
In this role, it added, Schultz helped lead the charge to create the first-of-its-kind Post-Conviction Review Unit at the Department of Justice, which will review claims of innocence and wrongful conviction for cases handled by the state.
Raised by a single mother, he is the first person in his working-class family to attend and graduate from college.
Schultz and his wife, Allie, an attorney in the entertainment industry, reside in the Rancho neighborhood of Burbank with their daughter, Ella, and son, Aiden.
Schultz’s campaign said he has strong support from organized labor, including endorsements from United Association local unions 761 and 250, and community leaders throughout the 44th District.
The website for Schultz’s candidacy is at VoteNickSchultz.com.
First published in the March 25 print issue of the Glendale News-Press.
