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Entering his fifth term in the State Assembly since first being elected in 2012, Ken Cooley has focused on a range of different legislative priorities. These include regulatory reform, child abuse prevention, and helping save the state’s mobile hospitals. A fiscal conservative, Cooley also helped keep Covered California on track in the legislature, bringing 600 jobs to the Sacramento region, according to his legislative website.
At 67, Cooley is around 20 years older than the average California State Assembly member, according to a 2017 Sacramento Bee article. He’s old enough that in 2018 he shared a letter that he’d received in 1962 from President John F. Kennedy, in response to a letter he’d written as an eight-year-old boy.
Background
A native of Berkeley, Cooley has lived in Rancho Cordova since 1977, serving on its city council and later as its mayor after its incorporation in 2002. After graduating from McGeorge School of Law in 1977, he went to work for eight years in the office of State Assemblyman Lou Papan. Cooley has also worked as an attorney for organizations such as State Farm Insurance, the California Title Association, and the assembly’s Finance and Insurance Committee.
He and his wife, Sydney, have been married for more than 45 years and have two sons, Bryce and Philip.
Select Legislation
AB 2249: A dispute emerged in early 2016 that some historic landmarks in Yosemite National Park might have to be renamed after a concessionaire sought to trademark their names. In response, Cooley drafted a bill to ban the state from executing contracts with concessionaires who would attempt these sorts of trademarks.
“This is an issue I take personally,” Cooley told the Sacramento Bee. “I grew up in Yosemite. I remember the day my dad and I hiked from Tenaya Lake, all the way to the valley, 25 miles, when I was 11 years old.”
AB 1786: Cooley’s 2016 bill made it so that horses could race in the California Sire Stakes if they’d been bred outside the state but foaled within it.
Committees
Governmental Organization
Insurance
Public Employment and Retirement
Rules (chair)
District Boundaries and Office Locations
Cooley’s district spans much of the eastern portion of Sacramento County, covering unincorporated land and the cities of Rancho Cordova and Citrus Heights. Click here to schedule a meeting.
