Full Biography for Ted Lempert

Candidate for
Member of the State Assembly; District 21

Ted Lempert (D - Palo Alto) was elected to the State Assembly in November 1996 with over 60% of the vote. He represents the 21st Assembly District (Los Altos to Foster City).

A lifelong resident of the Peninsula, Assemblyman Lempert attended local public schools. He graduated from Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and earned his law degree from Stanford University. Prior to holding public office, Lempert was special counsel and an associate for the firm of Sheppard, Mullin, Richter and Hampton. He also has experience at the U.S. Attorney's Office in San Francisco.

Lempert chairs the Assembly Higher Education Committee and the Assembly Select Committee on Education Technology. He serves as a member of the Committees on K-12 Education, Banking and Finance, Housing, Legislative Ethics, Transportation, and Headwaters Forest and Ecosystem Management Planning. He also chairs the Assembly Select Committee on Coastal Protection. Lempert's major legislative initiatives include the California Internet Tax Freedom Act and the Charter Schools Act of 1998.

Lempert was first elected to the California State Assembly in 1988, defeating an incumbent to become the first Democrat in over one hundred years to be elected to the former 20th Assembly District seat. He was re-elected in 1990 but in 1992 his district was eliminated due to reapportionment. Lempert has also served on the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors, where he was President of the Board in 1995.

During his previous tenure in the Assembly, Lempert was a principal author of the Political Reform Act of 1989, the Lempert-Keene-Seastrand Oil Spill Prevention and Response Act of 1990, and the Coastal Sanctuary Act of 1992. He was named "Legislator of the Year" by the California School Boards Association and the University of California Students' Association. He also received the American Electronics Association's High Technology Achievement Award and was named AEA "High-Tech Legislator of the Year" in 1997.

As a Supervisor, he was a principal architect of the county's economic development plan, the chair of the Task Force on Violent Crime Against Women, and the founder of the County's Youth Commission. He volunteers as President of the Board of Directors of the Junior Statesmen of America Foundation.

Ted, his wife Nicole, and their daughter, Caroline, live in San Carlos.