Press Release
NARAL Pro-Choice California Endorses Dave Jones for California’s 6th State Senate District
For Immediate Release: Tuesday, November 16, 2021
Contact: [email protected]
California’s leading reproductive freedom advocacy group endorses Dave Jones to represent State Senate District 6
Sacramento — NARAL Pro-Choice California today announced its endorsement of former state Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones in his bid to represent California’s 6th state Senate District in 2022. Jones is seeking to fill the vacancy created by the departure of state Senator Richard Pan (D-Sacramento), who terms out in 2022.
NARAL Pro-Choice California Director Shannon Olivieri Hovis said:
“NARAL Pro-Choice California and our nearly 300,000 members across the Golden State are proud to endorse Dave Jones as a champion for reproductive freedom. As anti-choice, anti-freedom lawmakers across the country ramp up their attacks on abortion access, it has never been more critical to elect leaders like Jones to the state Senate. As California’s insurance commissioner, Jones took bold action against the Trump administration’s attacks on abortion access and fought to reduce barriers to affordable contraception and abortion for local families. We need champions like Jones to advance protections for pregnant people in the state, and we enthusiastically support his bid to represent the rights and values of the residents of the 6th Senate District.”
Dave Jones, NARAL Pro-Choice California’s endorsed candidate for state Senate District 6, said:
“I am proud to have earned the endorsement of NARAL Pro-Choice California at such a critical time for reproductive justice. As a city councilmember, state legislator and California’s Insurance Commissioner, I have worked to provide healthcare coverage to millions of Californians. We have worked together to defend and expand access to reproductive healthcare and now we will redouble those efforts to ensure that Californians and those from throughout the country continue to have access to a full range of healthcare services, including abortion.”
Jones has spent the last three years working to combat climate change after serving as California’s insurance commissioner from 2011 through 2018. As California insurance commissioner, Jones took multiple actions to fight the Trump administration’s domestic gag rule, a policy that stripped Title X funding from reproductive health and abortion care providers in the United States. Jones was a leader in implementing the Affordable Care Act to ensure that Californians can access reproductive healthcare services, and in implementing California’s contraceptive equity law and abortion coverage mandate.
While serving in the California State Assembly, Jones authored legislation to fund reproductive health programs and provide gender parity in health insurance premiums, and worked to defeat Propositions 73, 85 and 4—the initiatives to restrict young people’s access to abortion. As a Sacramento City councilmember, Jones authored an ordinance to protect patients and the public from anti-choice extremists attempting to interfere with access to local reproductive health clinics.
California plays a key role in defending access to abortion care as reproductive freedom faces unprecedented threats. On December 1, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade. With an eye to the Court’s anti-choice supermajority, lawmakers hostile to reproductive freedom have ramped up their attacks on abortion access in hopes of ultimately overturning Roe. This year, more than 100 restrictions on abortion access have been enacted at the state level, making it the worst year for abortion rights since Roe was decided.
Although California is a leader in reproductive freedom and healthcare innovation, much work remains for California to meet this moment should Roe fall. Last week, NARAL Pro-Choice California released the 2021 Reproductive Freedom Legislative Scorecard, its first scorecard in more than 20 years. Of the 15 proactive reproductive freedom bills scored this year, just seven were signed into law or accomplished through this year’s budget. Among the bills that stalled were major bills to expand access to abortion care and birth control, a bill to curtail denials of reproductive and gender-inclusive care, and a bill to expand access to family leave.
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For over 50 years, NARAL Pro-Choice America has fought to protect and advance reproductive freedom at the federal and state levels—including access to abortion care, birth control, paid family leave, and protections from pregnancy discrimination—for every body. NARAL is powered by its more than 2.5 million members from every state and congressional district in the country, representing the 8 in 10 Americans who support legal abortion.