Sally Lieber

She represented the 22nd Assembly District that includes the cities of Mountain View, Sunnyvale, Cupertino and portions of Santa Clara and San Jose which are all located in Santa Clara County.

In February 2022, Assemblywoman Lieber was endorsed by the California State Democratic Party for Board Member of the California State Board of Equalization, District 2.

She won the seat in the California general election held on November 8, 2022.

As a youth growing up in the 1960s and 1970s, she was interested in the antiwar and civil rights movements.

After graduating from high school, Lieber worked restoring Victorian houses and specialized in hanging historical wallpapers.

She spent 10 years at this job.

As she hung wallpaper, Lieber's interest in politics grew as she listened to NPR and this encouraged Lieber to return to school.

In her late 20s, she began taking night classes at San Francisco City College.

Sally J. Lieber (born April 24, 1961) is an American politician from the state of California who has served as a member of the California State Board of Equalization since 2023.

She was previously a member of the Mountain View City Council and the California State Assembly.

Lieber was born in Detroit, Michigan on April 24, 1961.

In the mid-1990s, Lieber transferred to Stanford University with a political science major, working with Luis Fraga.

In 1992, she met her husband David Phillips.

The two ran into each other at Burning Man, an arts festival held every year in the Nevada desert.

After they married in 1993, Lieber moved to the peninsula and transferred to Foothill College, where she started going to school full-time and became involved in student government.

She worked on issues of child care for student parents, campus access for the disabled and student health care.

The 37-year-old Lieber, still a senior at Stanford, launched her campaign for Mountain View city government in 1998.

Lieber won this election, as the top vote-getter of seven candidates, and served as Vice Mayor and Mayor.

She also served as the City's representative on the Valley Transportation Authority's Board of Directors and as Chair of the Santa Clara Valley Water District's Water Commission.

Lieber ran for the 22nd Assembly District seat in 2002.

She ran against Santa Clara City Councilperson Rod Diridon Jr., who was endorsed by most party heavyweights, and fellow Mountain View City Councilperson Rosemary Stasek.

She surprised political spectators when she won the Democratic primary with 44 percent of the vote.

Her volunteers walked to 58,000 households during the campaign.

Lieber won the general election against Republican Sunnyvale Mayor Stan Kawczynski.

In the November 7, 2006 general election she was re-elected to her third and final term in the assembly, beating her Republican opponent Roger Riffenburgh by 68.8% to 31.2%.

Lieber announced in December 2006 that she would be running for the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors, District 5 in the 2008 election against Liz Kniss.

She later withdrew from that race.

She took the oath of office for Speaker pro Tempore on October 24, 2006, becoming the third woman to serve in this role since 1849.

She also served on the Assembly's Committee on Insurance, Committee on Judiciary, Committee on Local Government, Committee on Health and as the Chair of the Assembly's Select Committee on Mobilehomes.

She previously served as the Assembly Chair of the legislature's Joint Committee on Ending Poverty in California.

Sally Lieber's main legislative priorities include: increased educational and economic opportunities for all citizens of California, protection for the environment, improvements to public health, and increased social justice.

Lieber authored legislation to increase the state's minimum wage, co-authored a greenhouse gas reduction bill, and joint-author of a bill to legalize gay marriage (though that bill was later vetoed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger).

Lieber was one of only a few heterosexual legislators to joint-author Mark Leno's marriage equality bill.

She has authored legislation that includes efforts increasing pupil immunizations, creating an independent sentencing commission, and improving the living conditions of inmates in California's overcrowded prisons.

Lieber held the office of Speaker pro Tempore in the 2007-2008 legislative session.

In 2008, she was term-limited out of the office.

Lieber currently serves as an advisor to the San Francisco Bay Restoration Authority, an agency that was created through her legislation, and served on Attorney General Kamala Harris' transition team working on women's rehabilitation and mental health.

Lieber was also a 2012 candidate for California's newly drawn 13th State Senate District, which includes northern Santa Clara County and much of San Mateo County, but lost to San Mateo County Supervisor Jerry Hill on November 6, 2012.

During her first term she served as Assistant Speaker pro Tempore.

During this term she was the only woman to serve as an officer of the Assembly.