Mark Leno

Mark Leno (born September 24, 1951) is an American politician who served in the California State Senate until November 2016.

In 1978, Leno started Budget Signs as owner and operator.

The business incorporated in 1982.

Working with his life partner, Douglas Jackson, the business continued to grow and their involvement in community affairs steadily expanded.

Jackson died from complications related to AIDS in 1990.

Prior to his election, his political background included raising money for candidates and causes such as AIDS services, the San Francisco LGBT Community Center, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, and the Democratic Party.

Before his time in the Legislature, he served as a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors between 1998 and 2002.

Leno was appointed to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors by Willie Brown in April 1998.

He was elected citywide to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in November 1998 and re-elected in the reinstated district races of 2000.

Leno's district included The Castro, Noe Valley, Glen Park, Diamond Heights, Twin Peaks, Duboce Triangle, and the westernmost part of the Mission District.

Leno introduced legislation to allow tenants to replace a roommate without losing their lease, measures to aid those with HIV/AIDS, and a measure to promote the federal Earned Income Tax Credit to help low income residents.

He authored legislation to ban mercury thermometers, one of the first such proposals in the country.

In 2000, as a supervisor, he supported Proposition L, the slow-growth measure and authored legislation to protect neighborhood business districts from big box retail.

He was a statewide spokesman for the No on Proposition 22 campaign.

In 2001, Leno successfully introduced an ordinance providing equal access to the city's health plan for transgender employees of San Francisco.

Leno was elected to the California State Assembly in 2002 and was re-elected in 2004 and 2006.

He was the chair of the Assembly's Appropriations Committee, as well as the Select Committee on Childhood Obesity & Related Diabetes.

In 2005, Leno authored AB 849, a bill legalizing same-sex marriages that became the first bill of its kind to pass a legislative body in the United States.

The bill passed both the Assembly and the State Senate but was vetoed by Governor Schwarzenegger.

In 2006, Leno and Republican Assemblyman Chuck DeVore co-authored a bill that would legalize the cultivation of non-psychoactive hemp.

The bill does not conflict with the federal Controlled Substances Act and would mandate that hemp be tested to ensure it is non-psychoactive.

In 2007, Leno introduced AB 43, the Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Protection Act, that would have allowed for same-sex marriage.

This bill passed the Assembly and Senate but was again vetoed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

He authored California Assembly Bill Number AB 1668, on February 23, 2007 — a bill encouraging Open Document Formats ODF in California.

In Leno's first two terms in the Assembly, 58 of his bills were signed into law.

He co-authored AB 32 to cap greenhouse emissions.

He authored AB 706 to prohibit the use of fire retardants in upholstered furniture.

Before being elected to the State Senate in 2008, Leno served in the California State Assembly, representing the 13th Assembly District.

Same-sex marriage was legalized by the California Supreme Court in a May 2008 decision, becoming effective June 16, 2008.

Before the 2010 redistricting, he represented the 3rd Senate district.

A member of the California Legislative LGBT Caucus, Leno was the first openly gay man elected to the State Senate.

He was previously one of the first two openly gay men (along with John Laird) to serve in the California State Assembly.

A Democrat, he represented the 11th Senate district, which includes San Francisco and portions of San Mateo County.

Leno is the owner of Budget Signs Inc., a small business, and was a candidate in the San Francisco mayoral special election, which was held June 5, 2018.

Leno is the grandson of Russian Jewish immigrants.

A native of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, he attended Nicolet High School and later the University of Colorado at Boulder.

He was valedictorian of his graduating class at the American College in Jerusalem, where he earned his Bachelor of Arts degree.

Leno also spent two years in rabbinical studies at Hebrew Union College in New York.

Afterward, he moved to San Francisco on the invitation of his sister.

He lived his first four years in the Tenderloin before moving to the Noe Valley neighborhood.