Rick Chavez Zbur was born on March 2nd, 1957 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He grew up on a family farm in New Mexico’s Rio Grande Valley, where his parents raised him to “make the best of what you’ve got.” His mother was open-minded and believed in listening to others and treating them with respect, while his father, idealistic and principled, emphasized the importance of working hard. It was his father’s worldview that first opened Rick up to the idea of using politics to achieve change: when Rick was a child, they would stand outside polling places and hand out literature supporting certain candidates. By the time he reached high school, Rick knew he was interested in a future in government service.
As a child, Rick repressed any hint of queerness, not allowing himself to even contemplate the possibility. Influenced by the homophobic attitude of his community, he concealed his sexuality all the way through his undergrad degree at Yale; it wasn’t until he started law school at Harvard that he started slowly coming out to close friends and family members. In 1985, Rick moved to Los Angeles and became an attorney at Latham & Watkins, where he would practice environmental law for nearly three decades. At work, he kept his personal life completely private.
By his fifth year at the firm, the AIDS epidemic was at its height, and Rick was becoming increasingly involved in activism. When simply endorsing certain candidates wasn’t enough, he organized a fundraiser for Barbara Boxer, one of the few senate candidates willing to openly address LGBTQ+ issues. When the news of the event reached his law firm, he worried it would affect his ability to make partner; instead, his department chair pulled him aside and said, “We’re proud of you.”
In 1996, Rick ran for Congress in California’s 38th Congressional District. Though he lost the general election, he won the Democratic primary, making him the first openly LGBTQ+ non-incumbent to win a contested congressional primary in the United States. In 2014, Rick left Latham & Watkins to become the Executive Director of Equality California, a Los Angeles-based civil rights organization that advocates for LBGTQ+ rights statewide. In his time as Executive Director, Rick helped defend workers’ rights, advocate for the reform of discriminatory HIV criminal laws, fight for the protection of LGBTQ+ seniors in long-term care facilities, and more. He also worked to create programs to make schools safe and supportive for LGBTQ+ children, and in September 2023, his Safe and Supportive Schools Act was signed into law by Governor Newsom.
In 2021, Rick announced a run for the California State Assembly, a decision rooted in his decades of dedication to a wide range of causes, including climate change, gun safety, and abortion rights: He was a 20-year board member and six-year president of the California Environmental Voters, a founding director and vice president at the Children Affected by AIDS Foundation, and a board member of Lambda Legal and Planned Parenthood-Los Angeles. In 2022, Rick was elected as a CA State Assemblymember for District 51.
Rick believes in the power of the California legislature to serve as a model and beacon of hope for the rest of the country, and he believes in his ability to help enact change countrywide. As he says in his interview, “The path to justice isn’t something that’s a straight line, but I do think that over time, we continue to move in the direction of progress.”
