Candidate for
State Senator; District 7

About Joan Buchanan

Assemblymember Joan Buchanan was elected to the California Assembly in 2008. She recently finished her 3rd term representing the 16th Assembly District (AD-16) and is seeking her first term in the California Senate in Senate District 7 (SD-7). In the 2010 census, SD-7 was reapportioned to include all of the communities in AD-16. SD-7 includes the communities of Alamo, Danville, Dublin, Lafayette, Livermore, Moraga, Orinda, Pleasanton, San Ramon, and Walnut Creek as well as portions of Pleasant Hill and Concord and the communities of Bay Point, Pittsburg, Antioch, Clayton, Oakley, Brentwood and Discovery Bay.

A veteran school board member with 18 years of service on the San Ramon Valley School Board, including four terms as board president, education has been a lifelong priority for Assemblymember Buchanan. Since her election to the Assembly, Joan has deepened her understanding of our education system and fought hard for increased funding for our schools. As Chair of the Assembly Education Committee, Joan has skillfully guided numerous new education initiatives into law, including several new training and technology programs. Joan understands that for California's economy to thrive in the future, we must invest in a strong public education system. Through her service on the State Allocation Board, Joan worked to maximize the state's investment in school facilities for all students.

Since 2008, Joan has pursued a legislative agenda focused on fiscal accountability, technology and innovation, and job creation. She has been a proponent of performance based budgeting, using data to drive decision-making and the allocation of resources. She has authored several bills to improve the development and acquisition of information technology by the State of California, recognizing that technology is critical to providing timely and cost-effective services and information to the residents of California.

In addition to chairing the Assembly Education Committee, she served on the standing committees of Utilities & Commerce, Transportation and Accountability & Administrative Review. In 2009, she was appointed, by the Speaker, to the Special Education Commission and in 2010 to the Court Technology Advisory Committee and the State Allocations Board. She also chairs the Select Committee on Government Efficiency, Technology, and Innovation and served on the Select Committee on Gun Violence in the East Bay. In 2013, she was appointed by the Speaker, to represent California on the Education Committee of the Council of State Governments.

Prior to her years of public service, Joan was an analyst with Delta Dental and quickly became one of the fastest rising women in the company and was promoted to Director of Commercial Operations before the age of 30. She left the private sector to raise her five children and in the process became one of the San Ramon Valley's most effective community activists and education advocates.

Joan is a 36 year resident of Alamo, CA and a native Californian. She holds a B.A. in Economics from the University of California, Santa Barbara.