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Courtney Berina
From Ballotpedia
This page was current at the end of the individual's last campaign covered by Ballotpedia. Please contact us with any updates.
Courtney Berina (Democratic Party) (also known as CJ) ran for election to the U.S. House to represent California's 30th Congressional District. He lost in the primary on March 3, 2020.
Berina completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2020. Click here to read the survey answers.
Biography
Courtney "CJ" Berina earned a bachelor's degree from California State University, Northridge in May 2012. He also took a continued education course in entrepreneurship at the University of California Los Angeles. His professional experience includes working as a small business owner.[1]
Elections
2020
See also: California's 30th Congressional District election, 2020
General election
General election for U.S. House California District 30
Incumbent Brad Sherman defeated Mark Reed in the general election for U.S. House California District 30 on November 3, 2020.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ |  | Brad Sherman (D) | 69.5 | 240,038 |
 | Mark Reed (R) | 30.5 | 105,426 | |
| Total votes: 345,464 | |||
 = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Nonpartisan primary election
Nonpartisan primary for U.S. House California District 30
Incumbent Brad Sherman and Mark Reed defeated Courtney Berina, Raji Rab, and Brian Carroll in the primary for U.S. House California District 30 on March 3, 2020.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Brad Sherman (D) | 58.1 | 99,282 |
| ✔ | | Mark Reed (R) | 22.7 | 38,778 |
 | Courtney Berina (D) | 11.1 | 18,937 | |
 | Raji Rab (D) | 4.7 | 7,961 | |
| Brian Carroll (D) | 3.5 | 5,984 | ||
| Total votes: 170,942 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Withdrawn or disqualified candidates
- Susan Collin (Independent)
- Royce Dorazio (Unaffiliated)
- Paula Kahn (D)
- Naora Ben-Dov (R)
- Danny Fabricant (R)
Campaign themes
2020
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Courtney Berina completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2020. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Berina's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.
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I am a 30 year old who was born and raised in the San Fernando Valley. I became a student leader at CSU, Northridge in which I was the president & VP of two top organizations on campus with 80+ members. I also was awarded 3 scholarships & an outstanding leadership award from CSUN. After graduating, I started a brand called Collective Lifestyle which had a purpose of changing the world in a positive way. The site would eventually have 1000+ articles from 100+ writers nationwide on various topics that included homelessness, ending wars, sustainability, etc. I eventually opened the Collective Lifestyle store on Reseda blvd. in Northridge. The Collective Lifestyle store had a purpose of providing fashion, music, art, and live events for the Valley. It also doubled as a community space that hosted open mics, art shows, music showcases, educational panels, workshops, and progressive organizations & campaigns. I also won 3 grants from the City of LA Department of Cultural Affairs to activate art in the valley. I produced the Reseda Blvd Summer Series which was a community block party of 15 nights over 3 summers filled with musicians, an art walk, vendors, poets, dancers, art installations, food trucks, and more all based on the themes of peace, love, sustainability, and positive change. I served on the Neighborhood Council for 2 years. I was on a committee that did urban planning in the area. Now, I'm currently an assembly delegate for our district to the CA Democrat Party.
- We need to do everything in our power to move to 100% renewable energy by 2030 to divert the climate emergency.
- We need to get money out of politics. Too many of our politicians are bought and owned by corporate special interests. We need to ban corporate donations, switch to public funded elections, and get out politicians that take money from corporations.
- My 3rd one is Medicare for All, but since it's been talked about so much this election cycle I'll talk about my 4th one. It is ending the wars. We spend more on military spending than the next 10 countries combined and it's still increasing. The latest military budget increase could have paid for tuition free college in America. We need to decrease our spending, pull out of other countries, and move towards peace through diplomacy. We've been at war for most of our country's history. It's about time we stopped since it doesn't seem to be working for us.
I'm very passionate about sustainability. Our current world is not sustainable. We really need to think about our priorities and where we want to see our country in the future. We need to fix the climate emergency first. If we don't do that, we won't have a habitable planet for ourselves and for our kids in the future. The next is that too many countries on earth have corrupt governments that are influenced by corporate interests. That needs to change. Our national policy director should not be a Wall Street executive. Corporations should not be shaping our country's policy. Other than that I am very passionate about helping our working families. I support policies like tuition free college, cancelling student debt, cancelling medical debt, immigration reform, criminal justice reform, a $15 minimum wage, and more.
I personally look up to Bernie Sanders. His leadership, compassion, and policies to serve everyday Americans is something that we need more of in the world. The fact that he is the candidate that said he would not take corporate money to start a political revolution free from special interests is amazing. I believe we owe it to him to finish his vision and create a government that works for all people and not just corporations.
Honesty, Courage, and Leadership.
I would like to leave a legacy of a elected official that actually did something for our community. I want to be someone that serves the people and not corporations. I want to leave a legacy of helping our planet beat the climate emergency. I want to be someone that says no to corruption and corporate influence in our government. I want to be someone that actually makes a difference in our community and inspires change to occur.
My favorite book would have to be "The Alchemist" because it has so many hidden gems and life lessons that could help us with our own personal journeys.
I believe that the U.S. House of Representatives is unique in that it directly represents our district at the national level. It's true representation at the most local level in our federal government. I think that makes it great because our representatives can really represent us and can vote to make our lives easier.
I think it's beneficial, but not needed. Luckily in my case I have experience at multiple local and state levels of government and politics. On a local level, I served on the neighborhood council, an urban planning committee out of the council member's office, and with the Northridge Chamber of Commerce. At the state level, I am currently an assembly delegate for district 45 to the California Democratic Party.
The greatest challenge we'll have over the next decade is the climate emergency. I believe we can overcome this challenge, but it will take our entire country united behind the boldest Green New Deal imaginable to help make this happen. We will need to switch to 100% renewable energy by 2030. We need to transform our country's energy to wind, solar, geothermal, and invest in new renewable technologies. We also need to invest into innovative carbon removal technologies to do so. At the same times we need to be implementing more sustainability practices to make sure our we're not cutting down more trees and to keep our air, water, and oceans clean. We can do it, but we need a Congress that isn't bought by the fossil fuel industry to do so. I have personally taken the 'No Fossil Fuel Money Pledge' to guarantee that my vote in Congress cannot be bought by special interests.
I would like to be on the Climate Crisis, Energy & Commerce, Foreign Affairs committees.
I believe that two years is fine. Four years is too long.
I think term limits would be fine, but if we had term limits we wouldn't see Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, or Joe Biden still fighting till this day. I think if we want to get corruption and money out of politics, the best way to solve this is to switch to public funded elections and to ban corporate donations. If we do this, corporations won't have control of our elected officials. Us, the people will have full control of who is elected into office if we do this.
I would definitely be interested in joining the party's leadership. I would like to usher in a new era of progressive change instead of allowing corporations to decide the rules. I would also want to make sure the Democratic establishment is playing by the rules to make our presidential primaries 100% democratic and not decided by super delegates.
That representative would be Bernie Sanders. I would like to help bring his political revolution of bringing power back to the people to life. I believe we can do that by electing candidates that aren't taking money from corporations. I would also like to model his compassion and commitment to justice in the way that I serve. I also highly admire his stance to stand by working class americans. I would also like to follow his foreign policy on using peace and diplomacy to work out our differences instead of through never ending wars.
I met a homeless man in my district recently. He had injured his arm which he needed to do his work. Due to the injury, he was no longer able to work and unable to pay the bills. So he lost his home and he had no one else he could get help from. So now is sleeping in his car at night. It's unfortunate that our district can't even build homeless housing because people are afraid to put it in our own backyard. I think the moral of the story is that not all homeless people are bad. Some of them want to get jobs but cannot. Not all of them have mental health issues. These are our neighbors that are sometimes just struck with hard times due to policies that our government has setup. It's up to us as a society to help end homelessness and care for our fellow neighbors.
Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.
See also
2020 Elections
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ Information submitted to Ballotpedia through the Candidate Connection survey on February 18, 2020
Senators
Alex Padilla (D)
Adam Schiff (D)
Representatives
District 1
Doug LaMalfa (R)
District 2
Jared Huffman (D)
District 3
Kevin Kiley (R)
District 4
Mike Thompson (D)
District 5
Tom McClintock (R)
District 6
Ami Bera (D)
District 7
Doris Matsui (D)
District 8
John Garamendi (D)
District 9
Josh Harder (D)
District 10
Mark DeSaulnier (D)
District 11
Nancy Pelosi (D)
District 12
Lateefah Simon (D)
District 13
Adam Gray (D)
District 14
Eric Swalwell (D)
District 15
Kevin Mullin (D)
District 16
Sam Liccardo (D)
District 17
Ro Khanna (D)
District 18
Zoe Lofgren (D)
District 19
Jimmy Panetta (D)
District 20
Vince Fong (R)
District 21
Jim Costa (D)
District 22
David Valadao (R)
District 23
Jay Obernolte (R)
District 24
Salud Carbajal (D)
District 25
Raul Ruiz (D)
District 26
Julia Brownley (D)
District 27
District 28
Judy Chu (D)
District 29
Luz Rivas (D)
District 30
Laura Friedman (D)
District 31
Gil Cisneros (D)
District 32
Brad Sherman (D)
District 33
Pete Aguilar (D)
District 34
Jimmy Gomez (D)
District 35
Norma Torres (D)
District 36
Ted Lieu (D)
District 37
District 38
Linda Sánchez (D)
District 39
Mark Takano (D)
District 40
Young Kim (R)
District 41
Ken Calvert (R)
District 42
Robert Garcia (D)
District 43
Maxine Waters (D)
District 44
Nanette Barragán (D)
District 45
Derek Tran (D)
District 46
Lou Correa (D)
District 47
Dave Min (D)
District 48
Darrell Issa (R)
District 49
Mike Levin (D)
District 50
Scott Peters (D)
District 51
Sara Jacobs (D)
District 52
Juan Vargas (D)
Democratic Party (45)
Republican Party (9)
