Godfrey Santos Plata
Godfrey Santos Plata (Democratic Party) ran for election to the California State Assembly to represent District 53. He lost in the general election on November 3, 2020.
Santos Plata completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2020. Click here to read the survey answers.
Biography
Godfrey Plata was born in Marikina, Philippines. He earned an undergraduate degree from the University of Richmond in 2006 and a graduate degree from the University of California, Berkeley in 2010.[1]
Elections
2020
See also: California State Assembly elections, 2020
General election
General election for California State Assembly District 53
Incumbent Miguel Santiago defeated Godfrey Santos Plata in the general election for California State Assembly District 53 on November 3, 2020.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ |  | Miguel Santiago (D) | 56.3 | 63,776 |
 | Godfrey Santos Plata (D)  | 43.7 | 49,580 | |
| Total votes: 113,356 | |||
| = 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. | ||||
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Nonpartisan primary election
Nonpartisan primary for California State Assembly District 53
Incumbent Miguel Santiago and Godfrey Santos Plata advanced from the primary for California State Assembly District 53 on March 3, 2020.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Miguel Santiago (D) | 62.9 | 35,515 |
| ✔ | | Godfrey Santos Plata (D) | 37.1 | 20,923 |
| Total votes: 56,438 | |||
| = 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. | ||||
Campaign themes
2020
Videos for Ballotpedia
| Video submitted to Ballotpedia Released January 14, 2020 |
| Video submitted to Ballotpedia Released January 21, 2020 |
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Godfrey Santos Plata completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2020. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Santos Plata's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.
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A graduate of LA and Long Beach Unified schools, Godfrey holds degrees from the University of Richmond and UC Berkeley. He was raised by parents whose union jobs secured wages and benefits, allowing them into the middle class. Representing a district of renters, immigrant workers, and their families, Godfrey is a democrat who prioritizes people over profits by rejecting corporate and developer PAC money.
If elected, Godfrey would be the first assembly-person in California's 140-year history to be both an immigrant and a member of the LGBTQ community; the first Filipino assembly-person ever to represent the greater Los Angeles area; and just the second renter to join the assembly in which tenants are represented by just one renter, while more than 25% of legislators are landlords.- I'm an immigrant renter and former public school teacher running to ensure regular, everyday people are represented in policy-making.
- We're fighting for fundamental rights for all people in District 53: a safe place to sleep; enough money for our cost of living; strong public schools; and a healthy life.
- Putting people over profits, we're taking zero funds from corporate PACs or big real estate/development companies -- two out-sized influencers in policy-making.
WORKERS, WAGES, AND QUALITY OF LIFE: Supporting workers and their rights to unionize; fair wages, hours, and benefits; and a just transition to universal health care and clean energy communities
STRENGTHENING PUBLIC EDUCATION: Working toward free day-care, early childhood education, and higher education; maintaining strong traditional public school systems for all kids; and ensuring transparency and equity of resource allocation
As a campaign, we've created our policy agenda specifically by knocking at doors and calling phones of thousands of constituents, to ensure that we were absolutely connected to our base and clear about the top priorities of our community members and their neighborhoods. We only solidified our final intent to run for this office after doing so, to ensure that we're the appropriate representative for our community's needs.
Additionally, we've been incredibly clear about these priorities and further decision-making principles on our campaign website. Beyond the priorities of our campaign, as we come across other legislative needs, I actively seek to name, resist, and reverse policies that perpetuate:
-anti-blackness, racism, and xenophobia;
-gender injustice and trans and homophobia;
-inequities perpetuated by capitalism and colonialism; and
-oppression and suppression based on ability, language, or migration status.
At the same time, California decided on 80 as the number of assembly-members in the late 1800s, which -- at the time -- gave assembly-members even more oversight into representing the needs of their constituents, because California's population was much smaller at the time. Now that California has grown, too many assembly-members have too diverse and large of a constituency to accurately advocate for a set of needs that would benefit their district community. We need to re-evaluate the number of representatives we have in the assembly to be able to better account for the growth of population California has experienced in the 140 years since California decided to have just 80 assembly members.
And as with any team, it is helpful for teams of people to have diverse experiences and perspectives in order to generate the strongest possible solutions to challenges, to enable creative and critical thinking in their work, and to reduce the chances that communities will be marginalized by a dominant majority.
We must elect our state legislators with this in mind.
While I have never been a state legislator, I understand the process of making law and policy because I support public school teachers to understand that process themselves, so they can advocate for issues that are important to them. Given my work in schools and communities, I also understand the necessity of building relationships with others -- even those you may not always see eye to eye -- in order to serve a larger people and purpose. And, most importantly, I bring the experience of someone who lives the everyday realities of our community to the table.
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 January 13, 2020
