Assemblyman Brian Maienschein of the 76th Assembly District is beginning his last term in Sacramento.
Assemblyman Brian Maienschein of the 76th Assembly District is getting to know Escondido—which became part of his district after the redistricting of 2020. As he enters his final term before stepping down due to term limits, the representative plans to continue his core goals from past years.
“I’m going to continue work on public safety, mental care, and homelessness, “ he said.
“It’s good to be at the beginning of a new legislative session, getting into the swing of the New Year. We are working on our bill package and seeing what other people are doing.”
One of the assemblyman’s more unusual committee assignments is as chairman of the Legislative Rare Disease Caucus. “It’s really a great one,” he said. “I’ve been able to get a lot accomplished for that and the state.”
Sometimes a child is born with a rare disease, which is often misdiagnosed or non-diagnosed so the doctor in the hospital doesn’t know what it is. “So you’ve got this kid getting treatment and it’s the wrong treatment. The baby is traumatized and so are the parents and it’s also very costly,” said Maienschein, speaking of the problem. He led in the creation of “Project Baby Bear” which did genome sequencing for babies at Rady’s Children’s Hospital . “It’s been a huge success. I want to continue that work during my final term,” he said.
Maienschein said he is getting to know Escondido. “I grew up in Rancho Bernardo and Poway and was familiar with Escondido. When I was campaigning it was helpful to get down here and go door-to-door. I love Escondido and it was fun to do that during the campaign.”
Asked what issues he is working on that are of special interest to Escondido residents, Maienschein said, “Really, the same issues that affect Escondido affect my entire district. We are going to work on homelessness, preventing gun violence, the fentanyl crises and mental health.”
His approach to homelessness was formulated when he was serving on the San Diego City Council, “I created Project 25, which was hugely successful in dealing with homelessness. Unfortunately the city let it conclude.” However, last year he helped provide “record funding” for homelessness, “and the County now has a tremendous amount of money to deal with it. Ultimately the County provides services. Mental health and housing is an issue, making housing more important. San Diego has committed to streamlining housing to make it more affordable. I’m hoping Escondido will do the same.”
The assemblyman doesn’t rank the issues he will address this year, “because I think they are all important,” he said. “Education is still important. I’ve been supportive of making community college free. We did expanded class sizes at Cal State and passed the middle class scholarship. I’m hesitant to rank them because I think they all effect people in different ways.”
He concluded, “I’m excited to get to work this term. I’m looking forward to addressing some of the issues that face California and this county. I’ve had over 100 bills signed into law and brought money into the district, definitely into the millions.”
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