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Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan (D-Orinda) and real estate appraiser Joe Rubay (R-Alamo) are running to represent Assembly District 13 in the Nov. 3 election. It’s the fourth time since 2020 the two have competed for the seat, which represents Pleasanton, Livermore, San Ramon, Danville and Dublin, as well as Alamo, Lafayette, Moraga, Orinda and Walnut Creek. Both candidates advanced from the three-candidate primary under California’s top-two primary system.
“My message is simple: I am focused on getting results, not playing political games,” Bauer-Kahan said in a statement to the Weekly.
“I ran for the Assembly to solve problems, and for nearly eight years that’s what I’ve done,” she added. “I’ve authored more than 80 bills that have passed the Legislature, working across the aisle and putting our community above special interests.”
Bauer-Kahan is a Bay Area native who worked as an attorney, environmental advocate, community volunteer and law professor before first being elected to the state Assembly in 2018.
Since then, she said, she has worked on a number of bills and pieces of legislation that have direct impacts on Tri-Valley residents and other Californians.
Among her achievements in office, she said, are strengthening gun safety and hate crime laws; funding law enforcement to better respond to retail theft; supporting legislation to further advance the completion of the Valley Link Rail Project; and passing legislation to stop utilities from charging customers for the wildfires those utilities have caused.
She said she also required data centers to “disclose their energy use and makes sure Big Tech pays for its own power, not Tri-Valley families”; eliminated the “pink tax,” which charged more for products marketed to women than those marketed to men; ensured forgiven student and medical debt isn’t taxed as income; and fought for better mental health support services for children.
“Tri-Valley families want what I want for my own three kids: safe neighborhoods, a community they can afford to live in and growth that doesn’t cost us what makes this place special,” she said.
Rubay, a longtime Contra Costa county resident, businessman and community leader who has owned and operated his own appraisal business for more than 30 years, said his top priority is public safety.
He pointed to the recent Heller’s Jewelers robberies in San Ramon and what he said was an increase in smash-and-grab crimes throughout Danville and Pleasanton as examples of why more needs to be done at the state level to address crime.
“Our law enforcement is the best in the state, what we need is a state Legislature that holds the criminals accountable,” Rubay said.
He said if elected, he plans to look into funding Proposition 36, a piece of legislation that voters passed in 2024 that allows for felony charges and increased sentences to be imposed on certain thefts and hard drug crimes.
Additionally, he said he would oppose measures similar to Assembly Bill 2047, which makes it “unlawful to sell, offer for sale or transfer for consideration a 3-dimensional printer in the State of California that is not equipped with firearm blocking technology that also meets the above-described industry standards.”
“The state needs to regulate less,” Rubay said.
Some of Rubay’s other top campaign goals include providing adequate funding to school districts to bring back school buses, which he said would lead to less traffic as parents wouldn’t need to drive their kids to school; stopping minimum wage increases, which he said is putting a strain on small businesses; and pulling back on state housing legislation.
“More units forced upon the local communities means more traffic among other issues,” Rubay said.
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