A union leader looks to bring the labor movement to the 67th Assembly District

Ada Briceño recalled a time when hotel workers had few political allies in Orange County they could count on.

Long before “blue waves,” union drives and contract fights at resort-area hotels in Anaheim and Garden Grove in the early 2000s had next to no support outside of former state Sen. Joe Dunn and former Anaheim City Councilman Richard Chavez.

“I counted with my hands the people that would listen to workers,” Briceño said. “It was an impossible situation.”

Having launched a campaign for the 67th Assembly District, the co-president of Unite Here Local 11, a hotel workers union, is now looking to be that representative who will directly advocate for working class residents, as current Assemblywoman Sharon Quirk-Silva terms out in 2026.

“I’m running because we need people like me to be in the Legislature,” said Briceño, a Cypress resident. “I’ve washed dishes at the Anaheim Convention Center. I bussed tables at a small restaurant in San Pedro. The only way to bring back the working class is if you legislate on their behalf. Who better to do that than a former worker and organizer like myself?”

The county’s political landscape has changed drastically since Unite Here Local 11’s early labor campaigns, with Democrats now claiming all but one congressional seat and registered Democrats outnumbering Republicans by roughly 40,000 voters.

For the past six years, Briceño has guided the transformation along as the chair of the Democratic Party of Orange County, a post she stepped down from last month.

But even with more labor-friendly elected officials across O.C., Briceño’s focus on the 2026 election is motivated, in part, by the belief that the Democratic Party lost segments of working class voters nationwide last November.

She’s seeking to win them back with the 67th District including working class swaths of Anaheim, Fullerton, Buena Park and Hawaiian Gardens.

Briceño helped introduce Bernie Sanders during a 2020 campaign stop in Santa Ana

(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)

In announcing her campaign, Briceño hopes to join a list of former Unite Here leaders and organizers who have gone on to win elected office, from state Sen. Maria Elena Durazo to Los Angeles City Councilman Hugo Soto-Martinez.

It marks another key moment of integration between the labor movement and the local Democratic Party.

Tobias Higbie, a professor of history and labor studies at UCLA, noted that labor unions have a long tradition of running members and leaders for elected office as part of taking a broader view of social change.

“Unions are also venues where new leaders emerge from the community and test their vision and skills,” he said. “In this sense, it’s natural that someone like Briceño, who has successfully led an important and large organization like Unite Here Local 11 should see elected office as a logical next step.”

For Briceño, having a former Latina labor leader like Durazo in the state Senate served as an example and an inspiration.

“It is important to see her there, to understand that she’s legislating on behalf of working families,” Briceño said. “Absolutely, it was part of what influenced me to run.”

The race has yet to shape up outside of Artesia Mayor Ali Taj, a fellow Democrat, set to run for the seat. He has gained the endorsement of Quirk-Silva, the incumbent, and is making his own appeal to working families.

As an immigrant from Pakistan who worked for $4.35 an hour as a salesperson at the Good Guys electronic store in Artesia, affordable housing is the key issue he wants to bring to Sacramento.

“For me, it’s personal,” Taj said. “My son, who lives in Fullerton, can’t buy a house with his wife. They have a daughter and can just meet their rent. It’s important for the younger generation, who is coming out of college, working their jobs, sometimes two jobs, and are barely able to make ends meet and buy expensive eggs, which there’s a shortage of.”

Taj also touts his past experience as a chair of the Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts who helped to negotiate project labor agreements for union workers.

With her own campaign underway, Briceño’s platform includes a pledge to champion affordable housing as a key issue, alongside accessible education, boosting apprenticeship programs and economic justice.

“We need to make sure that people live where they work,” she said. “These are issues I have long advocated for.”

Briceño has participated in about half a dozen civil disobedience arrest actions as part of that advocacy.

Her campaign for the Assembly seat has rolled out with a lengthy list of endorsers, including Rep. Derek Tran.

She had already decided to step down as party chair before committing to run. But, should Briceño win the election, the labor leader said she would leave her post as a co-president of Unite Here Local 11, where she’s been a fixture in leadership positions for the past quarter-century.

It’s a sacrifice Briceño is prepared to make, given the current political climate.

“Whether you like Trump or not, he has offered a bold vision for the country,” she said. “We have to counter that. My leadership has always been very bold. My union has built a movement. I’m going to show the district that I will work just as hard for them as I have for my members.”