FIONA MA, FORMER SPEAKER PRO TEMPORE OF THE ASSEMBLY
During her entire time in elected office, Fiona Ma has been a huge supporter of veterans, veteran rights and continuing the SF JROTC program including fundraising efforts and attending numerous annual Spring Competitions and Drum Corp Competitions. She has been an annual participant and speaker at the SF Memorial Day Celebrations in the Presidio over the past decade, marched in the annual SF Veterans Parade and has been a strong advocate for the South Vietnamese Military Veterans, and has recognized various veterans from her Assembly district as her “Veteran of the Year” in Sacramento (2006-2012). She has worked with the Gold Star Moms and Blue Star Moms on various projects
Legislative Accomplishments
Strongly Supported SF Proposition V (November 2008): Passed by 54.63%. Proposition V was a policy statement to give voters the opportunity to make the statement that San Francisco schools should continue to maintain a Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps (JROTC) program. The JROTC programs in seven San Francisco high schools would have been dissolved at the end of the 2008-09 school year. Proposition V on November’s ballot would encourage the Board of Education to reverse its 2006 decision to terminate these programs.
The Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps began in 1916. While its initial focus was to identify enlisted recruits and officers, it changed over the years to a focus on citizenship and more recently to a focus on life skills and civic responsibility. While JROTC instructors are all active duty Army retirees, the program is less focused on the military today than in the past.
Nationwide, as of November 2008, there were 1,645 schools with JROTC programs that serve 281,000 students. The San Francisco JROTC program is both during and after-school and currently serves over 1,400 high school students (which represents a decline of 200 since the passage of the policy to phase out JROTC). The majority of the students are girls.
The school board and voters had previously voted against the presence of military in schools on several occasions. Prior to the passage of No Child Left Behind, San Francisco schools barred military recruiting from public schools. Then in November 2005, 59 percent of the voters approved Prop. I, which made it City policy to oppose military recruiting in public schools.
In 2006, the school board voted to phase out the seven JROTC programs in city high schools by June 2008. The primary justification was that the JROTC program is operated by the U.S. Military, which bars gays and lesbians, and that the board has no say over who is hired as an instructor.
A separate vote in December 2007 allowed the program to continue until June 2009 while the district identified and piloted a replacement program. However, in June 2008, the school board took away the physical education credits students receive for enrolling in JROTC -- making it very difficult for students to keep the program in their academic schedule since it would no longer count towards overall credits required for college admittance.
Authored AB 223 (Ma) (Feb 2009) would have required the San Francisco Unified School District to reinstate JROTC and grant JROTC participants P.E. credit for graduation.
Strongly Supported a Resolution by San Francisco School Board Trustee Jill Wynns (March 2009) to keep JROTC in our public high schools.
AB 199 (Ma)(Chaptered 2012)- WWII Filipino Veterans in Curriculum: Encouraged social science instruction in grades 7-12 to include the significant role of Filipinos in World War II to ensure that our children and future generations learn of the contributions and sacrifice of these brave Filipino soldiers before we lose them to history.
Assembly Joint Resolution 6 - Filipino veterans (Chaptered June 6, 2012) - This resolution requested that the Congress and the President of the United States enact the Filipino Veterans Fairness Act of 2011 (H.R. 210).
Assembly Concurrent Resolution 159 (Ma/Gorrell)(Chaptered September 18, 2012): Encouraged California's institutions of higher learning, the University of California, California State University and the California Community Colleges to move cohesively and in an expeditious manner to evaluate and adopt the American Council on Education's (ACE) credit recommendations to give veterans their due credit for appropriate military experience.
Other Veterans Activities
Assembly Resolution (May 2010): Recognized Lt. Col. Robert Powell, Jr. who retired after 28 years. He started at Lincoln High School in Fall 1982 as a Senior Army Instructor and by Fall 1995 he was promoted to Director of Army Instruction. He had been doing both jobs since 1995.
October 4-5, 2011: Flew out to the USS Abraham Lincoln while at sea, departed Naval Air Station North Island (NASNI) in San Diego, CA via a Navy C-2 Greyhound, experienced an arrested landing; and flew back to NASNI experiencing a catapult launch off of the ship.
Biography
Fiona Ma was first elected to represent the people of California’s 12th Assembly District from November 2006 to November 2012 (after serving the maximum of three terms.) She was the #112th woman to ever be elected to the California Legislature and the first Asian women to ever serve as Speaker pro Tempore since 1850.
The 12th Assembly District represented 450,000 and included the cities of San Francisco, Daly City, Colma and Broadmoor.
Interests in Business and Politics
Assemblywoman Ma first became interested in politics as a small business owner and a Certified Public Accountant advocating on behalf of other small businesses. She was an elected delegate to the White House Conference on Small Business under President Bill Clinton, which produced a report to Congress on the 60 top policy recommendations to help small businesses grow and prosper in the 21st century.
She formally entered the field of politics in 1995, serving as a part-time district representative for the former President pro Tempore of the California Senate, John Burton. It was a position that would last for seven years, after which she was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, where she served for four years until 2006. During her tenure on the Board of Supervisors, she authored the landmark Local Business Enterprise ordinance on behalf of women and minority business owners and passed legislation to tackle human trafficking.
Groundbreaking Toxic Legislation
Building on her work combating toxic chemicals in San Francisco, Assemblywoman Ma authored groundbreaking legislation to ban toxic chemicals, known as phthalates, in baby products statewide. AB 1108 was a first such law in the nation and was signed by Gov. Schwarzenegger in 2007. It became the model for the federal amendment on the same subject, authored by U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein, which was signed into law as part of the federal Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008.
Key Committee Assignments
Assemblywoman Ma served on key Assembly committees, including Agriculture; Business and Professions; Governmental Organization, Public Employees, Retirement and Social Security; and Utilities and Commerce. She also served on the following Select Committees: Domestic Violence; Alcohol and Drug Abuse; Foster Care; Preservation of California’s Entertainment Industry; Rail Transportation; Regional Approaches to Addressing the State’s Water Crisis; and Safety and Protection of At-Risk Communities in CA; and the Joint Committee on Fairs, Allocation and Classification and the Joint Committee for the Protection of Lake Tahoe.
As Chair of the Assembly Select Committee on Domestic Violence, she worked on legislation to protect victims of domestic violence. She authored groundbreaking legislation to protect consumers, help California’s working families pay the bills, prevent the spread of Hepatitis B, increase access to quality healthcare, and provide equal rights for all Californians. She was a strong advocate for better neighborhoods, authoring laws to combat graffiti, recycling theft and disabled placard abuse. As a joint author of Proposition 1-A, which was approved by voters in November, 2008, she was the legislature’s leading advocate to bring high-speed trains to California.
State, National, and International Outreach
Assemblywoman Ma took a lead in promoting trade and fostering relationships between California and Asia. For the past 10 years, she has led legislative delegations to China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Japan.
She focused on improving California’s bottom line and authored legislation to create jobs in California and grow the state’s economy. As an Executive Board Member of the National Conference of State Legislators, she worked to keep California competitive with other states.
While serving in the Assembly, in addition to NCSL, Fiona served as Western States Chair of Women in Government; was an Executive Board Member of the California Democratic Party; and is Member of the Aspen Institute's 2009 Class of Aspen-Rodel Fellows.
She is currently on the Board of CA Women Lead; Board of Directors for Curry Without Worry; Board of Directors of Asian Inc; President of the Asian American Donor Program Honorary Chair and Spokesperson of the San Francisco Hep B Free Campaign; and Honorary California Chair of the New Leaders Council. She serves on the Advisory Boards of the James L. Brady Riding Program for Children with Disabilities, Family Connections, Alliance for Girls and the SF Ethnic Dance Festival. She is also a member of the Screen Actors Guild.
Helping Youth
Fiona believes strongly in the need to nurture our next generation and expose them to public service and happily accepted many interns in her Capitol and District Offices. From 2006-2012, under the tutelage of District Director Bob Twomey, MaSquadCA has mentored over 1,000 young volunteers from throughout the SF Bay Area and as far as Chicago, New York, China, Chile, Argentina and African and ranging in age from 13-32 and accomplished a variety of projects for and with various communities in and around San Francisco and throughout the State of California.
Education
Assemblywoman Ma received her B.S. from the Rochester Institute of Technology (NY), her M.S. in Taxation from Golden Gate University (SF), and an MBA from Pepperdine University. She has been licensed in California as a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) since 1992. She is a Member of CalCPA and CalCPA's Public Policy Task Force.
Legislative Accomplishments
Strongly Supported SF Proposition V (November 2008): Passed by 54.63%. Proposition V was a policy statement to give voters the opportunity to make the statement that San Francisco schools should continue to maintain a Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps (JROTC) program. The JROTC programs in seven San Francisco high schools would have been dissolved at the end of the 2008-09 school year. Proposition V on November’s ballot would encourage the Board of Education to reverse its 2006 decision to terminate these programs.
The Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps began in 1916. While its initial focus was to identify enlisted recruits and officers, it changed over the years to a focus on citizenship and more recently to a focus on life skills and civic responsibility. While JROTC instructors are all active duty Army retirees, the program is less focused on the military today than in the past.
Nationwide, as of November 2008, there were 1,645 schools with JROTC programs that serve 281,000 students. The San Francisco JROTC program is both during and after-school and currently serves over 1,400 high school students (which represents a decline of 200 since the passage of the policy to phase out JROTC). The majority of the students are girls.
The school board and voters had previously voted against the presence of military in schools on several occasions. Prior to the passage of No Child Left Behind, San Francisco schools barred military recruiting from public schools. Then in November 2005, 59 percent of the voters approved Prop. I, which made it City policy to oppose military recruiting in public schools.
In 2006, the school board voted to phase out the seven JROTC programs in city high schools by June 2008. The primary justification was that the JROTC program is operated by the U.S. Military, which bars gays and lesbians, and that the board has no say over who is hired as an instructor.
A separate vote in December 2007 allowed the program to continue until June 2009 while the district identified and piloted a replacement program. However, in June 2008, the school board took away the physical education credits students receive for enrolling in JROTC -- making it very difficult for students to keep the program in their academic schedule since it would no longer count towards overall credits required for college admittance.
Authored AB 223 (Ma) (Feb 2009) would have required the San Francisco Unified School District to reinstate JROTC and grant JROTC participants P.E. credit for graduation.
Strongly Supported a Resolution by San Francisco School Board Trustee Jill Wynns (March 2009) to keep JROTC in our public high schools.
AB 199 (Ma)(Chaptered 2012)- WWII Filipino Veterans in Curriculum: Encouraged social science instruction in grades 7-12 to include the significant role of Filipinos in World War II to ensure that our children and future generations learn of the contributions and sacrifice of these brave Filipino soldiers before we lose them to history.
Assembly Joint Resolution 6 - Filipino veterans (Chaptered June 6, 2012) - This resolution requested that the Congress and the President of the United States enact the Filipino Veterans Fairness Act of 2011 (H.R. 210).
Assembly Concurrent Resolution 159 (Ma/Gorrell)(Chaptered September 18, 2012): Encouraged California's institutions of higher learning, the University of California, California State University and the California Community Colleges to move cohesively and in an expeditious manner to evaluate and adopt the American Council on Education's (ACE) credit recommendations to give veterans their due credit for appropriate military experience.
Other Veterans Activities
Assembly Resolution (May 2010): Recognized Lt. Col. Robert Powell, Jr. who retired after 28 years. He started at Lincoln High School in Fall 1982 as a Senior Army Instructor and by Fall 1995 he was promoted to Director of Army Instruction. He had been doing both jobs since 1995.
October 4-5, 2011: Flew out to the USS Abraham Lincoln while at sea, departed Naval Air Station North Island (NASNI) in San Diego, CA via a Navy C-2 Greyhound, experienced an arrested landing; and flew back to NASNI experiencing a catapult launch off of the ship.
Biography
Fiona Ma was first elected to represent the people of California’s 12th Assembly District from November 2006 to November 2012 (after serving the maximum of three terms.) She was the #112th woman to ever be elected to the California Legislature and the first Asian women to ever serve as Speaker pro Tempore since 1850.
The 12th Assembly District represented 450,000 and included the cities of San Francisco, Daly City, Colma and Broadmoor.
Interests in Business and Politics
Assemblywoman Ma first became interested in politics as a small business owner and a Certified Public Accountant advocating on behalf of other small businesses. She was an elected delegate to the White House Conference on Small Business under President Bill Clinton, which produced a report to Congress on the 60 top policy recommendations to help small businesses grow and prosper in the 21st century.
She formally entered the field of politics in 1995, serving as a part-time district representative for the former President pro Tempore of the California Senate, John Burton. It was a position that would last for seven years, after which she was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, where she served for four years until 2006. During her tenure on the Board of Supervisors, she authored the landmark Local Business Enterprise ordinance on behalf of women and minority business owners and passed legislation to tackle human trafficking.
Groundbreaking Toxic Legislation
Building on her work combating toxic chemicals in San Francisco, Assemblywoman Ma authored groundbreaking legislation to ban toxic chemicals, known as phthalates, in baby products statewide. AB 1108 was a first such law in the nation and was signed by Gov. Schwarzenegger in 2007. It became the model for the federal amendment on the same subject, authored by U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein, which was signed into law as part of the federal Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008.
Key Committee Assignments
Assemblywoman Ma served on key Assembly committees, including Agriculture; Business and Professions; Governmental Organization, Public Employees, Retirement and Social Security; and Utilities and Commerce. She also served on the following Select Committees: Domestic Violence; Alcohol and Drug Abuse; Foster Care; Preservation of California’s Entertainment Industry; Rail Transportation; Regional Approaches to Addressing the State’s Water Crisis; and Safety and Protection of At-Risk Communities in CA; and the Joint Committee on Fairs, Allocation and Classification and the Joint Committee for the Protection of Lake Tahoe.
As Chair of the Assembly Select Committee on Domestic Violence, she worked on legislation to protect victims of domestic violence. She authored groundbreaking legislation to protect consumers, help California’s working families pay the bills, prevent the spread of Hepatitis B, increase access to quality healthcare, and provide equal rights for all Californians. She was a strong advocate for better neighborhoods, authoring laws to combat graffiti, recycling theft and disabled placard abuse. As a joint author of Proposition 1-A, which was approved by voters in November, 2008, she was the legislature’s leading advocate to bring high-speed trains to California.
State, National, and International Outreach
Assemblywoman Ma took a lead in promoting trade and fostering relationships between California and Asia. For the past 10 years, she has led legislative delegations to China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Japan.
She focused on improving California’s bottom line and authored legislation to create jobs in California and grow the state’s economy. As an Executive Board Member of the National Conference of State Legislators, she worked to keep California competitive with other states.
While serving in the Assembly, in addition to NCSL, Fiona served as Western States Chair of Women in Government; was an Executive Board Member of the California Democratic Party; and is Member of the Aspen Institute's 2009 Class of Aspen-Rodel Fellows.
She is currently on the Board of CA Women Lead; Board of Directors for Curry Without Worry; Board of Directors of Asian Inc; President of the Asian American Donor Program Honorary Chair and Spokesperson of the San Francisco Hep B Free Campaign; and Honorary California Chair of the New Leaders Council. She serves on the Advisory Boards of the James L. Brady Riding Program for Children with Disabilities, Family Connections, Alliance for Girls and the SF Ethnic Dance Festival. She is also a member of the Screen Actors Guild.
Helping Youth
Fiona believes strongly in the need to nurture our next generation and expose them to public service and happily accepted many interns in her Capitol and District Offices. From 2006-2012, under the tutelage of District Director Bob Twomey, MaSquadCA has mentored over 1,000 young volunteers from throughout the SF Bay Area and as far as Chicago, New York, China, Chile, Argentina and African and ranging in age from 13-32 and accomplished a variety of projects for and with various communities in and around San Francisco and throughout the State of California.
Education
Assemblywoman Ma received her B.S. from the Rochester Institute of Technology (NY), her M.S. in Taxation from Golden Gate University (SF), and an MBA from Pepperdine University. She has been licensed in California as a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) since 1992. She is a Member of CalCPA and CalCPA's Public Policy Task Force.