Al Muratsuchi was elected in November 2012 to represent California’s 66th Assembly  District, which includes the South Bay Beach Cities, Torrance, Gardena, Palos Verdes and the Harbor City area.  He graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, and the UCLA School of Law.  He was a prosecutor for Los Angeles County and the city of Santa Ana, and then joined the California Department of Justice in 2001 as a prosecutor and Deputy Attorney General.  He was a member of the Torrance Unified School Board for 7 years, and has been an active volunteer in South Bay organizations.  He lives in Torrance with his wife and daughter.
 
 
Assemblyman Muratsuchi is Chair of the Budget Education Subcommittee, and a member of the Committees for Veterans Affairs, Natural Resources, Judiciary, and Aerospace.  The current Legislature is much less partisan and more cooperative than recent previous Legislatures, due in significant part to changes in election laws.  Unlike previous years, this year’s budget was on time and balanced with less partisan bickering.  Among ongoing concerns are pension obligations, primarily at the local government level.
 
A major problem in the Palos Verdes area has been electric power outages.  He initiated AB66, now signed into law, requiring Southern California Edison to post information on outages in each city for comparison and to require the Public Utilities Commission to order remediation for repeated outages.  Edison has agreed to upgrade its deteriorating equipment to minimize future outages.
 
He initiated AB449 requiring school districts to report allegations of teacher misconduct to the Commission on Teacher Credentialing, in response to reports of teachers with alleged misconduct being hired by other school districts.  He also authored AB370 protecting consumer privacy by requiring online services that collect personally identifiable information to disclose how they respond to a web browser’s “Do not track” signals and to disclose whether other parties can obtain information about a consumer’s online activities.
 
Assemblyman Muratsuchi, who grew up on Army bases, is promoting help for Military Veterans returning from the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.  The city of Los Angeles has the largest population of homeless Veterans in the US, and 1 in 9 homeless people is a Veteran.  These people sacrificed so much and risked their lives in service to our country, and we owe them the obligation of helping them become reestablished in civilian life.  He is concerned about the California Employment Development Dept’s failure to do more to assist Veterans in finding employment.