Senator Fran Pavley is a native Angeleno and grew up in Sherman Oaks. She has spent her life living and working in Los Angeles and Ventura counties as a parent, educator and elected official. She lives with her husband, Andy, a veteran and lifelong teacher, in Agoura Hills, where they raised two children and four guide dogs for the blind.

​

Pavley received a master’s degree in environmental planning from California State University - Northridge; taught middle school for 28 years; and completed her teaching career in Moorpark, Calif. In 1982, she was elected as the first mayor of the City of Agoura Hills and served for four terms on the city council.

In 2000 she won election to the California State Assembly, serving three terms - six years. She was elected to the state Senate in 2008. Currently, Senator Pavley represents about 900,000 people in the 27th Senate District, which includes parts of Los Angeles and Ventura counties.

 

Senator Pavley is the chair of the Senate Natural Resources and Water Committee and is a member of a half dozen committees: Energy, Utilities, and Communications, Environmental Quality, Budget and Fiscal Review, Budget Subcommittee #2 (Resources, Environmental Protection, Energy, and Transportation), Governance and Finance and Legislative Ethics. She also chairs the Select Committee on Climate Change and Assembly Bill 32 Implementation.

 

Senator Pavley currently is pursuing legislation that sets an overarching climate-pollution reduction target for 2030 that would provide California businesses with regulatory certainty while also strengthening the economy and improving public health, especially in communities disproportionately impacted by pollution. Among her ongoing legislative initiatives are a teacher-recruitment bill to address the plummeting enrollment rates in credentialing programs and a measure to toughen enforcement of oil drilling waste water disposal practices.

IN 205, Pavley won passage of bills to protect public safety, by strengthening domestic-violence and sexual-assault prevention laws. She also passed a state parks reform bill that makes it easier for parks officials to get help from nonprofit organizations.

 

In 2014 Senator Pavley authored legislation to manage groundwater for the first time in California and helped negotiate a bipartisan water bond that was approved by voters as Proposition 1. And in 2013 she successfully carried legislation to end unregulated hydraulic fracturing (fracking) and other oil-extraction practices in California, and coauthored successful legislation to invest $2 billion in successful air-quality and clean vehicle and fuel technology programs. In addition, Senator Pavley successfully carried bills to increase the maximum penalty for child pornography possession, ensure proper sexual-assault investigations at centers for people with developmental disabilities, and increase disclosure of financial contributions to ballot proposition campaigns.

 

Some of Senator Pavley’s past legislative victories in the Senate include laws stiffening penalties for mortgage fraud, banning lead and cadmium in children’s jewelry, and creating new clean energy jobs. In 2011, Senator Pavley authored a law to improve California’s business climate by implementing regulatory reform; this bill requires agencies to more rigorously assess the economic impacts, including the benefits, major regulations before they are adopted.

 

In the Assembly, she authored Assembly Bill 1493, which became the model for national vehicle emissions standards, and Assembly Bill 32, the nation’s first cap on greenhouse gas pollution. Both laws have become models for other states and nations. They have spurred innovation and job growth in clean technology, alternative fuels, renewable energy, energy efficiency, and other sectors. In 2010 the U.S. president implemented national clean car standards, based on Assembly Bill 1493, which has been dubbed the Pavley Law. During a special ceremony in the White House Rose Garden, the president personally thanked Senator Pavley for her work on creating a clean, safe, secure energy future for California and the United States.

Senator Pavley also has worked hard to address local transportation priorities and other quality-of-life issues. She has helped secure funds for important local transportation projects, including construction of the Orange Line busway and installation of much-needed traffic signals in the San Fernando Valley. She is a member of the Pacific Coast Highway Task Force and has worked with the California Highway Patrol to coordinate funding to reduce the number of people who are driving while under the influence of alcohol or drugs on Highway 101. And for more than 30 years Senator Pavley has worked with the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy to acquire and protect open space and develop trails and public access to areas throughout Los Angeles and Ventura counties. She also created Valley and Ventura County Advisory councils, which include business and community leaders from the San Fernando Valley and Eastern Ventura County.