Darrell Steinberg has announced the next step in his political life. The man who served a combined 14 years in the state Assembly and Senate, including a lengthy run as Senate leader, announced Oct. 28 he will run for mayor of his adopted hometown of Sacramento.
The 56-year-old liberal Democrat and one-time highest-ranking Jewish politician in California is looking to succeed Mayor Kevin Johnson, who has chosen not to run for a third term amid sexual abuse allegations.
Brought up in Millbrae, Steinberg attended Peninsula Temple Sholom in Burlingame and Capuchino High School in San Bruno. The son of Bud and Arlene Steinberg, he studied economics at UCLA and law at U.C. Davis, eventually settling in Sacramento.
There he practiced law and worked on behalf of Soviet Jewry. He was elected to the Sacramento City Council in 1992 and to the state Assembly in 1998. In 2006, after three terms in the Assembly, he won a seat in the Senate and served as its president pro-tem from 2008 to 2014, after which he left the legislature due to term limits.
Steinberg was part of the inaugural 12-member California Legislative Jewish Caucus when it formed last year. He and his wife, Julie, married in 1991; they have two children.
In a 2009 cover story, Steinberg told J.: “My Jewish upbringing has helped inform my values and a lot of what I stand for, certainly the belief that the main responsibility [in politics] is to stand up for the underdog, the person without a voice. Being Jewish is very integral and a proud part of who I am.” — j. staff