California Senator Noreen Evans, candidate for re-election to State Senate in California’s 2nd Senate district, is a reform-minded Democrat working to put Californians back to work and make California government perform for Californians again.

A Bay Area native, daughter of a Marine Corps drill sergeant and product of California public schools and its state university system, Evans is committed to an economic development and education agenda to restore the California dream for working people and families. She is running for re-election to Senate because she believes that cherished values that made California a beacon and a great place to grow up and raise a family need experienced champions in Sacramento.

“I’ll make sure I do everything I can to protect and renew the quality of life that made California known as the Golden State,” Evans said.

As a state legislator since 2004, Evans has consistently fought for priorities most valued by Californians--education, health care, state parks, agriculture and open space, open and transparent government, support for foster children and for services that allow the disabled and elderly to live lives of dignity in their own homes.

Evans was raised in the Bay Area town of Livermore and spent her summers in Laytonville working in her grandparents’ grocery market, the A1 Food Store on Highway 101. At the end of the summer, she and her grandparents would do her back-to-school shopping at the J.C. Penney in Willits.

For Evans, summer vacations were camping trips to nearby Standish-Hickey State Park in Leggett where she and her family would hike, fish and swim on the south fork of the Eel River, a tradition she has continued with her own children.

Evans worked her way through college and law school, earning a bachelor’s degree from Cal State University Sacramento and a Juris Doctorate from McGeorge Law School at University of Pacific in Sacramento. Like many attorneys of today, she was inspired to the law by the film To Kill a Mockingbird and Atticus Finch’s defense of a wrongly accused black man in the Depression-era South.

After law school, she studied international law at the University of Austria in Salzburg.

In 1982, Evans moved to Santa Rosa where she started a family and practiced law as a litigation attorney representing plaintiffs and defendants in civil cases in state and federal courts. She has spent her entire career meeting the challenges faced by all working parents.

Her public policy and political career began with appointment to the Santa Rosa Planning Commission in 1993. In 1996, she was elected to the City Council and helped lead the charge for passage of one of the state’s first smart growth measures. Approved by Santa Rosa voters in 1996, Measure G encouraged housing and commercial development in urban areas while protecting open space, supporting development of parks and preserving agricultural land.

As a political leader, Evans works to make it possible again for all Californians to pursue their dreams, whatever the obstacles.

While serving in the State Assembly, she served as Majority Whip, Democratic Caucus Chair, and Budget Committee Chair. She was a member of the Committees on Banking and Finance, Governmental Organization, and the Joint Legislative Audit Committee. Representing much of California's premium wine growing region, Evans chaired the Assembly Select Committee on Wine for all of her six years in the Assembly. She has served as a member of the Law Revision Commission where she studied intricate legal problems to resolve deficits in our laws and identify major policy questions for legislative attention. She has also served as a member of the Coastal Conservancy where she worked to protect, preserve and restore California's beautiful coastline. 

Senator Evans currently Chairs the Senate Committee on Judiciary, the Select Committee on Wine Industry and the Legislative Women's Caucus. Her policy priorities include: protecting our environment, fighting for families and children, and reforming our legal system. She also serves as a member of the Agriculture, Banking and Finance Institution, Budget, Governmental Organization, Natural Resources & Water and Joint Committee on Fisheries & Aquaculture Committees. Additionally she serves as a Commissioner for the Commission on the Status of Women where she advises the Governor and the Legislature on inequities in laws, practices, and conditions that affect women.

Today, she and her dog Marley live in downtown Santa Rosa. She has three children, Erin, Joel and Rachel.

About Noreen Biography Why I'm Running