Rick Chavez Zbur has represented the 51st Assembly District since 2022. His district runs from Hollywood and West Hollywood through Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, and Westwood, one of the wealthiest stretches of real estate in the state. He came to Sacramento with decades at Equality California and the full backing of the Democratic establishment. But despite having amassed substantial power, he has been unwilling to translate that into anything useful for the working people who also live in his district and are getting crushed by rent, healthcare costs, and a homelessness crisis.

Knock LA’s 2026 voter guide puts it plainly: “With massive financial support, well-worn political connections, and a bright blue district, there are few people in the state who could drive as much legislative progress as Zbur, at least in theory. The reality has been very different. With all this political capital, he focused on chairing a select committee on retail theft and has done the bare minimum with regard to progressive priorities.” As Knock points out, Zbur’s reluctance to advance progressive legislation is no surprise given his donor list, which includes Airbnb, the California Real Estate PAC, Amazon, fossil fuel companies, and the prison guards union PAC.

In January, AB 1157 came before the Assembly Judiciary Committee. The Affordable Rent Act, sponsored by the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, PICO California, UNITE HERE Local 11, and Housing Now! CA, would have lowered the state’s existing rent cap from a maximum of 10 percent annually to 5 percent and made the protections permanent. The bill was essentially the state version of LA’s overhaul of its rent-stabilization ordinance last year. Renters bused in from Los Angeles, San Diego, and the Bay Area to testify. The bill needed seven votes, but only got four. Zbur was one of five Democrats who didn’t vote, which under committee rules counts as a no. His stated concern was that the cap might be too low and could hurt landlords.

Assemblymember Ash Kalra, who authored the bill, said afterward that the defeat came down to “the power and influence of moneyed interests.”

Hernandez was direct about what he thinks that vote reflects. “He takes money from landlord groups, he takes money from Airbnb, he takes money from the health insurance lobby, and he votes to protect their interests,” Hernandez said. “He has aligned himself with a lot of corporate interests that profit off our affordability crisis.”

Zbur’s housing record is full of contradictions. In September 2025, he was the face of Assembly opposition to SB 79, the Scott Wiener transit-housing bill that the California Democratic Party had endorsed 111 to 62. His argument from the floor: that single-family-zoned neighborhoods represent “the American Dream.” An op-ed in Santa Monica Next by Abundant Housing LA board member Chris Tokita noted the obvious contradiction. Zbur’s own campaign website promises to build “sustainable and affordable housing near transportation and work hubs,” which is precisely what SB 79 would have allowed.

Hernandez sees the housing crisis and the political failure behind it as connected. “California has never been this Marxist republic the right loves to claim it is,” he said. “But our state Democratic politicians have not catered to the needs of working people. They’ve catered to the whims of the ultra-wealthy. And that has left a giant vacuum that right-wing reactionary thought is now filling.” On corporate landlords specifically, he argues that over 200,000 rental units in Los Angeles sit empty, held by private equity and investment firms to keep the market artificially tight. “That’s not how we create affordability.”

Another piece of Zbur’s legislative record has drawn sharp criticism from civil liberties groups, educators, and Palestinian rights advocates. Together with Dawn Addis, he co-authored AB 715, which amends the Education Code to prohibit what it calls “advocacy, personal opinion, bias, or partisanship” in K-12 classrooms. The law ties enforcement to the IHRA working definition of antisemitism, which critics have long argued conflates criticism of the Israeli government’s actions with hatred of Jewish people. Gov. Newsom signed the bill into law on October 7, 2025, the second anniversary of the Hamas attacks, and it took effect in January.

The opposition wasn’t fringe. CAIR-CA called it “a classroom censorship law that shields a foreign government, Israel, from legitimate discussion of its genocide in Gaza.” The ACLU of California, the California Faculty Association, the California Teachers Association, Jewish Voice for Peace Action, and more than 120 mosques and Islamic centers all came out against it. The process rankled even legislators who didn’t vote no: Assemblymember Mia Bonta said in committee she had been “robbed” of her right to vote after Zbur and Addis negotiated amendments privately and skipped the promised second committee vote. A federal lawsuit filed by California teachers and students is now before the Ninth Circuit.

Zbur’s record on Palestine goes back further. After a pro-Israel mob violently attacked the UCLA student encampment in May 2024, he didn’t call for accountability for the attackers. Instead he asked the federal Department of Education to investigate whether the pro-Palestine students had violated Jewish students’ civil rights. CAIR-LA condemned the response. More recently, when gubernatorial candidate Tom Steyer criticized AIPAC, Zbur pulled his endorsement. Steyer’s campaign said the split was directly about AIPAC.

Hernandez has been making the AB 715 case on the trail. “A world history teacher can be punished for teaching about the Nakba,” he said. “A student could be disciplined for having a watermelon sticker on their locker, or even just saying free Palestine.” He also argues that the bill backfires on its own terms. “The biggest perpetrators aren’t pro-Palestine voices or anti-Zionist protesters. They’re neo-Nazis, Christian nationalists, and white supremacists. This is not going to make Jewish students feel safer. It’s going to make them actually less safe.”

Zbur has also signed on as a co-author of AB 2664, a bill that would make it a criminal offense to approach within 8 feet of any person within 100 feet of a place of worship, for example to hand them a leaflet, show a sign, or speak. The ACLU testified the bill is constitutionally shaky given the current Supreme Court’s current composition, and the State Judiciary Committee bill file came back with 17 opposition letters and three in support.

Hernandez has made single-payer healthcare central to his campaign. “We are the fourth largest economy in the world. We are the richest state in this country. There’s absolutely no reason why we cannot guarantee health care to every single person in the state,” he told Mar Vista Voice. Zbur’s name is on AB 1900, this session’s CalCare bill, but according to SF Bay View, he signed on as co-author only days before the Speaker’s office signaled the bill was dead on arrival in Rules. Health Care for All-US called the move “just for show.” The California Nurses Association called the Assembly’s failure to advance the bill “a capitulation to corporate health care interests.”

In September 2023, Zbur spoke at a Beverly Hills Rotary Club lunch and opened by describing himself as a “pro-business progressive.” That’s the self-description that explains everything else. His votes on guns, abortion, and LGBTQ+ rights are fine. His record on rent, healthcare, housing for renters, and Palestinian speech rights is the record of someone who knows exactly which donors he depends on and governs accordingly.

Hernandez is asking voters to send a different kind of Democrat to Sacramento.

“I decided to get into this race because Rick Zbur is someone who does not face the affordability crisis that many people, including myself, face on a daily basis . . . His stronghold is the wealthiest parts of this district. He’s forgetting and ignoring a lot of the people who make this district run.”