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The voice of the people
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Posted by dweaver3 Wed Oct 29, 2008 14:08:33 PDT
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Ask California State Sen. Dean Florez, D-Shafter, what the Central Valley needs and his answer is instantaneous — better air quality; contaminate free food and less sludge, to name just a few.

Ask him what he does for fun and he’s stumped. Strange, since seldom is the out-spoken, often controversial politician from Shafter at a loss for words.

After a moment — whereas he might try to change the subject — he’ll flash his trademark grin commonly captured in the media due to his often high profile politics in Sacramento — and divulge his true secret: Florez works for fun.

“I love my work,” says the 45-year-old senator, who has represented the Central Valley — first as a state assemblyman of the 16th District — for almost a decade. “I love being involved. I work a lot and I have very little down time.”

Ask Florez how his loved ones would describe him in one word and before he answers, he’ll negotiate for more — Florez is no stranger to asking for what he wants. The word, “hard-working” is what first comes to his mind.
His wife of 11 years, Elsa Florez, agrees.

“I think I married someone who is just like my father,” she said. “The man is just always working. I admire my dad and I admire that work ethic in Dean.”

“Tenacious” is another word Elsa uses. “He doesn’t give up.”

Those who have butted heads with Florez in the past — including the infamous family feud with the Parras (Pete, a former Kern County supervisor, and his daughter, Nicole, a nearly termed-out California state assemblywoman) — would certainly agree.

In 2003, Florez spearheaded historical legislation that forced California’s agriculture industry to follow strict air quality rules — legislation that, by most accounts, poked some big holes in Florez’s relationship with some of the Valley’s business owners.

“You are supposed to work for the industries that are in your district,” he said. “(But) my thought is — there are a lot of kids in this Valley with asthma; kids don’t have a voice, but (I) do.

“Now it (clean air) is kind of the mantra — even the oil companies are saying it’s important.”

Known as a champion for consumers and the Valley’s worker bees, Florez is well aware that he steps on some very big toes, but he doesn’t necessarily care if it means doing what he thinks is right.

“I think my job — and the reason I got into politics, and the reason I stay in politics — is because I actually believe my job is to go out and voice an opinion that a lot of people don’t hear,” he said. “It’s an opinion that in many cases isn’t the consensus.

“(I) try to challenge the status quo a bit because the status quo doesn’t work for a lot of people.”

With Florez’s help, California became one of the first states to ban wooden bench seating in farmworker commuter vans because of vocal concerns for safety.

Of course, Florez doesn’t find it easy being a Democrat living in, and representing, the predominately Republican and conservative Central Valley, which stretches about 300 miles between Bakersfield and Fresno.

“And to be a very vocal Democrat,” he said. “And then to be a Mexican, vocal, Democrat in a town that still sees farmworkers as the hired help or Mexicans as the hired help.”

Florez was elected to the State Assembly in 1998, served two terms and was then elected to the Senate in 2002. He will be termed out of the office in 2010. It comes as no surprise that he currently has future political sights on the lieutenant governor’s office. 

Florez, a graduate of UCLA and Harvard Business School, believes that despite the fact the country has learned many lessons from the civil rights movement of years’ past, there are still people today who are underrepresented in this country.

“I have a real strong belief that I’m speaking for people who don’t have a voice …,” he said.

As such, Florez finds his political inspiration in men such as Robert Kennedy and Bakersfield’s own Supreme Court Justice, Earl Warren, because of the work they did to further civil rights.

“There really is a lot of injustice out there and someone needs to stand up and say when things aren’t right or not be shy about it,” Florez said. “And that’s kind of what I’ve been about. It’s led to some good things and to things that are very tough.”

 

The man behind the politician
Part of what is tough for Florez is living apart from his wife and their children, Sean, 17; and Faith, 8. He spends part of the year in Sacramento and part in his hometown of Shafter.

As much as he likes to talk politics, Florez likes to talk about his family more.

In fact, he says his proudest moment was not the day he was elected to the state Senate, it was the day his daughter was born: “Nothing surpasses the birth of your kid.”

Despite his hectic work schedule, Florez doesn’t remember a time when he didn’t come home for the weekend even if the Senate is in session. And if he travels, he tries to be home by the end of the day.

“This is my favorite time of the year,” Florez said during a recent interview with MÁS magazine, referring to the Senate break which is between September and early January.

During these months, the highlight of the senator’s day is walking Faith to school.

“I never get to do that during the rest of the year,” he said.

The children go to local schools — Sean is a freshman at Bakersfield College, while Faith is a third-grader at Sequoia Elementary School in Shafter.

Florez and his wife met in Los Angeles. “It was love at first sight,” the senator remembers. He said it was an added bonus that she loved politics as much as he did.

The coupled married in 1997 and had Faith about three years later. Sean is Elsa’s son from a previous marriage.

“Dean has been Dad to Sean since Sean was 3 years old,” Elsa said. “When he was a little boy, Dean would lay in bed with him and rub his head. Dean has completely and unconditionally filled that role as a dad for him and I have always appreciated that.”

Elsa is a stay-at-home mom and a full-time volunteer for the local Democratic Party and is currently working on the Barack Obama presidential campaign.

Whether at home or in Sacramento, politics is a daily part of the Florez family’s life.

They spend weekends walking precincts, campaigning either for Florez, or his mother, Fran Florez. She was elected to the Shafter City Council in 1996; served two terms as mayor; and currently serves as the city’s Mayor Pro Tem. Fran Florez is also running for the 30th Assembly District, her son’s former seat.

When not walking precincts, the entire Florez familia, including Elsa’s parents who followed their daughter to Shafter, gather for backyard barbecues. Like many Latino families, they grill carne asada, make homemade corn tortillas, and listen to mariachi music.

And they talk politics.

“Our lives revolve around politics,” Florez said.

The Florezes are also avid sports fans.

A high school football and track star himself, Florez helped coach Sean’s high school football team and is the equipment manager for Faith’s club swim team, the Shafter Stingrays.

“He’ll be out there at every meet at 6 a.m,” Elsa said.

When he’s not watching his children play, Florez watches his favorite professional sports teams — the Los Angeles Dodgers and the San Francisco 49ers.

Florez said he runs to keep his sanity, clocking in about 40 miles a week. He recently ran in the Los Angeles Marathon and participates in as many local races as he can find the time for.

When he’s not running, he digs in the dirt.

“Gardening is a stress reliever,” he said.

He’s a movie fan, although he admits there’s usually very little time to visit local theaters, but counts East Hills Mall his favorite: “They have the best popcorn.”

And like most husbands, the senator has a weekend “honey-do” list.

“I’m in charge of the laundry,” he said. “I have trash duty, too.” And that includes the kind of “trash” the family’s dogs leave behind in the yard, Florez added.

The Florezes have three dogs: Rusty, who was rescued from the shelter; Cambria, a Doberman (named by Sean after a band, not the coastal California city) and a new puppy, yet to be named, that was left stranded on the family’s doorstep.

The Florezes are used to finding strangers on their doorstep. Constituents often stop by to ask for Florez’s help or to bend his ear.

“They feel that Dean is someone who can work for them and help them,” Elsa said. “Everyone wants to find a friendly face. Our door is open pretty much for anyone who needs help.”

Florez is known for being a friendly guy, but he’s a strict dad, his wife said.

“I like that because he’s gone nine months out of the year,” she said, adding that she’s been known to use the "Wait until your dad gets home” threat.

Son Sean tells a different story.

“I think my friends have a way shorter leash than I do,” he said.

Like most teenagers, Florez’s son has no problem poking a little fun at his dad.

“In our cars, we had normal, boring stereos with no bass,” he explained. “So he (Florez) used to stick his arm out the window and knock on the side of the door. It’s pretty funny.”

Sean doesn’t plan to follow in his father’s footsteps. “Once you grow up around politics, you know that you should stay away from them when you get older,” he said.

The younger Florez would rather work in the music industry.

“But I do hope that I still have all my hair when I’m his age!” he said, referring to his dad’s receding hairline.

Besides the occasional jokes, Elsa said the children have a lot of respect for their dad. A trait their grandmother, Fran Florez, says is one of the things she most admires in their father, her son.

The boy behind the politician
Growing up in and around the Mexican Colonia outside Shafter in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Florez spent a lot of time with his own grandparents, who were farmworkers, while his parents worked 9-to-5 jobs.

Florez said he learned early on the importance of hard work watching his parents and his grandparents. He appreciates that hard work because it kept him, and his sister, Kris, out of the fields and in school.

“They would work hard enough so we would not have to work in the fields,” he said.

The family was poor, but Florez said he grew up happy and lived a somewhat carefree childhood.  He went to school, played football in the streets of the colonia and spent a lot of time sitting out on the porch with the older folks in the neighborhood, listening to their conversations.

“He was always out there with the older people,” Fran Florez remembers. “He is very respectful towards older people and will take the time to talk to anyone.”

“Dean is just a very respectful person,” she said.

Florez’s grandmother, Stella Florez, was a typical Hispanic matriarch who ran the household and cooked dinner for the entire family. Florez’s favorite childhood meal was papas y carne (meat and potatoes with a red sauce).

Even as a young boy, politics was part of Florez’s life.

Stella Florez was the one everyone sought out to talk politics. The family matriarch taught other family members and her neighbors how to fill-out the sometimes confusing sample ballots. She would also offer her advice.

“She was the one who really kept up on politics,” Fran Florez said. “She really studied the candidates.”

The grandmother’s penchant to help others was passed on to the grandson.

“He knew that Grandma was always helping someone so I think he learned that early on,” Florez’s mother said.

She remembers how one very cold day her son’s jacket ended up on another boy from the colonia. When Florez was asked why the boy had his jacket, his reply was: “He didn’t have one, so I gave him mine.”

“He gives a lot of credit for who he is to his grandmother and I would agree,” Fran Florez said. Stella Florez died the summer after Florez graduated from UCLA.

But according to Florez, his mother has also left a lasting mark on his life.

“We heard a lot about public service from my mom,” he said.

Fran Florez’s own father fought in World War II when she was a young girl and never came home. The Florez children were taught that if something wasn’t right, it was everyone’s duty to fix it.

Florez put this childhood lesson to use when he began to notice that although the civil rights marches of the 1960s were long over, there were still vestiges of racial discrimination in his own back yard. Often, the young Florez wasn’t allowed into a friend’s home because he was Mexican.

He began to notice that Hispanic students didn’t join activities like the choir, the drama club or student government.

Instead of letting color become a barrier and exclude him from what he wanted to do, Florez joined anyway.

“Rather than lash out and just not participate,” Florez said, “I forced my way into student government and activities a lot of Mexican-American kids didn’t participate in.”

Florez said his was the only “brown” face in the choir, but that didn’t bother him. He ended up being class president in high school and at UCLA.

“I figured I’m only hurting myself if I shied away,” Florez said.

And shy he is not — something to which Craig Smith, Florez’s best friend growing up in Shafter, can attest.

“If I remember right, I was moved by our teacher away from another student whom I was talking a little too much with,” he remembers. “But, of course, this move placed me next to Dean — that was probably a bigger mistake.”

Smith is an agricultural consultant and a registered Republican.

“We differ on many of the issues and I wish he was a little kinder to my farmers,” he said.

Still, Smith fondly recalls two mischievous boys who were always able to stay one step away from trouble.

The pair used to have BB gun target practice, only using each other for targets.

“If they (Florez’s parents) knew, they would have skinned us alive,” Smith said.

The friends used to taunt each other with motor oil when they worked across the street from each other at competing gas stations; there was the time the two put Crazy Glue on their hands so they could palm basketballs just like the pros, and numerous “dog poop” fights.

“Oh, yes — I did eventually get the best of Dean on that one!” Smith said.

The boys also threw the football together.

Florez, a wide-receiver who was hoping for a football scholarship with Arizona State at the time, was sidelined by a broken leg in the opening seconds in the first game of his senior year at Shafter High.

Ironically and unfortunately, it was Smith who landed on Florez’s leg.“It was not on purpose,” Smith said.

The injury ended Florez’s dream to play college football, but would be a turning point in his life. With a broken leg and the end of his football season, Florez now had time to concentrate on academics.

“It was his lucky break,” his mother said.

Life’s role models
Despite the obvious influence from the females in his life, Florez’s names his father as his hero.

“He’s the man I’d most like to be,” said Florez of his dad, Ray Florez.

That admiration is rooted in how his father always found to time for his children and to attend all their activities, despite always working hard. Now that Florez is a proud papa himself, he appreciates the sacrifices his dad made even more.

“He’s the perfect kind of role model,” Florez said.

His family pride also extends to Mom, herself a political mover & shaker.

“I’m proud of my mom,” he said. “She ran for city council long before I ran for office. She’s been around a lot longer than I have and I think she has a few tricks up her sleeve.”

Florez said his mom is different from himself in that she is more of a compromiser whereas, “I’ll just roll over you,” he said with a smile.

Florez plans to keep rolling until he makes it into the lieutenant governor’s office in 2010.

The position will place him in a prime spot to perhaps one day sit in the governor’s seat — a place where Florez believes he can continue doing what he does best: holding government accountable and asking questions the average tax payer would ask.

“Dean gets things done,” said Jan Stuebbe, the athletic director for Bakersfield College and Florez’s former high school football and track coach. “I think he’ll appeal to a lot of people.”

Stuebbe said the senator is an older version of the young man he once coached at Shafter High, still tenacious and full of energy.

“I don’t think of Dean as a Democrat or as a Republican,” Stuebbe said. “He puts his constituents first; I think he’s very unique in this state — that’s why I think he gets some negative (attention) in the media. He’s going to do what he thinks is right and he doesn’t care what people think.

“He represents a lot of what Kern County is about. We say what we think.”

Florez doesn’t plan to be a politician forever. He’s a fan of term limits because he believes there is a time for all politicians to leave the political arena and make room for newer faces and fresher ideas.

“I will run as long as people continue to elect me,” he said. “I will get to a place where voters no longer agree and then I’ll lose. That is a very fair way to handle public policy.”

Florez has no concrete plans for when that day comes, but he plans to enjoy just being a regular guy with time to be a husband and a dad.

He looks forward to attending his daughter’s swim meets and even looks forward to being the guy the other folks are mad at — not because of his politics —  but because it was his turn to bring the cooler of lemonade and he forgot.

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Comment From: yellowsand1964

We need more opening over the way Senator suppose to be, we also need more freedom of respect when we ask for help to u office because when is time to vote , phone calls and knock our door asking about our vote for you..

More jobs Shafter is not jobs in all for our young people,they have to go to Bakersfield or Wasco to found them... more police officers look the way how kindergarden children come out the school and if the drivers respect the little ones to cross the streets and more help for families losing their houses as us, are some programs suppose to help, but is difficult to found them because is not information in all.