My interview w/CA Assembly Speaker John Perez

When John Perez became speaker of the California State Assembly in March 2010, he was only the second LGBT person to be elected to lead a state legislative chamber in US history.

He now finds himself with lots more company – especially after last week’s US elections where 118 LGBT people were elected nationwide.

‘It was a phenomenal election across the country,’ Perez told me at last weekend’s LA Gay & Lesbian Center gala.

Since Perez broke through as speaker in 2010, Gordon Fox was made speaker in Rhode Island and last week, Mark Ferrandino was voted Colorado House speaker. In addition, Oregon’s Tina Kotek is on track to become the first lesbian speaker in US history.

‘It’s going faster than most people imagined but it’s not going fast enough,’ Perez says. ‘When we stop counting firsts, when we’re equally represented everywhere, that’s when we’ll know we’ve hit the mark. But we’ve made great progress.’

To read the full interview, go over to Gay Star News.