Robert Hertzberg

Robert Myles Hertzberg (born November 19, 1954) is an American politician who previously served in the California State Senate. A Democrat, he represented the 18th Senate District, which includes parts of the San Fernando Valley.

Prior to being elected to the State Senate in 2014, he served as the 64th Speaker of the California State Assembly, representing the 40th Assembly District. He was Majority Leader from January 2019 to January 2022. He announced he would not seek re-election and instead announced his candidacy for the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. He lost the supervisor election to Lindsey Horvath.

Early life and education Hertzberg was born the third of five sons in Downtown Los Angeles. His father, Harrison Hertzberg, was a constitutional lawyer. He grew up in Benedict Canyon, Los Angeles. The family later moved to Palm Springs, California. He went to Palm Springs High School then graduated magna cum laude from the University of Redlands in 1976 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in history and English. Hertzberg earned his Juris Doctor from University of California, Hastings College of the Law in 1979. In December 2017, he and Glaser Weil mutually agreed to the suspension of their relationship, following sexual assault allegations against State Assemblyman Matt Dababneh, who was represented by Glaser Weil.

Political career Hertzberg experience with politics begin at 19 Hertzberg did legal work for Los Angeles County Supervisor Gloria Molina. He was later appointed to the California State Board of Pharmacy.

California State Assembly

Campaigns In 1994, Hertzberg contemplated running for the 40th Assembly District, which encompassed North Hollywood to Canoga Park in the San Fernando Valley, but never announced his candidacy.

In 1996, Assemblywoman Barbara Friedman of the 40th Assembly District termed out. In the March Democratic primaries, Hertzberg ran against Francine Oschin, aide to Los Angeles City Councilmember Hal Bernson. According to the California Political Almanac, Hertzberg "racked up a sheaf of endorsements and raised well over $200,000 for the primary." He won the primary with 72% of the vote. In the November general election, Hertzberg had a 59–31% victory over Republican Ron Culver.

In 1998 and 2000, Hertzberg was re-elected with 69% and 70% respectively.

Tenure Term limits in the Assembly meant a large influx of new members with every new session. Hertzberg created the California Assembly Program for Innovative Training and Orientation for the Legislature (CAPITOL) Institute with Assemblyman Bill Leonard in 2000 to educate first time legislators and their staff. They offered training on a variety of topics: including ethics, legislative deadlines, key personnel at the capital, voting procedures, restrictions, and committees. After his tenure as Speaker ended, the succeeding Speaker Herb Wesson named the Capitol Institute after Hertzberg. Hertzberg also created the Speaker's Office of International Relations and Protocol.

Speaker of the Assembly (2000–2002) In November 1999, Antonio Villaraigosa announced his resignation as Speaker of the Assembly the following April to run for Los Angeles mayor in 2001 and immediately endorsed Hertzberg as his replacement. Assemblymen Kevin Shelley and Carole Migden of San Francisco and Tony Cárdenas of Sylmar were seen as potential opponents for the position.

2005 Los Angeles mayoral election

Campaign A steady series of fundraising scandals, where members of Mayor James Hahn's Administration were investigated by a grand jury for allegedly awarding city contracts to campaign contributors, and the general attitudes towards Hahn prompted many people to join the mayoral race in 2005.

Hertzberg termed out of the California State Assembly in 2002 and transitioned back to private law practice.

A second Los Angeles Times poll found the primary too close to call, with Hertzberg, Hahn, and Villaraigosa each with about 20% of the vote, with a very high likelihood for a runoff election. Hahn's supporters ran negative mailers, linking Hertzberg and Villaraigosa to Enron and drug dealer Carlos Vignali during their time in the State Assembly. An analysis by the Los Angeles Times showed that Hertzberg was popular among Hahn's base, which included San Fernando Valley residents, conservatives, moderates, and Jewish voters. However, he struggled with young, black, and Latino voters, polling less than 5% per group and well behind his opponents. Hertzberg placed third in the primary election after Hahn and Villaraigosa, with the most votes of any candidates in the San Fernando Valley. An editorial in the Los Angeles Times claimed a dull run-off debate between Hahn and Villaraigosa made them "miss Bob Hertzberg and his outsized ideas".

Platform Hertzberg ran as a moderate Democrat. He credited his time co-founding the Think Long Committee with billionaire Nicholas Bergguen and successfully drafting legislation as motivation to re-enter the political scene. He placed first in the June 2014 primary elections with 63.1%, with Republican candidate Ricardo Benitez placing second with 29.1%. Hertzberg won the general election in November 2014 with around 70%.

Tenure In December 2018, Senate President Pro Tempore Toni Atkins appointed Hertzberg Senate Majority Leader for the 2018–19 Legislative Session. He has said that the bill was aimed at preventing internet fraud, particularly in politics and advertising. Early drafts of the bill would have required undisclosed bots to be removed and covered all bots, not just political and commercial ones. These provisions were later removed after backlash from the Internet Association and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, whom were concerned about potential conflicts with the First Amendment. The Bolstering Online Transparency (BOT) Act was signed into law on October 1, 2018, by Governor Jerry Brown. helped pass SB10, which would end cash bail in California by allowing judges to determine if a defendant could be released before a trial. It received broad Democratic support and one Republican vote from John Moorlach. The bill has received editorial endorsements from major newspapers across the state, including the Los Angeles Times, Sacramento Bee, The San Diego Union-Tribune, and San Francisco Chronicle.

Housing Hertzberg opposed SB 10, a bill that would enable city and county governments to allow for denser housing near transit-rich areas, jobs-rich areas or urban infill sites. Hertzberg described the bill as "a way to destroy single-family neighborhoods." He was the sole member of his committee to oppose the bill.

Environment In August 2020, Hertzberg voted against the bill AB-345, which would have required a minimum setback distance of 2,500 between oil wells and public areas where children are present, in a 5–4 decision. The bill's author, State Assemblyman Al Muratsuchi, has said that there was strong opposition from oil and gas industry trade unions, who the Los Angeles Times has noted are major supporters of Democratic candidates. Hertzberg said that he opposed the bill because it was redundant as Governor Gavin Newsom had already signed another bill in 2019 with similar intentions of setting up buffer zones. This decision prompted the local chapter of the youth-led environmental activism group Sunrise Movement to protest outside of his home in Van Nuys.

In 2022, Sen. Hertzberg partnered with the Governor’s office to secure the passage of multiple historic climate measures, including SB 1137 which created a set back of 3,200 feet for all oil wells and established a first in the nation ban on single use plastics with Sb 54. Both bills had languished in the legislature for years before Senator Hertzberg got them both passed in his final year in office.

In early 2023, after leaving office, Hertzberg was named as a senior fellow to the Mission Possible Partnership, an alliance of climate leaders focused on supercharging efforts to decarbonise some of the world’s highest-emitting industries in the next 10 years.

Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors

As of 2022, Hertzberg is running to represent the third district on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. Hertzberg's son ran to fill his father's old seat, but lost to Caroline Menjivar.

Other work

Investment in renewable energy Outside of his law practice, Hertzberg has been active in the alternative energy industry. In January 2008, The Guardian named Hertzberg as one of the "50 People Who Could Save the Planet" for his investments in solar energy. Hertzberg co-founded Solar Integrated Technology in 2003 in south-central Los Angeles. He sold his shares in the company to run in the 2005 Los Angeles mayoral race. It later debuted on Alternative Investment Market of the London Stock Exchange in May 2004. There was an increased interest and demand to invest in clean energy companies following the activation of the Kyoto Protocol in 2005, with billions invested the following year in private and public markets. in 2006.

G24 Innovations Hertzberg co-founded Cardiff, Wales, based G24 Innovations (G24i) in 2006 with the intentions of selling lightweight solar cells to the African market. The company's main focus was on silicon-less solar panels with technology rights they bought from Swiss scientist Michael Grätzel that allowed for light capture at lower rates but at any light level. They moved into an abandoned Acer factory and it opened August 2011 with help from the Welsh Government and UK Government. and has transitioned, and found success, selling solar strips to power iPad keyboard cases.

Public policy From 2009 to 2012, Hertzberg chaired California Forward whose self-declared mission is "to work with Californians to help create a "smart" government – one that's small enough to listen, big enough to tackle real problems, smart enough to spend our money wisely in good times and bad, and honest enough to be held accountable for results."

In 2010, billionaire Nicolas Berggruen and Hertzberg founded the Think Long Committee for California.

Hertzberg chaired the Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation, in 2004 and 2011.

Political advisory roles After Arnold Schwarzenegger's election as California governor in the 2003 recall election, Hertzberg served as both a formal and informal advisor to Schwarzenegger. In 2003, Schwarzenegger appointed him to his Transition Committee and Hertzberg helped guide the passage of the new governor's "Economic Recovery Package" through the legislature that allowed the state to weather the financial crisis of 2003–04. According to The People's Machine by Joe Matthews, Schwarzenegger then offered Hertzberg the position of Chief of Staff, nicknaming him "Hertzie." Hertzberg chose to stay in the private sector but did advise Schwarzegger to "build a thoroughly bipartisan government." Hertzberg wrote in the Los Angeles Daily News that his advice was: "Take the initiative to go and meet with members of the Legislature, Democrats and Republicans alike. Sit in their offices, meet with them as human beings, and learn to work with them." He is a proponent of regionalism, open primaries, and a non-partisan State government. The journal Capitol Weekly has repeatedly named him one of the Top 100 influential people in Sacramento, writing in 2011: "Bob Hertzberg is one of those hyper-kinetic, Type-A personalities who love politics for its own sake. He's a former Assembly speaker, an L.A. lawyer and a go-to guy for his ideas on political reform. Amazingly, he was a sort of adviser to former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, and he continues to be an insider Democrat with his fingers in lots of pies."

Assemblyman Darrell Steinberg commented on Hertzberg's role as a link between Schwarzenegger and the state legislature, saying that Hertzberg would report "what the Democratic legislative line was — where we couldn't go and where we were willing to go. And he had the trust of the principals on both sides, which helped quite a bit." In his autobiography Total Recall, Arnold Schwarzenegger relates how he went to meet with Speaker Hertzberg in 2002 to seek support for his successful "After-school" initiative:"

Workplace misconduct accusations Hertzberg came under public scrutiny for his lingering embraces as two female lawmakers and a former female legislator complained that the intimate embraces made them uncomfortable, according to an interview by the Sacramento Bee. Two of the women said that Hertzberg hugged them again even after they had asked him to stop. The Assemblywoman told Hertzberg: "Don't touch me." Hertzberg responded by grabbing the Assemblywoman, pinning her arms by her side and thrusting his groin against her pelvis. Hertzberg then restricted the Assemblywoman from moving away, forcing prolonged torso-to-torso contact despite her shouting at him to let her go.

The former California Assemblywoman declined to meet with lawyers hired by the California Senate to investigate her allegation concerning Hertzberg in stating that "I don't want any involvement with these people," and "I don't respect how they've handled it." While the California Senate ordered him to stop hugging co-workers after an investigation determined that his behavior made two female legislators and a male sergeant-at-arms uncomfortable, the summary report of the investigation released by outside lawyers concluded that Hertzberg's hugs were "not sexual in nature." According to the Los Angeles Times report detailing the conclusion of the investigation, the report found that Hertzberg likely hugged the Former Assemblywoman on one occasion, but it said "the record did not support her assertion that he hugged her on multiple occasions or that he did so after she asked him to stop." Hertzberg was reprimanded.

Repercussions The issue came up in the media again when a man connected to the bail industry set up a "Victims Hotline" website and video in December aimed at collecting stories about the Senator – just days after the allegations surfaced. A video circulating on Facebook was found to be produced by backers of California's bail industry; an industry Hertzberg is trying to reform. Adama Iwu, one of the founders of the We Said Enough movement in the Sacramento Capitol, added that it appeared that the bail agent was taking advantage of the situation "for some kind of political gain." The former California Assemblywoman who complained about Hertzberg's conduct also questioned why Hertzberg had been able to continue his work as a lawmaker during the investigation of his conduct when the other California lawmaker (who is Latino) was barred from showing up in the building as allegations against him were being investigated.

Personal life Hertzberg has two sons.

While a student at the University of Redlands, he wrote a 400-page handbook titled, A Commonsense Approach to English. In 1983, he coauthored a manual on real estate law, California Lis Pendens Practice, published by the University of California, with a second edition in 1994.