In the News

By Emily Stewart

Women are dramatically outnumbered on the boards of directors for the nation’s biggest companies. California just passed a law trying to change that.

By Maureen Cavanaugh, Pat Finn

There seems to be no stopping Toni Atkins.

Born in Virginia, Atkins moved to San Diego in 1985 and was elected to her first term on the San Diego City Council in 2000 at the age of 38.

She began her life in the California Legislature as a Democratic member of the Assembly in 2010. Four years later she became the first San Diegan and the first acknowledged lesbian to be named speaker of the Assembly.

By Scott Shafer and Marisa Lagos

Governor Jerry Brown takes center stage at the Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco, and State Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins joins Marisa and Scott to talk about her journey from western Virginia to California, national perceptions of the Golden State, San Diego politics, and her leadership style.

By John Myers

The story that Toni Atkins tells feels less like anecdote than allegory, a glimpse of how as a legislator she confronts the problems of California using life lessons imported from her childhood in the mountains of southwestern Virginia.

During a weekday morning visit to a San Diego seniors center, Atkins praises the volunteers at a vision clinic offering free eye exams and glasses. After all, she knows a little something about being too poor to buy a pair of glasses.