The Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority, more commonly known simply as the Valley Transportation Authority (VTA), is a special district responsible for public transit services, congestion management, specific highway improvement projects, and countywide transportation planning for Santa Clara County, California. It serves San Jose, California, and the surrounding Silicon Valley. It is one of the governing parties for the Caltrain commuter rail line that serves the county. In 2023, the VTA's public transportation services had a combined ridership of 26,610,000, or about 94,100 per weekday as of the third quarter of 2024.
Saren Joseph Simitian is an American politician. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the State Senator representing California's 11th State Senate district, which encompasses all or part of 13 cities in San Mateo, Santa Clara, and Santa Cruz counties, from 2004 to 2012. Approaching his term limit at the end of 2012, he ran for and was elected to the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors. He was re-elected to the same seat in 2016 and again in 2020.
Ronald R. Gonzales is an American politician and member of the Democratic Party, who served as the 63rd Mayor of San Jose, California. Gonzales was the first Hispanic to serve as Mayor of San Jose since 1845.
Ken Yeager is an American politician. He served on the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors, representing District 4. First elected to the board in 2006, he represented the cities of Campbell and Santa Clara, as well as west San Jose and the Burbank and Cambrian neighborhoods. Previously, Yeager served on the San Jose City Council from 2000 to 2006. Before that, he served two terms on the San Jose/Evergreen Community College Board. He was a candidate for the 23rd district seat in the California State Assembly in 1996, coming in second.
David Dominic Cortese is an elected official from San Jose, California. He is currently serving in the California State Senate, representing District 15, which encompasses a majority of Santa Clara County. Before being elected to the California State Senate, Cortese served on the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors for 12 years, as a Councilmember and Vice Mayor for the City of San Jose for eight years, and for eight years as a trustee for the East Side Union High School District in San Jose. Cortese ran for mayor of San Jose and won the primary, losing the general election to District 3 councilmember Sam Liccardo.
Dominic L. Cortese is a former California State Assemblyman who served from 1980 until 1996. For most of his career, Cortese was a moderate Democrat, but in 1995 he gained national attention when he became a member of Ross Perot's Reform Party. He was the highest ranking elected official of the newly formed party at the time. There were international media reports of this event, including the fact that Cortese was being considered by Perot to be his vice presidential running mate in the 1996 election.
Pierluigi Oliverio is a former American politician, who was the 6th district Councilmember on the San Jose City Council. He was sworn in on March 20, 2007, and left office in January 2017. He was elected to three consecutive terms, and could no longer run due to term limits.
Otto Oswald Lee is a Hong Kong-born American politician, attorney, and military veteran who was a Sunnyvale, California city council member from 2003 to 2011, before which he was on the Planning Commission, which he chaired from 2000 to 2001. From 2005 to 2006 he was vice mayor, and from 2006 to 2007 he was the 57th mayor of Sunnyvale. He is a patent attorney, and a co-founder and partner of the Intellectual Property Law Group LLP.
Kansen Chu is a Taiwanese-born American politician. A Democrat, Chu was a member of the California State Assembly from 2014 to 2020, for the 25th District, which encompasses parts of the South and East Bay regions of the San Francisco Bay Area.
Anna E. Song is a South Korean-born American politician who served on the Santa Clara County School Board for twenty years. She is California's first female South Korean-born elected official.
Dan McCorquodale is an American politician from Newton, Texas, a former California State Senator, and a member of the Democratic Party.
Johnny Khamis is an American politician from San Jose, California and was a member of the San Jose City Council, representing District 10.
The 2014 San Jose mayoral election was held on June 3, 2014, to elect the Mayor of San Jose, California. Councilmember Sam Liccardo defeated Santa Clara County Supervisor Dave Cortese in a runoff on November 4, 2014.
The 2006 San Jose mayoral election was held on June 6 and November 7, 2006, to elect the Mayor of San Jose, California. It saw the election of Chuck Reed.
The 1998 San Jose mayoral election was held on June 2 and November 3, 1998, to elect the Mayor of San Jose, California. It saw the election of Ron Gonzales.
The 2020 Orange County Board of Supervisors elections was held on March 3, 2020, as part of the primary election on March 3, 2020. Two of the five seats of the Orange County, California Board of Supervisors were up for election.
The 2020 Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors elections took place on March 3, 2020, with runoff elections held on November 3, 2020, to elect members of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. Three of the five seats on the board were up for election.
The 2022 San Jose mayoral election was held on November 8, 2022, to elect the next mayor of San Jose for a two-year term. A top-two primary was held on June 7, 2022, and no candidate received more than 50% in this primary election. Santa Clara County Supervisor Cindy Chavez and San Jose City Councilmember Matt Mahan advanced to a November 8 runoff election. On November 16, Cindy Chavez conceded the race to Matt Mahan.
The 2022 Orange County Board of Supervisors elections were held on June 7 and November 8, 2022. Three of the five seats of the Orange County, California Board of Supervisors were up for election. This was the first set of elections held after the 2020 redistricting cycle. County elections in California are officially nonpartisan. A two-round system was used for the election, starting with the first round in June. Runoffs were held in all three districts, as no candidate managed to reach the 50% + 1 threshold.
The 2022 Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors election was held on November 8, 2022, to elect two of the five seats on the Board of Supervisors of Santa Clara County, California. District 1 was an open seat due to the terming out of Supervisor Mike Wasserman. The race was highly competitive and the first since the 2020 United States redistricting cycle which changed the boundaries of the district. Since District 4 was uncontested, incumbent Supervisor Susan Ellenberg did not appear on the November 8th ballot.
