Our Candidate's Autobio

My friends, my neighbors, and to all in our great State, my name is Robert R. Jimenez, and I’m running as “R.R. Jimenez” for the California State Senate, District 22, as an Independent candidate. I am not here to represent any political party. I am here to represent you because California doesn’t need another affiliated made politician. It needs a leader who serves our families and communities, not a political leader who serves their party who in turns serves the government, and then, the government serves their political party.

I am a U.S. Marine Corps veteran, a public servant for more than 20 years, a father, a husband, a man of faith, and a believer in second and third chances striving to get it right.

I earned my Master’s from the University of Michigan; my Bachelor’s, Magna Cum Laude, from the University of Arizona with Honors, and my Associate’s from Arizona Western College with Honors after being a high school dropout. Yet my real education — the one that shaped my character —came from life itself, and from the relationships and neighborhoods that helped built me. I grew up in El Monte, Rosemead, Rowland Heights, and Boyle Heights. I was raised by strong, disciplinarian, hardworking, loving parents and grandmothers who struggled through life to raise me and my siblings.

My late mother, Becky Zavala, taught me about love and community — never giving up on me after all my poor decisions. She volunteered with the Softball and Little Leagues at Lambert Park and served at the Guadalupe Catholic Church Parish and with PTAs in El Monte and helped whoever she could with whatever she had. She was also quick to discipline me whenever I broke the rules, disrespected my elders, and treated others wrong.

My late father, Juan Jimenez, was disabled and an activist — an original Brown Berets member, later founded CCM de Aztlan, assisted AIM (American Indian Movement), and established Operation Y.E.S. — a non-profit program that helped gang-members, at-risk youth and their families reclaim their future well-being. Later in life, he became a born-again Christian and served in the Seven Day Adventist Church. My father also was quick to discipline me whenever I broke the rules and did not listen to him and authority figures; he believed I should comply and behave first and then air my complaint.

My parents taught me that real leadership means helping and standing up for others, even when it costs you something, that helps root our identities and relationships in one another.

My father ran for city council seats and never won — but he never stopped serving.  My mother never stop helping others -- even when they offended her and didn't deserve it. And that, more than any governing title, pride, or self-righteousness, is what true leadership means to me.

After serving in the Marine Corps and attending Universities, I came home to continue that mission — to help as best as I can do. I became the first President of the Boyle Heights Neighborhood Council, a 51-member Council that worked through differences to serve one common purpose: the good of the neighborhood. I also served with the Boyle Heights Chamber of Commerce, L.A. City’s Community Improvement and Poverty Area (CIPA) 1 representative, and the L.A.P.D.’s Community Policing Advisory Board for the Hollenbeck Division.

And I learned something important: Leadership isn’t about power. It’s about bringing people together — especially when it’s hardest to do so.

After years of community service, I stepped away from my local civil involvement to focus on raising my family. I helped coached youth football — the Boyle Heights Wolfpack, the Rosemead Rebels, the West Covina Bruins — because I believe that sports, mentorship, and education can change the course of a young person’s life.

Like many neighbors, parents, spouses, and children, I’ve made many mistakes. I’ve walked through tough times; I’ve learned from failure, its consequences, and properly responding to both; and I’ve grown through faith. I recently was a born-again Christian, and I believe that experience, humility, forgiveness, and redemption make us stronger servants for others. My faith has given me clarity: to pursue wisdom, to serve boldly, and to listen deeply. I am not your picture perfect, pristine candidate that has never done any wrong; I am a blemished and scarred person striving to be better refusing to be pull by any faction that tears us a part.

Now, I stand here because I believe California needs a different vision, a different perspective. Our greatest problem is not just political or economic — it’s division and the exploitation of that division. Partisan politics has poisoned our ability to work together. It’s turned neighbors into enemies, and it’s tearing at the fabric that holds us together.

But that doesn’t have to be our story.

I’m running to bridge that divide focusing on our relationships in our homes, in our neighborhoods, and public streets — to promote integrity, responsibility, accountability, ownership, mercy, hard work, and unity to our great State of California.

I’m running to give our communities a voice that isn’t controlled by political parties and the government where they serve one another with money and tricks of the political trade.

I’m running because our children, families, and our neighborhoods deserve a California built on opportunity, hard work, and respect — not the ideology and disguise of exploitation.

I won’t make empty promises. I’ll make commitments to fight for our children, families, our neighborhoods and small businesses. I’ll fight for education, youth programs, public safety, and economic policies that do not conflict with parents raising children, families living in neighborhoods, businesses in markets, and government misuse, abuse, and overreach. I will demand honesty and transparency from every corner of our government.

I will serve you the same way I served my country — with honor, courage, and commitment.

Our campaign is not about democrats or republicans, left or right, because they act like gangs that draw lines around issues as their territory; demand loyalty as they sport their party’s colors; make deceptive claims; disrespects one another; disguise goals they desire to achieve, being disingenuous; and, being unfaithful to our great State and to our vote. They fight for power while families struggle to survive. That’s not leadership. That’s betrayal.

I’m running to break that cycle. Our campaign is about working together to solve our problems in raising our children and families and being better neighbors. I’m not asking you to pick a side. I’m asking you to pick our future — a future where “we the people” work together again, being faithful to one another – or, as we say in the Marines, “Semper Fi,” where shades of green is the only color and race, working and racing towards a common purpose and goal: defending our families, communities, our State, and our Nation!

California was built by families like ours — people who came here with dreams, who worked hard, who believed in the promise of our great State of California.

That promise still lives — if we fight for it together, not against each other.

So today, I ask for your trust, your faith, and your partnership because I need you; we need each other! Let’s move California forward — together!

Let us be led by wisdom, compassion, courage, respect, mercy, responsibility, accountability, and ownership to be wholesome. 

One California. One future. One purpose.

Thank you. God bless you, and God bless our great State of California.

Vote "R.R. JIMENEZ" for California State Senate, District 22
Independent Candidate, State Senate, 22nd District

“Together: We’re Strong Enough, Courageous Enough"