Quick Take
A recent UC Santa Cruz graduate, 23-year-old Zennon Ulyate-Crow, has launched a campaign for the California state Senate District 24 seat, hoping to become one of the youngest people elected to the chamber. The former Santa Cruz transportation commissioner and student housing advocate says his campaign is driven by issues facing his generation, including the rising cost of living, housing shortages and government accountability.
Recent UC Santa Cruz graduate Zennon Ulyate-Crow, 23, was in eighth grade in his Southern California hometown of Topanga when he took his first stab at politics.
He and students at the nearby Topanga Elementary Charter School who wanted to walk to the local library just a third of a mile away had to walk along a highway without a shoulder or sidewalk. Ulyate-Crow didn’t feel safe making that trek so close to traffic, so he started a campaign, knocking on neighbors’ doors to gain support. He asked Caltrans to take up the project, but the state transit agency told him that it didn’t want the liability of making it a safer path.
“That was a really defining moment for me,” he said. “The way our systems are set up, we’d rather have kids walking on the dirt shoulder between a highway and a mountain than we would put up a guardrail.”
Ulyate-Crow said that experience also led him to his personal philosophy: He’s not allowed to complain about something unless he’s doing something to fix it.
Seeing more issues to resolve in Topanga, he last month launched his campaign to get elected state senator for District 24, home to just over 1 million residents from Agoura Hills in the north, Hollywood to the east, the Santa Monica Mountains to the west and down the coast to Rancho Palos Verdes. Democrat Ben Allen has held the seat since 2014 and is termed out.
While in Santa Cruz from 2021 to 2024, he created a student housing advocacy coalition, advocated for several pieces of statewide housing legislation and was appointed to the Santa Cruz Transportation and Public Works Commission at age 19, the youngest commissioner ever. In 2022, he helped write Senate Bill 886, which streamlined student housing construction in the University of California, California State University and state community college systems by exempting certain projects from environmental review, and was championed by pro-housing groups across the state.
He graduated in three years with a bachelor’s degree in politics and a minor in legal studies.
One of Ulyate-Crow’s first lecturers at UCSC, legal studies lecturer Nathan Coben, told Lookout he wasn’t surprised at all to learn about his campaign. Coben said that among his students, Ulyate-Crow stood out for his energy and depth of knowledge about political issues, particularly related to housing.
“I’m born and raised in Santa Cruz, and he knew more about city politics than I did,” Coben said. “He had to teach me about all this stuff that was happening.”
Ulyate-Crow is running on four main issues: lowering that cost of living, improved delivery of government services, keeping entertainment jobs in Southern California and protecting the environment. As a member of Gen Z, he said his generation is facing these crises at critical moments in their lives, as they’re exiting college and starting their adult lives. But, he said, there are not enough people living this experience and representing the cohort in state government.
“All of these things came together for me to say that I have to be the change that I want to see,” he said.
It’s a crowded race as the June 2 primary election approaches, with 12 other candidates running for the seat. Ulyate-Crow so far counts two endorsements: Michael Tubbs, a special adviser to Gov. Gavin Newsom and former Stockton mayor, and Santa Cruz Mayor Fred Keeley. Ulyate-Crow’s campaign had $531 on hand at the end of the quarterly reporting cycle at the end of last year, according to Secretary of State campaign finance reports. He told Lookout that in total, the campaign has raised $30,332.
In a statement, Keeley said Ulyate-Crow has left a “lasting impact on Santa Cruz” through his advocacy and represents the future of the Democratic Party.
“I’ve had the pleasure of working alongside Zennon throughout his time in Santa Cruz,” he said. “And I know that, through his experience both here and beyond, he is prepared to serve his community as State Senator and become the first Gen Z representative in Sacramento.”
Tubbs said Ulyate-Crow combines “lived experience with a record of real policy results.”
“Beyond policy wins, Zennon demonstrates discipline, strategic thinking, empathy and persistence,” he said in a statement. “He understands how to move ideas from advocacy to implementation.”
As a young, up-and-coming candidate, though, Ulyate-Crow says he’s come across some skepticism and outright opposition, even from fellow Democrats. He’s been told to “wait your turn.”
“There’s this whole insider baseball game where you wait for the musical chairs of politicians to move before you’re allowed to run,” he said. “I’m not campaigning for party insiders — I’m going directly to the people of this district.”
Have something to say? Lookout welcomes letters to the editor, within our policies, from readers. Guidelines here.