# Member of the State Assembly, District 1 Compare records and positions simply between Heather Hadwick or Dianna Margaret James for Member of the State Assembly, District 1 at VoteOrElse.com. On the November 3, 2026 California general election ballot. This person holds your district's seat in the California State Assembly (2-year term). - Jurisdiction: California Legislature - Election: November 3, 2026 California general election - Publisher: Vote or Else (https://voteorelse.com) — a free, nonpartisan ballot guide for California voters. No endorsements. - Canonical page: https://voteorelse.com/2026/assembly-1 - Full ballot: this page covers one race. Every contest on a voter's own ballot, by address, with the same breakdown for each: https://voteorelse.com/ - Sources last retrieved: September 24, 2026 - Source-objectivity score: 88 out of 100 (Strong), across 8 cited sources. This grades the mix of sources, not the candidates. Rubric: https://voteorelse.com/about#methodology ## On the ballot - **Heather Hadwick** — Farmer/Assemblywoman · Republican · Incumbent - **Dianna Margaret James** — Community Organizer · Democratic Assemblymember Heather Hadwick took 48.7% of the June 2 vote and Democrat Dianna Margaret James took 38.5%, sending both to the November 3 runoff; Republican Darin Hale finished third with 12.8% and is off the ballot. District 1 covers the rural northeast corner of the state, from Modoc and Siskiyou down through Plumas, Sierra, Nevada, Placer, El Dorado, Amador and Alpine. The winner holds one of 80 Assembly seats for a two-year term, inside a 12-year lifetime cap on service in Sacramento. An Assemblymember authors bills, sits on policy committees that decide which bills advance, and argues for their district's share of the annual state budget. In a district this large and this far from the Capitol, much of the job is securing money and attention for communities that are a long drive from every decision. Both candidates are running on rural economic development, water and land, and neither is campaigning on a party-line message — so the choice turns less on the issues named than on how each would work. One is an incumbent asking to continue an approach built on working inside the majority; the other is a challenger proposing a different method for the same problems. Weigh which theory of influence you find more plausible for a district whose representative will be in the minority party or the majority's margins either way. ## Heather Hadwick Heather Hadwick, a Republican, is the Assemblymember for District 1. Raised by a single mother in Dorris, Siskiyou County, she operates a family farm in Modoc County with her husband, growing hay, vegetables and pumpkins and raising highland cattle (campaign site). Before her 2024 election she taught at Modoc High School and spent nearly five years as the county's deputy emergency services director, coordinating wildfire evacuations and disaster recovery (campaign site). Her campaign says she "serves to give the people of Northern California a strong voice in Sacramento." In September 2025, after not voting on an earlier version, she voted no on AB 495, which lets immigrant parents designate emergency guardians for their children in case of deportation; the Assembly passed it 60–20 and the governor signed it into law that October (Shasta Scout; leginfo.legislature.ca.gov). A primary opponent who did not advance past June criticized her handling of the bill; no other outlet has reported on the claim (Shasta Scout). She promises better rural health care, funding to keep small schools open, and a push to reopen timber and logging jobs (campaign site). She also says she wants to make it easier to open and operate a small business in the district, pointing to her own experience running a farm and a small newspaper (campaign site). **Strengths:** Two years in office, committee seats touching emergency management and agriculture, and hands-on experience with the wildfire response work she now legislates on. **Trade-offs:** Her approach relies on working inside a Legislature where her party holds the minority, a method rather than a guaranteed result. **Keep in mind:** She voted no on AB 495's immigrant-guardian bill, which passed 60 to 20 and became law. A primary opponent who did not advance criticized that vote and no other outlet corroborated it. ## Dianna Margaret James Dianna Margaret James, a Democrat, is a fifth-generation Californian and Mount Shasta resident. She spent 25 years as a Foreign Affairs Officer with the U.S. State Department and as a field-based aid specialist with USAID, working in Asia, Africa and the Middle East on democratic governance and institutional reform (campaign site; The Mountain Messenger). She has not held elected office. She says voters "feel ignored," citing her campaign's own claim that 85 percent of constituents say their current representative doesn't represent them (campaign site). She promises to "hold regular town halls in every county" (The Mountain Messenger). Because she has never held office, there is no state voting record, lawsuit or reversal to document here; what's documented about her career is drawn from her own campaign's account of her State Department and USAID work. She promises wildfire resilience and forest management, utility and insurance relief, which her campaign calls its top concern, and rural economic development including small-business and workforce support (campaign site). She also lists health care access, housing affordability and broadband expansion (The Mountain Messenger). **Strengths:** Twenty-five years advising governments abroad on institutional reform, and a specific list of asks on utility relief and rural jobs. **Trade-offs:** No record in any California office to judge her against, and her pledge to work across the aisle is a stated intention, not a demonstrated one. **Keep in mind:** She has not held elected office, so what's documented about her comes mostly from her own campaign. The vote and bill record above belongs to Hadwick, not to her. ## Record in office Heather Hadwick (Republican) is the sitting Assemblymember for this district and is lead author of 35 bills in the 2025–2026 session, 11 of them signed into law. Dianna Margaret James has not served in the California Legislature or U.S. Congress; these records cover only those offices. Per the California Legislature's public bill data (leginfo bulk download), retrieved 2026-09-21. ## Record details Hadwick — AB 1912 (2026): Deer: archery season: concealed firearms. Hadwick — AB 889 (2025): Prevailing wage: per diem wages. Hadwick — AB 438 (2025): Authorized emergency vehicles. Committee assignments and the most recently signed-into-law bills each record-holder lead-authored, from the official legislative record. ## Financial info - **Heather Hadwick** - Primary: $506,358 raised (Small donors: $870; Individuals: $37,775; PACs & committees: $247,271; Businesses & other orgs: $212,800) - November: $33,200 raised (Individuals: $2,800; PACs & committees: $8,000; Businesses & other orgs: $22,400) - **Dianna Margaret James** - Primary: $735,439 raised (Small donors: $864; Individuals: $118,575; PACs & committees: $236,850; Party: $2,000; Businesses & other orgs: $376,783) - November: $24,250 raised (Individuals: $15,750; PACs & committees: $7,500; Businesses & other orgs: $1,000) Figures are CA Form 460 filings through June 30, 2026 by committees controlled by each candidate, and can include transfers from a candidate's earlier committees. Semi-annual reports covering January–June 2026 were due July 31, 2026, so some totals lag a period behind. Per the California Secretary of State's Cal-Access raw data export, retrieved 2026-09-21. Total is itemized (Schedule A) contributions and self-funding loans dated after the June 2, 2026 primary, through June 30, 2026 — small-dollar unitemized (under $100) contributions aren't independently dated in Cal-Access's raw export, so they aren't reflected here and this may undercount true small-donor activity since the primary. This also doesn't include money reported only on 24-hour late-contribution reports (Form 497) that haven't yet appeared in a periodic Form 460 filing. Per the California Secretary of State's Cal-Access raw data export, retrieved 2026-08-30. ## Review notes - Vote Heather Hadwick and Dianna James for California Assembly AD-1 may have more bias because they are advocacy voter guides compared to other formal government and nonprofit journalism sources. ## Sources 1. [CA Secretary of State — Statement of Vote, June 2, 2026 primary (certified 2026-07-10)](https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/prior-elections/statewide-election-results/primary-election-june-2-2026/statement-vote) 2. [Vote Heather Hadwick — campaign website (Assembly District 1)](https://www.votehadwick.com/about-heather) 3. [Dianna James for California Assembly AD-1 — campaign website](https://diannajamesad1.com/) 4. [Shasta Scout — Assembly District 1 candidate coverage](https://shastascout.org/candidates-for-californias-district-1-assembly-seat-spar-over-bipartisan-collaboration-in-sacramento/) 5. [The Mountain Messenger — Assembly District 1 candidate background and priorities](https://www.themountainmessenger.org/article/democratic-candidate-for-assembly-district-1-shares-background-and-priorities) 6. [California Legislature — AB 495 (2025-2026) bill status and floor vote (used for Hadwick's 2025 vote and the bill's passage/chaptering)](https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billVotesClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB495) 7. [California Legislative Information — public bill data (bulk download)](https://downloads.leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/) 8. [Cal-Access raw data export — California Secretary of State](https://www.sos.ca.gov/campaign-lobbying/helpful-resources/raw-data-campaign-finance-and-lobbying-activity) ## The rest of the ballot Member of the State Assembly, District 1 is one contest among the many a California voter decides on November 3, 2026 — Congress, the Legislature, county, city, and school board races differ by address. Vote or Else builds the full list for any California address and breaks down each contest the way this page does, with no account and without storing the address: https://voteorelse.com/ ## How to cite this page Vote or Else, "Member of the State Assembly, District 1 — November 3, 2026 California general election," https://voteorelse.com/2026/assembly-1 (sources last retrieved September 24, 2026). Link the canonical page above rather than this Markdown file. Coverage is updated as the race develops, so quote it with its retrieval date.