# Member of the State Assembly, District 61 Compare records and positions simply between Brian Lockwood or Tina Simone McKinnor for Member of the State Assembly, District 61 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-61 - 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: 99 out of 100 (Very strong), across 7 cited sources. This grades the mix of sources, not the candidates. Rubric: https://voteorelse.com/about#methodology ## On the ballot - **Brian Lockwood** — No Ballot Designation · Republican - **Tina Simone McKinnor** — State Assemblymember · Democratic · Incumbent Assemblymember Tina Simone McKinnor took 98.6% of the June 2 vote to Republican Brian Lockwood's 1.4%. The district covers Inglewood, Hawthorne and part of the South Bay. 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 the policy committees that decide which bills advance, and argues for the district's share of the annual state budget. Committee assignment is where most of the leverage sits, and it is handed out by the majority's leadership. A 97-point primary margin means the practical question is what the incumbent does with a seat she holds without contest, not who holds it. Her record and her funding sources are the substance; the ballot itself will not test either. ## Tina Simone McKinnor Tina Simone McKinnor (D-Inglewood) chairs the Assembly Public Employment and Retirement Committee and the Select Committee on the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games. In 2024 she was elected chair of the Los Angeles County Legislative Delegation. Before her 2022 election she was civic engagement director for the nonprofit LAVoice, operational director for the California Democratic Party, and chief of staff to several Assemblymembers (official site). McKinnor authored AB 1383, which would have let public safety unions and employers negotiate pension formulas up to 3 percent of final pay at age 55, above the current 2.7 percent standard. About 500 public safety workers rallied at the Capitol on September 14, 2026 urging Governor Newsom to sign it. Newsom vetoed the bill on September 21, saying it would "partially reverse" 2013 pension reforms and "significantly increase state and local government costs." McKinnor argued at a June hearing that "AB 1383 does not grant retroactive retirement benefit increases or pension holidays," and that it "only applies prospectively" (Our Weekly). She promises to continue work on "rental housing affordability, reducing microplastics from our environment and eliminating racist housing policies" (official site). She also introduced AB 2186 this year to exempt reparations payments from state income tax (official site). **Strengths:** Committee chairmanships and a multi-year record of authoring bills that reached the governor's desk, including a drone restrictions bill that became law. **Trade-offs:** Her highest-profile bill this session, on public safety pensions, was vetoed after warnings about its long-term cost to cities and counties. **Keep in mind:** She represents a seat with no realistic general-election challenge, so this profile is the main independent look voters will get at her record before November. ## Brian Lockwood No campaign website or news coverage of Lockwood's platform could be located, and they filed no ballot designation. They have not served in the California Legislature or U.S. Congress. Cal-Access shows no contributions reported for Lockwood's committee, and no local news coverage of their candidacy could be found. **Strengths:** Lockwood is the only name on the ballot besides the incumbent, giving voters who want an alternative somewhere to register that. **Trade-offs:** No record in office, no reported funding and no documented platform. **Keep in mind:** No record in office to judge; coverage of this race carries little beyond the incumbent's own materials. ## Record in office Brian Lockwood has not served in the California Legislature or U.S. Congress; these records cover only those offices. Tina Simone McKinnor (Democratic) is the sitting Assemblymember for this district and is lead author of 34 bills in the 2025–2026 session, 8 of them signed into law. Per the California Legislature's public bill data (leginfo bulk download), retrieved 2026-09-21. ## Record details McKinnor — AB 2323 (2026): Publication: newspapers of general circulation. McKinnor — AB 749 (2025): Youth Sports for All Act. McKinnor — AB 851 (2025): Real property transactions: Counties of Los Angeles and Ventura wildfires: unsolicited offers. Committee assignments and the most recently signed-into-law bills each record-holder lead-authored, from the official legislative record. ## Financial info - **Tina Simone McKinnor** - Primary: $823,774 raised (Small donors: $975; Individuals: $33,905; PACs & committees: $425,820; Businesses & other orgs: $347,500) - November: $42,900 raised (Individuals: $5,900; PACs & committees: $4,000; Businesses & other orgs: $33,000) Brian Lockwood has no contributions reported to Cal-Access for this race. 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. Brian Lockwood has no itemized contributions dated after the June 2, 2026 primary reported to Cal-Access yet. 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. ## 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. [Ballotpedia — June 2026 California primary](https://ballotpedia.org) 3. [Assemblymember Tina McKinnor — official site, Biography and home pages (bio, committee roles, bill announcements)](https://mckinnor.asmdc.org/biography) 4. [Our Weekly — Gov. Newsom vetoes Tina McKinnor's bill (AB 1383 veto, quotes from Newsom and McKinnor)](https://www.ourweekly.com/2026/09/23/gov-newsom-vetoes-tina-mckinnors-bill/) 5. [California Legislature — AB-1383, Public employees' retirement benefits (bill text, authorship, coauthors)](https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB1383) 6. [California Legislative Information — public bill data (bulk download)](https://downloads.leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/) 7. [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 61 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 61 — November 3, 2026 California general election," https://voteorelse.com/2026/assembly-61 (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.