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By Brian Hews
Publisher | Follow X
May 26, 2026
There are politicians who arrive in a community looking for opportunity. Then there is Mark Pulido.
Pulido did not move to Cerritos to build a résumé or position himself for higher office. This is where he grew up. Where he went to school. Where he raised his family. And where he has remained for more than five decades. When he asks voters for their support this June, he is not introducing himself to strangers — he is speaking to neighbors who have watched his life unfold alongside theirs.
His story begins the same way many Cerritos success stories begin: at Cerritos College.
Long before the city council chambers, the mayor’s office, Sacramento connections, or congressional experience, Pulido was a student walking the halls of the local community college that continues serving thousands of families across the district today. For generations, Cerritos College has been a launching point for working families seeking opportunity, advancement and stability. Pulido was one of them — the son of small business owners whose parents built a life in this community and instilled in him the belief that hard work means little unless it is paired with service to others.
After Cerritos College, Pulido attended UCLA. But perhaps the most defining choice in his story is what happened afterward: he came home.
That decision became the foundation for everything that followed.
At just 32 years old, Pulido became the youngest person ever elected to the ABC Unified School District Board of Education, helping oversee the same schools attended by generations of Cerritos families. He served three terms, including time as Board President, before voters elected him to the Cerritos City Council in 2011 with more votes than any candidate in city history.
He would go on to serve two terms on the council and twice as Mayor of Cerritos.
Alongside local leadership, Pulido built years of legislative and governmental experience at the state and federal levels. He worked as a consultant to the California Assembly Speaker, served as a State Senate District Director, and ultimately became District Chief of Staff to Congressman Alan Lowenthal, helping carry the concerns of Southeast Los Angeles County to Washington, D.C.
Governor Jerry Brown later appointed Pulido to three statewide commissions, including the California Science Center Board and the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum Commission, expanding both his experience and his relationships across California government.
But through every title and appointment, the center of the story never changed.
Every school board meeting. Every council vote. Every legislative briefing. Every commission appointment traces back to a kid from Cerritos who started at Cerritos College and spent a lifetime investing back into the community that shaped him.
Politics often rewards people who move away from where they started in pursuit of larger opportunities. Pulido’s career has followed a different path. Rather than using Cerritos as a stepping stone, he treated it as a responsibility — one that guided every stage of his public service career.
In 40 years of publishing weekly community newspapers, 25 owning the Los Cerritos Community News, I’ve watched plenty of politicians come and go. Very few can genuinely say their entire public service career was built inside the same community they now hope to represent in Sacramento. Mark Pulido can.”
Now he is asking voters to take that responsibility to Sacramento.
The 67th Assembly District is one of the most diverse and rapidly evolving regions in California. Representing it effectively requires more than campaign messaging or political branding. It requires decades of lived experience inside the neighborhoods, schools, businesses and communities that make up the district.
Pulido’s connection to this area cannot be manufactured. It was built over a lifetime.
From Cerritos College to the Capitol, his story is rooted in the belief that public service begins at home — and that the communities which shape a person are worth spending a lifetime serving.
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