Pumped from Pilates class, Hannah-Beth Jackson showed up for a coffee date on Coast Village Road sporting a tan shirt that read “Well Behaved Women Rarely Make History.”
It was an apt fashion choice for Santa Barbara’s state senator, who just completed one of the more impactful legislative sessions in recent memory, not only quantitatively — she won approval from both houses for a flurry of 18 bills — but also qualitatively, as she authored measures on some high-profile issues with statewide and national impact, from affirmative action for women executives to wildfire safety strategies.
For Jackson, in the final two years of her last Senate term, it represented not only a personal triumph but also a political achievement long in the making. She finally has emerged as a political star in Sacramento, nearly two decades after capitol power brokers, displeased with her brash and unapologetically progressive style, effectively squeezed her out of a Senate seat in a gerrymandering gambit.