Citrus Board of Trustee member Mary Ann Lutz ran for congresswoman to serve San Gabriel Valley’s 31st Congressional seat. On Election Day, March 5, she finished in sixth place out of 11 candidates in the primary election. However, she has not let this discourage her from future plans.
Lutz has had experience in running for offices. She gained her familiarity with campaigning when she ran for mayor of Monrovia in 2009, a position she held for six years.
“I’ve been very involved in the community and regional for decades now and I worked for a couple of years as a policy advisor for Grace Napolitano,” Lutz said. “I really found out that I liked the work and felt that I could do it.”
Napolitano is currently the U.S. House representative for the 31st district. Napolitano’s term will expire in November.
Lutz has also been active in the community. One of her contributions was being president of the National Women’s Political Caucus of San Gabriel Valley, an organization dedicated to identifying, recruiting, training and supporting women candidates for elected and appointed offices.
“One of the goals of the National Women’s Political Caucus of San Gabriel Valley is to train and support women candidates and because of doing that, I’m always learning more about what works in a campaign, how to work on campaigns,” she said. “It does definitely inform some of our messaging.”
Although she had already had some experience in campaigning, the organization helped her develop that knowledge further.
Lutz said the biggest challenge for female candidates is being heard.
“It’s difficult for women in political arenas,” Lutz said. “We don’t get heard as much or taken seriously.”
During some of the forums of the election, Lutz said she experienced an example of women not being heard.
“There were instances where I would be with other candidates that were male,” Lutz said. “There were only two females running, and they would ask the males the questions before the females (and) we’d get interrupted.”
Lutz said because of not being taken seriously, female candidates have to put more effort.
“You learn to reiterate in a way that can’t be dismissed,” she said.
Monrovia Councilwoman Tamala Kelly, who has worked with Lutz for about 15 years and has known her for 20 years, described Lutz as a compassionate and active leader who cares about the community and the people in it.
“What makes Mary Ann different from other leaders is other leaders simply use their voice,” Kelly said. “Mary Ann puts her boots on the ground and gets things done.”
Lutz said she has no future plans to run for Congress again. She would rather focus on being a member of the Board of Trustees.
“There’s still a lot of work to do to support our college,” she said.
She is still undecided whether she will join the election to continue being part of the Board of Trustees once her term expires in November.
Lutz advised any young woman who plans to run for office to just do it.
“We need to do it, women need to do it, we need to get our voices out there and we need to share the information we have and share our expertise and our spirit,” Lutz said.
