A 22-year-old Sacramento State student will be graduating from the government department at the same time he will campaign for a seat in the California State Assembly.

While earning his bachelor’s in government at Sac State, Oliver Ponce was an active member of the College Republicans.

Matt Reed, a friend of Ponce and club president, said Ponce has the life experience to connect with middle class Californians.

“California is suffering under the old, tired, liberal policies that have crushed our state’s economy,” Reed said. “Oliver’s campaign brings energy, passion and fresh ideas. The number that worries me is not Oliver’s age, it’s California’s unemployment rate and unfunded pension liability.”

District 7, which includes Sacramento County, Antelope, Rio Linda and West Sacramento, does not have an incumbent running for reelection and has been historically held by a Democrat.

All five candidates running for District 7 have voluntarily chosen to spend $544,000 or less for this month’s primary. Ponce will run against three Democrats and one other Republican.

While interning for Assemblyman Allan Mansoor and working on grassroots campaigns with the Armenian National Committee of America-Sacramento, Ponce has been given insight in the process of creating legislation.

Ponce said his decision to campaign for State Assembly started soon after Proposition 30 passed in 2012.

“It’s kind of a slap to the face to students everywhere when they said that money is guaranteed to go to education,” Ponce said. “All that money can go towards whatever Gov. Brown wants and I find that insulting. Because they refused to freeze the tuition for the lifespan of (Prop. 30), it proves to me that they are using students to finance their own pet projects.”

Ponce’s campaign manager, Lilit Movsisyan, said Ponce wants to address the relationship between education, especially kindergarten through high school, as well as taxes and job growth through legislation.  

“He understands the needs of social services that would need to be provided to the community, overall, but he believes that budgeting right can help prevent increases of taxes and he does not support tax increases,” Movsisyan said.

To improve education funding and the economy, Ponce wants to be active on the State Assembly’s education, housing and transportation committees.

“He wants to expand community college education, tuition relief and he wants to make sure that the state funds go more towards education than being spent wastefully,” Movsisyan said.