Harvey Milk Diversity Breakfast to Honor Toni Atkins

Toni Atkins to Receive Harvey Milk Leadership Award

PALM SPRINGS — Toni Atkins, who served as the 51st president pro tempore of the California State Senate from 2018 to 2024, will be honored with the Harvey Milk Leadership Award.

The Harvey Milk Diversity Breakfast will take place at the Palm Springs Convention Center on Thursday, May 8 at 8:30 a.m. for coffee networking hour and 9:30 a.m. for the breakfast and program. Proceeds benefit LGBTQ+ programs in the Coachella Valley, and on average each year, approximately 300 youth attend the breakfast.

As the first woman to lead California’s State Senate and Assembly, Toni Atkins has been a inspiration and a maverick spending her life helping her constituents and the underserved.

She came to California to help her twin. She stayed to help millions more. At just 27, she was named the Director of Clinic Services at San Diego’s Womancare Health Center, where she helped low-income women access reproductive care — even when anti-abortion extremists tried to block access.

Years later as a legislator, Toni proudly wrote laws that removed obstacles keeping women from getting the health care they needed, especially in rural areas of California who may not have access to various services. And, after the gut-wrenching Dobbs decision leaked, she wrote the constitutional amendment to protect the right to abortion and contraception for generations to come — and led the effort with Planned Parenthood and other grassroots clinics and organizations to ensure it was approved by a majority of California voters.

After working in the women’s clinic, Toni went to work as a staff member at City Hall, later running and winning a seat on the City Council in 2000, where she passed San Diego’s first living wage law. When the Mayor of San Diego resigned during a period of crisis, Toni served as acting Mayor and helped San Diego successfully navigate the scandal.

Elected by voters to the state Assembly in 2010, Toni served there for six years. In 2014, her colleagues selected her to be the Speaker of the Assembly, becoming the first San Diegan and the first lesbian to hold the position. As someone who grew up in a house without running water, Toni counts passing a $7.5-billion investment in clean, safe and reliable drinking water supplies as one of her proudest accomplishments as Speaker of the Assembly.

In 2016, San Diego voters elected her to the State Senate — and after just one year, she was again selected by her colleagues to serve as Senate President pro Tempore, becoming the first woman and the first openly LGBTQ person to lead the Legislature’s upper house. Atkins is the first person in 150 years, the third person in California history, and the only woman to lead both houses of the Legislature.

During her time in the Legislature, she negotiated eight on-time balanced budgets with two Governors, building record reserves without raising taxes on working people. As a leader, she negotiated the passage of historic climate goals and increased access to health care.

Toni has worked to create good-paying jobs and bolster worker protections, and she’s expanded educational opportunities so that nothing gets in the way of California’s children being able to learn. She’s a champion for affordable housing, the environment, health care, veterans, women, and the LGBTQ+ community. She has led legislative efforts to protect victims of crime, including children being trafficked and women facing domestic violence.

The breakfast honors the memory of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay elected official in California and his legacy of groundbreaking inspiration in the struggle to achieve lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality. On May 8, we will join equality movements around the globe to celebrate the life story, message, and legacy of Harvey Milk. Together we will showcase the diversity of our community, and celebrate his message of hope, civic-mindedness, and community.

The event is designed to strengthen coalitions among the many diverse community organizations that work toward equality in the Coachella Valley.

Tickets are available online www.HarveyMilk.us.

Co-sponsor tables of eight are available from $750 to $2,500. Tables of eight may be donated for students for $750.00. Individual tickets are available for just $95.00. This event is accessible for all persons with hearing and mobility impairments.