Sheila Kuehl
Kuehl was elected to the California State Assembly in 1994, becoming the first openly gay person elected to the California legislature. While running for office Kuehl found she was able to offset some negative stereotypes people had about lesbians thanks to their familiarity with her role as Zelda. She told an interviewer "When people know gay people personally, they tend to feel differently about the whole community. And all of a sudden, here's a person that they knew very well that they found out was lesbian."
Joe Shell
Among Shell's financial backers was A. C. "Cy" Ruble, former chairman of Union Oil Company of California. In Bakersfield, Mary K. Shell, then Mary Hosking (born 1927) of the Kern County Republican Women's Association, worked for the nomination of her future husband. In the same election, two other conservatives, including Howard Jarvis, the future father of California Proposition 13 (1978), challenged liberal U.S. Senator Thomas H. Kuchel in the primary. Kuchel easily prevailed to gain renomination. He had initially succeeded Nixon in the Senate in 1953. The 1962 elections were the first in California in which cross-filing across party lines had been abandoned.