THE L.A. DAILY NEWS SAYS ABOUT SUSAN SHELLEY:
"A whipsmart constitutional scholar"
"She's got good ideas"
"Anyone — Democrat or Republican — who is uncomfortable with the current Democratic lock in Sacramento will certainly want to look at Shelley because electing a Republican in this one special election will end the supermajority." Read more
About Susan Shelley
California Assembly candidate Susan Shelley is the author of three books on the U.S. Constitution: "The 37th Amendment" is a novel about changing the Constitution to repeal the guarantee of "due process of law," and the fight to reverse that decision decades later; "How the First Amendment Came to Protect Topless Dancing" is a modern history of the Bill of Rights; and "Uncle Sam's Nickel: The Five Percent Flat Tax that will Restore Freedom and Prosperity" is a proposal for a constitutional amendment to replace the federal income tax with a flat tax.
“The 37th Amendment” and “How the First Amendment Came to Protect Topless Dancing” are on the shelves of the Tarlton Law Library at the University of Texas, the O’Quinn Law Library at the University of Houston, the Social Law Library in Boston, the Michael E. Moritz Law Library at Ohio State, and the Barbara and Maurice Deane Law Library at Hofstra University. They have been acquired by many university, state college and public libraries across the United States and in Canada and New Zealand. Often used by home-school and online high school government classes, the books were also on the reading list in a class on wrongful convictions in Northern Arizona University’s Department of Criminology.
Susan graduated from El Camino Real High School in Woodland Hills and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in history at California State University, Northridge. Born in Chicago, she moved with her family to Woodland Hills in 1975. Her father, the late actor Dave Shelley, appeared regularly in television series including "Fame," "The Jeffersons," and "The Rockford Files." A proud member of three unions -- the Screen Actors Guild, AFTRA and Actors Equity -- he was a working actor all of his adult life. He also served on the board of directors of the Synagogue for the Performing Arts in West Los Angeles. After his untimely death in 1989, Susan served on the board in his place.
Susan began her career in the entertainment industry as a part-time secretary to William Morris Agency executive Norman Brokaw and later as an executive secretary to Merv Griffin Enterprises executive producer Robert J. Murphy. She was a production assistant to Emmy Award-winning director Dick Carson and became the Associate Producer of the game show "Jeopardy!" before going on to be a full-time writer.
Susan created the original word game tidbits® puzzles, published in newspapers, on the Internet, in paperback and by Globe Mini Mags. She founded and runs a small news feature syndicate which distributes comedian Argus Hamilton’s daily humor column to newspapers across the country and web sites including JewishWorldReview.com and PatriotPost.us. Susan brought Argus's column to the attention of radio legend Paul Harvey, who quoted it on his daily broadcasts for many years.
In 2002, when "The 37th Amendment" was published, Susan began writing regularly about constitutional issues in the news. Her op-eds were published in the Los Angeles Daily News, the Columbia (Missouri) Tribune and the Fresno Bee. In 2005 she began a blog called America Wants To Know, where she shared information and insights on news events and constitutional rights, drawing on what she had learned in six years of legal and historical research.
Susan became personally active in politics in 2010, when she served as the Director of Communications for congressional candidate David Benning. In 2012, she ran for Congress herself in a crowded field that included incumbent Democrats Brad Sherman and Howard Berman and two other Republicans. Susan won the endorsement of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, the California Republican League, the Republican Liberty Caucus of California and the Los Angeles Daily News, which praised her as "smart, thoughtful, sensible, a constitutional scholar─and moderate enough to get support from voters of all affiliations."
After the primary election Susan represented the anti-tax-increase "No on 30" and "No on 38" campaigns in debates and forums at L.A. Valley College and Temple Kol Tikvah in Woodland Hills, debated the issue of the death penalty in California (Proposition 34) at Pierce College, and spoke at a forum on ballot propositions organized by an African-American student group at CSUN.
Susan volunteered for the LAPD Topanga Area station in Canoga Park on Captain Tom Brascia's T.R.U.E. (Topanga Restoring its Urban Ecosystem) project, producing a 30-minute video of the California native-plant landscaping event which is on the station's website for the community to view. Susan assisted the Woodland Hills-Tarzana Chamber of Commerce with the organization of a forum for candidates in the March 5 City Council District 3 race. At the invitation of Professor Denise Robb, Susan spent two days at Pierce College speaking to every political science class about the issues our state and country face.
Now a candidate for the California Assembly in District 45, the west San Fernando Valley, Susan has been endorsed for the Assembly by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, the California Republican League, Republicans for Choice, the Republican National Hispanic Assembly of Long Beach and Southern County, California Assembly Republican Leader Connie Conway, California Senate Republican Leader Bob Huff, and a long list of community leaders including retired LAPD Captain Thomas P. Brascia, former U.S. Senate candidate Rick Williams, Filipino American Chamber of Commerce Los Angeles past president Vic Mercado, Chaminade College Preparatory president James Adams, U.S. Naval Commander (ret.) Jennifer Dyer, and the Chairman of the Republican National Hispanic Assembly of Greater Los Angeles, Luis Alvarado.
