Juan Alanis

Juan Alanis’s public record includes Riverbank High School, the Stanislaus County Sheriff’s Department and the 22nd Assembly District. Born in Modesto and raised in Riverbank, he joined the Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps as a high school sophomore and was later hired part time by the Sheriff’s office through the Sheriff’s Explorers Program. He went on to spend his professional career with the department. His campaigns included two runs for county sheriff-coroner; in the 2018 primary, he received 48.13 percent of the vote to Jeff Dirkse’s 51.63 percent. When redistricting brought Modesto into the new 22nd Assembly District, Alanis left a planned sheriff rematch and ran for the Legislature. He took office in December 2022 with committee assignments covering public safety, agriculture and water.

ROOTS

Alanis was born June 17, 1978, in Modesto and grew up in neighboring Riverbank. As a sophomore at Riverbank High School, he joined the Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps. With the help of a resource officer, he was then hired as a part-time employee of the Sheriff’s office through the Sheriff’s Explorers Program.

Alanis later attended Modesto Junior College and graduated with a bachelor’s degree from California State University, Stanislaus, in 2017. By then, his employment with the Sheriff’s Department had extended from his high school years into a long professional career.

That résumé includes Riverbank, Modesto, the county Sheriff’s office, Modesto Junior College and CSU Stanislaus. His subsequent campaigns were first for county sheriff-coroner and later for the Assembly district that includes Modesto.

THE JOB BEFORE THE JOB

Before entering the Legislature, Alanis served as a sergeant with the Stanislaus County Sheriff’s Department from 1995 to 2022. That was also the office he first sought to lead.

In 2017, Alanis announced his candidacy for Stanislaus County sheriff-coroner. The June 5, 2018, primary matched him against Jeff Dirkse. Alanis received 48.13 percent to Dirkse’s 51.63 percent.

Alanis returned to the contest in 2021, announcing another campaign for sheriff-coroner against Dirkse. The rematch did not proceed. After the boundaries of the newly redrawn 22nd Assembly District brought Modesto into the district, Alanis withdrew from the sheriff’s race and announced his candidacy for the California State Assembly. The change moved him from a campaign to run one county department to a campaign for state legislative office.

THE PATH TO OFFICE

Alanis won the 2022 Republican primary for the Assembly. In the general election, he faced Democrat Jessica Self and won with 57.24 percent of the vote.

He was sworn in on December 5, 2022. Alanis was placed on the Assembly’s Public Safety, Agriculture and Water committees.

The route to that office was not a progression through a series of elected posts. Alanis went from a career in the Sheriff’s Department to two campaigns for sheriff-coroner, then changed races after the new Assembly boundaries included Modesto. His first successful campaign for elected office was the 2022 Assembly race.

THE POLICY SIGNATURE

Alanis’s clearest policy association is public safety. It rests on the longest part of his professional record — his service with the Stanislaus County Sheriff’s Department from 1995 through 2022 — and on his placement on the Assembly Public Safety Committee after taking office.

His other committee assignments identify the rest of his formal policy portfolio: agriculture and water. Those assignments gave him formal committee roles in all three areas.

For voters assessing the interests most directly represented in his record, the map is concise. Public safety has been the continuing work, from the Sheriff’s Explorers Program to the department, the sheriff-coroner campaigns and the Assembly committee. Agriculture and water entered his state role through his committee assignments. Those three subjects — public safety first, with agriculture and water alongside it — define the documented policy work of his Assembly service.