Jamie Joyce

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Jamie Joyce
Democratic Party
Candidate, U.S. House California District 12
Elections and appointments
Last election
June 2, 2026
Next election
November 3, 2026
Personal
Profession
Executive Director
Contact
Campaign website
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Personal LinkedIn

Jamie Joyce (Democratic Party) is running for election to the U.S. House to represent California's 12th Congressional District. She is on the ballot in the general election on November 3, 2026. She advanced from the primary on June 2, 2026.

Joyce completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2026. Click here to read the survey answers.

Biography

Jamie Joyce's career experience includes working as an executive director.[1]

Elections

2026

See also: California's 12th Congressional District election, 2026

California's 12th Congressional District election, 2026 (June 2 top-two primary)

General election

The general election will occur on November 3, 2026.

The candidate list in this election may not be complete.

General election for U.S. House California District 12

Incumbent Lateefah Simon (D) and Jamie Joyce (D) are running in the general election for U.S. House California District 12 on November 3, 2026.

Candidate
Image of Lateefah Simon
Lateefah Simon (D)
Image of Jamie Joyce
Jamie Joyce (D)  Candidate Connection

Incumbents are bolded and underlined.

Candidate Connection = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey.

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Nonpartisan primary

Nonpartisan primary election for U.S. House California District 12

Incumbent Lateefah Simon (D) and Jamie Joyce (D) defeated Stephen Slauson (R) in the primary for U.S. House California District 12 on June 2, 2026.

Candidate
%
Votes
✔
Image of Lateefah Simon
Lateefah Simon (D)
 
84.2
 
153,190
✔
Image of Jamie Joyce
Jamie Joyce (D)  Candidate Connection
 
15.6
 
28,372
Silhouette Placeholder Image.png
Submit photo
Stephen Slauson (R) (Write-in)
 
0.2
 
279

Incumbents are bolded and underlined. The results have been certified. Source

Total votes: 181,841
Candidate Connection = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey.

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Withdrawn or disqualified candidates

Endorsements

Jamie Joyce received the following endorsements. To view a full list of Joyce's endorsements as published by their campaign, click here. To send us additional endorsements, click here.

Campaign themes

2026

Ballotpedia survey responses

See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection

Candidate Connection

Jamie Joyce completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2026. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Joyce's responses.

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Jamie is a multidisciplinary expert, executive, and researcher living in Berkeley. She is running for Congress in California's 12th because the rules for the AI age are being written right now, and Oakland, Berkeley, Alameda, Albany, Emeryville, Piedmont and San Leandro should have the choice of a representative who understands what's at stake.

Jamie has been inside the AI conversation for years: leading AI teams, interviewed for "The AI Doc," and invited by major labs to present her work. She’s seen the industry up close. Jamie has spent nearly a decade building tech tools that help governments make better policy decisions, including tools used to draft legislation. She helped the Internet Archive launch its government records collection (a nonprofit that makes it harder for officials to quietly rewrite the record). Before that, she oversaw environmental/humanitarian projects, working with vulnerable communities in over 20 countries.

That matters now. AI is reshaping hiring, policing, housing, and what your government knows about you. It may decide if your Medicare claims get flagged or whether you get your next job.

Jamie respects Rep. Simon's civil rights and oversight work, but this moment requires affirmative AI legislation and aggressive action to keep the executive branch in check and take down the Epstein network in the age of AI. As the only challenger, Jamie offers voters a choice: incremental progress or a fighter for the structural change this moment demands
  • Let's pass the MAD Act. Laws meant to keep government power asymmetry in check have been hollowed out over decades. Dark money influences elections. The surveillance state is expanding. Executive overreach has been normalized, and AI is arriving with few rules. These problems are actually connected, and the response can be too. So I wrote the MAD Act, 650 pages of real legislation, drafted and ready. It puts teeth on dark money disclosure, hard limits on surveillance, guardrails on AI, and real accountability for the Epstein network. It’s not a wishlist or manifesto. It’s a bill. The fight ahead is serious, but we can win it with thorough work. Some of that work is already done. The bill is drafted and the midterms are how we can move it.
  • We must make sure the "blue wave" isn't "business as usual." The establishment has let us down before, and I believe we need to be aggressive about rebuilding and reforming. We keep electing politicians instead of legislators, and we keep settling for promises instead of plans. We need to demand bold plans. So besides running to pass the MAD Act, I'm working to build a disruptive bloc of 11+ members who will withhold their votes from anything that doesn't serve voters first. Neither party has a real majority when a coordinated bloc says no. There are issues citizens already agree on across the spectrum. We just need legislators with the backbone to push those policies through as a priority.
  • The executive branch is using technology to expand surveillance, enable secrecy, and automate weaponry. Our response can't only be defensive. Technology can also modernize Congress, improve access to government services, make government more transparent and evidence-based, and enable citizens organize in more sophisticated ways. As Martin Luther King Jr. said, "Those who love peace must learn to organize as effectively as those who love war." Organizing isn't just defense, it's also offense. Tech belongs on our side of the table too, otherwise we will be outmatched. That's an uncomfortable reality, but it's the one we're in.
I have a background in, and passion for, environmental, humanitarian, inequality, and health related causes, however right now my priorities are the fundamentals of keeping government power in check. Issues we care about like healthcare, fair taxes, well-funded services, and ending genocide/war is downstream of a government functioning as designed, but I don’t believe we have that now. We have an overpowered executive branch that can get stronger with technology. So right now, my focus is on putting checks on power via the MAD Act. Unless things change, we have at least 2 more years of Trump. We need to act fast and address electoral reform, dark money, and surveillance in the age of AI ASAP.
One person I look up to is Benjamin Franklin. He had a passion for the defense of liberty, appreciated the wisdom of the common man, strove for progress, and although for decades he was a slaveholder, later in life he was the president of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, signed the first major antislavery petition to Congress, and called slavery "an atrocious debasement of human nature." He was a diplomat, scientist, inventor, businessman, and revolutionary - but most importantly to me - he was a man who strived to improve himself and seek out what was virtuous, wise, and good. He changed course when he realized he was in the wrong. I believe that such a striving is a life long pursuit and our country should continuously strive for the same.
Integrity, intelligence, expertise, grit, courage, wisdom, and a willingness to collaborate to find optimal policy solutions to complex issues.
A core responsibility of government officials is listening deeply to the people who sent you to D.C., and also to those who feel left out of the democratic process and therefore don’t or can't participate. A legislator is a civil servant first, and treating the job that way is what makes someone good at it. It’s not only important to serve voters, but all groups, especially vulnerable ones, who may need government protection the most. The other half of the job is drafting legislation and getting it passed, which means building coalitions and strategic voting blocs to move it through. The power given to Congress is the power to write laws that rein in concentrated power, protect our rights, and set standards for how we manage our shared resources. Yet we settle for politicians who treat governing as a career, and who outsource the work of drafting legislation to special interest groups. If we are to ensure a government that actually works for the people it serves, we must elect officials with the relevant expertise to propose and effectively evaluate laws. This moment demands leaders well versed in the technologies that are rapidly re-shaping the way society functions
I hope to be seen as a legislator who helped democracy successfully transition to the 21st century, and who ensured no one got left behind. I believe Congress needs a technological upgrade internally, as well as become more accessible externally, and I hope to contribute to that. Democracy today may either thrive or fail to survive the 21st century, but I see its potential to thrive. Congress could be the most transparent and effective institutions that we have been able to create to date. It could solve our problems, manage our resources, and expand and protect our rights. I see the flourishing future that humanity could experience, and improving institutions like Congress by modernizing it and ensuring it actually meets the needs of citizens is something I would like to help create.
I started working by holding a number of odd jobs. I was babysitting early in life, worked as a paid artist as a teenager, cared for a cognitively disabled child over the summers in high school. I also worked as a nanny and worked in my uncle's shoe store. However, my first 'real job' as an adult was being a temp receptionist at a government-funded University lab which performed research and built simulation and training technology. I was promoted to full time head receptionist within 30 days, and afterwards was promoted again to be the administrator of one of the labs, in which I won an award from HR for excellence in management.
I share a background with many other citizens, I have experienced food insecurity, housing insecurity, healthcare debt, death of loved ones, and debilitating health issues. When I was in my early 20s, I was chronically hospitalized due to a severe condition. Sometimes I would have to go up to 3-5 days unable to drink water or eat food (I relied on intravenous feeding). That level of starvation and thirst (in addition to the screaming, devastating pain of chronically twisted intestines) was a deeply humbling human experience. I would follow this experience by working in humanitarian sustainable development, which included funding clean water and sanitation projects as well as growing sustainable food sources for children in developing countries, though I had been involved in charity work before this. Although I have been in remission for over a decade, the deep compassion I feel for people struggling with health issues is still very present for me.
The House is the perfect opportunity for representatives to come in with a specific purpose, do the work, and don't need to make a career out of it. Two-year terms make it possible for people with the right expertise to step in when the moment demands it, push specific legislation through, and answer directly to the communities who sent them. It can serve as a tour of duty, and can ensure that career politicians don’t get in the way of progress. The House is the chamber closest to the people, with the most direct accountability and the lowest barrier to new ideas. It's where reform has to start. District 12 is a richly diverse district, and it’s also home to world-class AI safety expertise. This election is an opportunity for it to be a loud voice in the government conversation about AI at the time when such a voice is needed most.
One of our greatest challenges is structural: we have an overpowered executive branch with increasing capabilities in surveillance, AI, and military force that exceed any countervailing power available to Congress or the people. There are criminal elites who are selling our democracy for parts. We need to be prepared to manage mass technological acceleration and start fighting off the parasitic class who are robbing this country of its services to line their own pockets. If we have the right people at the helm, we could steer this ship in the right direction, instead of continuing to let criminals pillage it while it sinks.
Only certain types of compromises. Policy-making should be evidence-based, inclusive, externality-aware, and wise. However, we must recognize that we live in a nation of diverse values and priorities. So, sometimes, in order to take a collective step forward, different sides need to give in a little. However, it is critical to be uncompromising in values related to the dignity of mankind and our general rights and liberties, which is inherent in the oath sworn to the constitution which every candidate must swear upon filing for office. I take such oaths seriously.
Tristan Harris (AI & tech ethicist), Brewster Kahle (founder of the Internet Archive), Mark Graham (director of the Wayback Machine), Kelly Erhart (environmental entrepreneur), and others (see link)
9/11

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Campaign finance summary

Note: The finance data shown here comes from the disclosures required of candidates and parties. Depending on the election or state, this may represent only a portion of all the funds spent on their behalf. Satellite spending groups may or may not have expended funds related to the candidate or politician on whose page you are reading this disclaimer. Campaign finance data from elections may be incomplete. For elections to federal offices, complete data can be found at the FEC website. Click here for more on federal campaign finance law and here for more on state campaign finance law.

Jamie Joyce campaign contribution history
YearOfficeStatusContributionsExpenditures
2026* U.S. House California District 12On the Ballot general$31,247 $22,447
Grand total$31,247 $22,447
Sources: OpenSecrets,  Federal Election Commission ***This product uses the openFEC API but is not endorsed or certified by the Federal Election Commission (FEC).
* Data from this year may not be complete

See also

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External links

Candidate

U.S. House California District 12
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    Footnotes

    1. ↑ Information submitted to Ballotpedia through the Candidate Connection survey on May 5, 2026


    California's current delegation to the United States Congress
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