In 1966, Vasconcellos ran for a seat in the California State Assembly; he took office in 1967. By 1980 he was one of the longest serving members of the Assembly, second only to Speaker Willie Brown. Due to the Assembly's policy of awarding leadership positions based on seniority, he became the chairman of the Assembly Ways and Means Committee, one of the most powerful assignments in the California Legislature. Vasconcellos proposed the State Task Force to Promote Self-Esteem in October 1986. In 1989, Brown appointed Vasconcellos to chair the Select Assembly Committee on Ethics. Vasconcellos held the positions until he was forced out of the Assembly in 1996 by term limits. He then ran for, and won, a seat in the California State Senate, again representing Silicon Valley. In the State Senate, he chaired the Public Safety, Education, and Economic Development committees. Vasconcellos served two terms in the State Senate, again limited by term limits. Throughout his long public career Vasconcellos worked to illuminate the link between personal psychology and politics. In March 2004, Vasconcellos introduced Senate Bill 1606, known as Training Wheels for Citizenship, which would allow people 14 or older to vote. The votes of 14- and 15-year-olds would count as a quarter of a vote, and of 16- and 17-year-olds a half. The National Youth Rights Association supported the bill, but Republican legislators criticized it. Bob Stern, president of the Center for Governmental Studies, compared this bill's fractional vote to the policy of the Three-Fifths Compromise, which gave slaves three-fifths representation in the early history of the U.S. Vasconcellos abandoned the bill after it fell one vote short in the final committee. Vasconcellos was also a leading champion of medical marijuana. In 1995, he sponsored AB 1529, a bill to legalize personal possession and cultivation of marijuana for medical use. The bill was vetoed by Gov. Wilson, but provided the blueprint for California's pioneering medical marijuana initiative, Proposition 215. He went on to sponsor the California Research Act of 1999, which established the at U.C. San Diego, and the Medical Marijuana Program Act of 2004, which created a state ID card system for medical marijuana patients and authorized the distribution and cultivation of medical marijuana by patient collectives or cooperatives, laying the groundwork for the legal establishment of California's many medical marijuana clubs and dispensaries.
Later career
After representing the Silicon Valley for 38 years in the California Legislature, Vasconcellos retired on November 30, 2004. In order to carry forward the vision and leadership of Vasconcellos' politics, friends and colleagues created The Vasconcellos Project. As its first initiative, The Vasconcellos Project launched the Politics of Trust Network, a civic engagement enterprise that seeks to become a prime mover in advancing this new vision and practice of politics. Vasconcellos was the second longest elected state legislator in California history. He was known for his work on public education and the state budget during his career in the legislature.
