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The California state Senate got a new leader Monday. Democrat Mike McGuire officially took over from Toni Atkins, who has served as the Senate pro Tem since 2018.

McGuire represents a rural North Coast district that stretches from the Oregon border to Marin County. He grew up on a grape and prune farm in Sonoma County.

The Healdsburg Democrat listed housing and homelessness, fixing the home insurance market and fending off the impacts of climate change as his top priorities.

“We got a lot of work ahead of us. Here in California, we’re committed to the priorities not of corporate boardrooms — we are committed to the priorities of kitchen tables and neighborhoods all throughout this great state,” McGuire said at his swearing-in at the state Capitol Monday.

McGuire, 44, was first elected to public office in 1998, when he won a school board seat in Healdsburg.

He was elected to the state Senate in 2014 and has since authored legislation to protect marine life, support cannabis farmers, make cellphone service more reliable during power outages and fight the impacts of wildfires, an issue that hits close to home.

As Senate pro tem, McGuire will be one of the most powerful politicians in California as he helps drive decisions about which policies make their way through the Legislature and appoints lawmakers to key committees.

He will lead the Senate for two years before terming out of the Legislature in 2026.

All the while, McGuire will work with Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Assembly on the state budget. He will have to balance the reality of the state’s projected budget deficit of nearly $38 billion with ambitious proposals from his caucus, including a bill by state Sen. Steven Bradford of Los Angeles to create an agency that would help Black families research their family lineage.

McGuire’s swearing-in means both houses of the California Legislature are currently led by lawmakers who represent rural districts.

He will lead alongside Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, a Democrat from a rural part of California’s central coast. While McGuire grew up in a farming family, Rivas was the grandson of farmworkers.

The last time a lawmaker representing McGuire's region led the Senate was in 1866, while the last Senate leader from a plant farming background was from 1894 to 1903, said Alex Vassar, a legislative historian at the California State Library.

McGuire was raised primarily by his mother and grandmother in Sonoma County. McGuire’s grandmother, who ran his family’s prune-turned-grape ranch, taught him to “work hard, work together” and to “never take no for an answer for the issues that you believe in,” he said.

“At my core, I believe that we have to focus on policies that affect people’s everyday lives,” McGuire said.

McGuire has spoken in broad strokes about wanting to address California’s persistent homelessness crisis and continue the state’s ambitious climate goals, but he and his team have been light on policy specifics as he prepares for the new job.