Ruben Macareno is currently a candidate for the 26th State Assembly. He has been endorsed by the Speaker of the Assembly Anthony Rendon, California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones, Secretary of State Alex Padilla and many other locally elected officials and community leaders.

Ruben is a publisher and former Los Angeles Times newsroom administrator. Among other publications he has produced, he is launching a quarterly magazine titled “Our Town Farmersville.”

He is also a political consultant. He has participated in numerous campaigns in a variety of capacities. He has worked for the late U.S. Congressman Edward R. Roybal in Los Angeles, the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials in Washington DC and briefly interned locally for U.S. Congressman Richard Lehman under the supervision of his then-administrative aide Cruz Bustamante, who eventually was elected Lt. Governor of California. He has attended both Republican and Democratic Presidential inaugurations. In 2012 he was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention and most recently was the county chairman of the local Democratic Party.

At the Los Angeles Times he worked in the newsroom, public affairs and community relations departments. He also wrote community columns and maintained a published community calendar for the paper’s Ventura County edition. While at the LA Times, he volunteered his free time to the newspaper's charitable arm as a committee member focused on improving the lives of disadvantaged children and youth. From 1987 to 1993 he worked specifically with the Times' public relations team raising one million dollars every summer to send underprivileged youth to summer camp as well work on other community-related projects.

He has written for the Exeter Sun, Farmersville Herald, Visalia Times Delta and was the editor of Proteus Script, a local non-profit newsletter. On occasion he contributes public affairs commentaries to the Visalia Times-Delta and other papers.

Ruben attended COS, Los Angeles City College and California State University Los Angeles where in 2006 he was recognized as an Alumni Scholar. While attending community college in the 80's he was elected student body president of his college and was the southern California regional president of the state’s community colleges student organization. He is also the founder of the Student Organization of Latinos (SOL).

At Exeter Union High School and Farmersville schools he had numerous leadership positions including Junior Class President and Student Body President respectively. He has locally served on both city and school district boards in Visalia.

Ruben is the 11^th of 13 children of Julian and Dolores Macareno of Farmersville. He lives in Visalia and is married to Leyda and has two adult sons; Matthew, a music engineer in Los Angeles and Vincent a music theatre student in New York City.

Ruben believes that those elected via partisan races, the elected official needs to leave behind the partisan badge behind for representation that best serves all constituents.