Todd Gloria, 27, traces his interest in politics and government to the third grade. “I couldn’t spell worth a darn but I understood the three branches of government,” he says. Gloria, district director in San Diego for Rep. Susan Davis, a Democrat elected to Congress in 2000, got the political bug working locally for the Clinton-Gore presidential campaign in 1992. “I feel it was a calling,” says Gloria, a USD graduate. Gloria joined Davis’ staff as a community representative in 2000 and became district director two years later. He supervises six people and puts in his own time on constituent work. “There are no princesses in this office,” he says. “At the end of the day, the important work is helping constituents and it’s important for me to stay in touch with that.”

Military issues — the Base Realignment And Closure process for one — and affordable housing problems take up a lot of his time. “Davis has worked on a lot of affordable housing issues and when I first started I knew nothing other than a person ought to have a house,” says Gloria. “Now I’m a passionate believer in affordable housing for families. When families are housed appropriately, they’re stable, they’re healthier, their children stay in school.” He is a board member of the San Diego Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center and looks forward to the fall when the center’s 24-unit affordable housing project in East Village opens to renters.

Gloria is half Native-American, a member of the Tlingit Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska (“They’re the folks that make the totem poles,” he says). He is a member of the San Diego Democratic Club and a resident panelist on the Mid-City Prostitution Impact Panel that counsels people convicted of solicitation. And like so many others who got a taste of politics early in life, he won’t say “no” to a possible future try for elective office. “I would welcome any opportunity,” he says.