Valencia Khan
Government
Relations
Committed. Successful. Principled. Political.
Our team becomes your team to navigate the complexities of California government and politics.
Strategic Counsel
Advocacy
Ally Development
About Us
Valencia Khan Government Relations is a leader in California legislative and regulatory agency advocacy, strategic communications, and political counsel in California’s capital city. Our tenacious, skilled, bipartisan team of veteran lobbyists, attorneys, and political campaign veterans devote their 60-plus years of experience to client success.
Representing a spectrum of business, affinity groups, professional and trade associations, and nonprofits, we amplify your message to legislative policymakers and agency leaders to protect your interests and achieve your goals.
Services
We assess your objectives in order to provide precise strategic counsel, and chart a proactive path for your successful engagement with California state government. Lobbying the Legislature, working with regulators, guiding your political action efforts, and ensuring transparent, ethical compliance with the rules of the road – that’s how we serve your interests.
Advocacy
We serve as your principal advocates in the Legislature and before the scores of state regulatory and administrative agencies that affect what you do. Whether in one-on-one meetings, legislative committee testimony, agency hearings, or negotiating with competing stakeholders, we craft, shape, and refine your message and deliver it to the appropriate audience.
Strategic Counsel
First, we listen and learn from you – our client. We work with you to define the issues and the desired outcomes, and any challenges along the way. Our analysis then converts that information into an actionable plan for results – combining research, policy, politics, collaboration, established relationships, and proven tactics.
Coalition Building / Grass Roots Development
When recruiting the power of allies is in your best interests to advance great ideas or defeat harmful proposals, we assemble and galvanize others to the mission. We invest time in assessing your existing network, or help build one, to speak to your point of view throughout the state as well as in the State Capitol.
Political Reform Act
Our experts guide you through California’s complicated Political Reform Act to ensure your political, legislative and governmental ideas become a reality. Our attorney-advocates help clients navigate the state’s lobbying ethics and disclosure minefield as a top priority.
Our Team
Alex Khan
Alex A. Khan, Esq., President of Valencia Khan Government Relations, brings over a decade of distinguished public policy experience from the California State Senate, State Assembly, and Governor Jerry Brown’s Administration.
While in law school, Alex clerked for Justice Catherine Bamugemereire on Uganda’s High Court of Anti-Corruption. He went on to study under U.S. Supreme Court Justices Elena Kagan and Anthony Kennedy (Ret.). After being accepted into the Senate Fellowship Program, Alex served in Senator Patricia Bates’ office, staffing California’s first-in-nation fentanyl epidemic response proposal.
Alex then joined the Department of Finance budget team, overseeing funding for the Department of Justice, Governor’s Office of Emergency Services, Victims Compensation Board, State Legislature, and numerous other state agencies. He returned to the Legislature as a Policy and Budget Consultant covering Assembly Budget Subcommittee No. 1 (Health & Human Services), Principal Health Policy Consultant for the minority caucus, and Chief Consultant/Legislative Director to Assembly Minority Leader Marie Waldron.
Read more about Alex Khan
Alex secured bipartisan victories including AB 1304 (California MAT Re-Entry Program), AB 653 (first carceral medication-assisted treatment grants), and AB 1214 (foundation for CalAIM’s 1115 Justice-Involved waiver). His Capitol work spanned healthcare, budgets, transportation, housing, criminal justice, emerging technologies, human services, taxation, and local government.
In private practice, Alex has led landmark reforms, including legislation mandating real-time benefit tools at point-of-care, the nation’s most comprehensive PBM reform law, and removal of utilization management barriers for advanced-stage cancer patients.
As Senior Policy Counsel to the California Chronic Care Coalition—representing 30+ leading consumer health organizations—Alex leads both advocacy and policy development to advance access to quality care for Californians with chronic conditions.
A California Bar member with a J.D. (Public Policy certificate) from University of the Pacific McGeorge School of Law, Alex earned his B.A. in Government from CSU Sacramento. A veteran of over a half-dozen marathons, he lives in Sacramento with his wife, Heather, five-year-old twins, Emma Rose and Maverick, and their Rhodesian Ridgeback, Justice.
Sara Noceto
Sara E. Noceto, Legislative Advocate, brings over a decade of advocacy, legislative and administrative agency experience and expertise to the Firm.
Sara joined the Firm from her post as Legislative Representative for the California Department of Education where she wrote and managed sponsored legislation for the State Superintendent of Public Instruction. She operated as the liaison for the Superintendent with the legislature, public education organizations, and other government agencies on critical state budget issues and key legislation.
Sara championed the legislative priorities of the Department, keeping its directors and the Superintendent apprised and engaged on complex public education policy developments. Sara was one of the Superintendent’s trusted Board designees for at the California State Teachers Retirement System (CalSTRS) and was his staffer for the California State University Board of Trustees and the University of California Board of Regents.
Read more about Sara Noceto
Previously, Sara served as an expert Consultant for five years with the California State Senate Office of Research in technology, elections, education and the Census. She staffed the Senate President pro Tempore in Capitol hearings, Senate floor sessions and on legislative site visits throughout the state. Sara worked on the sensitive proceedings of State Senate confirmations of gubernatorial appointees. As the State Senate’s federal liaison on education policy, Sara was charged to breaking down intricate federal and state law, and related legislative proposals, to keep Senate leadership ahead of the curve on developments with potential impact for California.
Prior to joining the State Senate, she spent over four years with the California State Auditor. Here, Sara honed her detail for analysis as an Auditor evaluating the effectiveness of government programs and agencies. She engaged legislative committees on the Legislature’s response to audit findings, developing and guiding implementation of oversight and remedial proposals for change and improvement in program operations.
Sara’s tenure in California public policy kicked off with her position as Legislative Assistant to California’s longest-serving governor, Governor Edmund G. Brown, Jr. There she negotiated on behalf of Governor Jerry Brown with legislators and staff on policy proposals and bills, assessed the political impact of nuanced bill elements and representing the office in communication with lobbyists, statewide organizations, government agencies. As a result of this experience, she became deeply motivated to pursue public policy and to help shape key policies in California.
Sara earned her Bachelor’s degree in Economics and International Relations from the University of California, Davis.
Government relations runs in Sara’s family. Her husband, Doug Drozd, is the Government Affairs Manager for the fast-growing city of West Sacramento in nearby Yolo County.
Sara also serves on the YoloArts Board of Directors, supporting the local arts through arts education programs, exhibitions, galleries, and connecting artists with their community. In her spare time, you can find her making travel plans, running the Clarksburg Branch Line Trail, or complaining about her favorite sports teams.
John Valencia
John R. Valencia, Esq., Founder and Senior Counsel, launched his own firm after serving as Senior Partner and Government Relations Department lead for the region’s oldest law firm. Early in his career, John held increasingly-responsible legislative policy consultant posts, followed by service as a state agency appointee in several state health and consumer affairs agencies.
John counsels and represents leaders in the nation’s biotechnology, genomics, biopharmaceutical, research tools and specialized health care industry sectors. He appears regularly before state regulatory agencies. His clients include Fortune 500 corporations, regional businesses, and state associations, nonprofit organizations and individuals.
Read more about John Valencia
John is a VSP Global Public Policy Committee Member. He also serves as a Board Director, and Audit Committee Chairman, of the California Prison Healthcare Receivership Corporation, overseeing the state prison system’s compliance with federal court orders. He is a Board Member and Legislative Committee Chair of the Institute of Governmental Advocates (IGA) representing California’s state lobbying corps, and is a long-time member of the California Political Attorneys Association (CPAA).
John is a Past Member and Past Chairman of the City of Sacramento Planning Commission where he oversaw the City’s explosive residential growth and innovative infill and new urbanist projects for a decade. He is a Past Vice President of the Board of Directors of the Sacramento Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. He is Past Chairman of the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) Equal Business Opportunity Program (EBOP) Citizens Advisory Panel. He was also a Charter Member of the Sacramento County District Attorney’s Citizens Advisory Committee and completed a ten-year term as a Member of the District Attorney’s Multicultural Cabinet.
John served as Treasurer and Legal Counsel for Women in California Leadership, the charitable arm of the California Legislative Women’s Caucus, and held comparable positions with the California Latino Legislative Caucus Foundation and the California Latino Legislative Caucus Leadership PAC – two independent arms of the largest legislative ethnic bloc in the California Legislature.
John is licensed to practice law in all California state courts, and the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California. John’s Bachelor of Arts Degree is from Pomona College. His Juris Doctor degree is from University of Northern California School of Law where he earned Valedictorian honors.
John co-authored California’s seminal Medi-Cal Drug Rebate Law of 1990, since emulated by over half the states in the U.S. He has been an integral part of each substantive change to that law up to the present day.
Clients
Contact Us
Office Location
Valencia Khan Government Relations
1001 K Street, 6th Floor
Sacramento, CA 95814
(916) 701-8999
team@valencialobby.com
Valencia Government Relations
1001 K Street, 6th Floor
Sacramento, CA 95814