About Sean

Sean Frame is a union education worker and a dad with a foundational belief: democracy doesn’t work unless it works for all of us. What that looks like–the California that Sean envisions for the Sixth Senate District–has been defined by his life.

Growing up in San Jose, Sean had access to excellent public schools and earned an undergraduate degree at San Jose State and a graduate degree at San Francisco State. Importantly, his school district was well funded, teachers and other school workers were paid a living wage, and public university was far more affordable then than it is today. Years later, Sean was called to lead on this issue after his son’s principal was shot and killed during the school day. After helping the school’s community heal, he was elected to the school board. He put his values to work—high-quality education for all of us—by delivering broadband, supporting students and families facing housing insecurity, and initiating a dual language immersion program for English Language Learners.

Sean also understands the need for housing and affordability. As he was starting his family, his father was facing serious mental health challenges. He ended up living on the street, and despite Sean’s best efforts to care for his father, he had to face a devastating reality: he could not provide a healthy home for his children with his dad under the same roof. This all-too-common family tragedy has shaped Sean’s understanding of the housing crisis. We need to simply build more units of housing to address affordability AND we need the wraparound services that will lift people in times of crisis. 

As a professional, Sean has spent much of his career running his small business as a filmmaker. In more recent years, Sean has applied his multimedia skills to education by creating training and materials for educators who provide testing to English Learners and students with disabilities at the Sacramento County Office of Education. After years of prioritizing solidarity with UNITE HERE casino workers, supporting unionization at Siemens, and walking the picket line with many other unions, Sean now serves as the Chief Job Steward at CSEA 480. He is currently at the negotiating table, fighting for a living wage, healthcare, and better working conditions for his union siblings–custodians, cooks, paraeducators and other school staff - that is essential to the functioning of our schools.

Like all Americans, healthcare has shaped Sean’s life and political perspective as well. A few years ago, he noticed a spot on his arm. While his general practitioner told him to ignore the small discoloration, Sean repeatedly demanded a referral to a dermatologist. Luckily, the pressure (and likely the privilege of being an older, educated white man) worked as he was diagnosed with skin cancer, a potentially deadly melanoma. An aggressive surgery made him cancer-free, but it made a fundamental truth clear: privatized healthcare prioritizes profit over care. Sean has dedicated himself to changing our system so that medical professionals are incentivized to heal people, not withhold care to minimize costs.  

These experiences are the foundation of Sean’s belief that a government OF the people should be FOR the people by prioritizing economic opportunity and affordability, public health, public safety, and a climate that we can survive in. Sean lives in unincorporated Sacramento County with his wife Ellyn in the house she grew up in. He has two adult sons, who like him, are proud graduates of California public schools–one graduated from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, and the other currently attends Cal Poly San Luis Obispo as a graduate student. The most recent addition to the Frame family is a grandson.