Marni grew up in North San Diego County in a military family. Her father immigrated to the United States and served proudly in the Army, and her grandfather fought in WWII. Marni’s parents instilled in her a commitment to service, which has taken her around the world — from serving in the Peace Corps in Botswana during the AIDS epidemic, to founding a legal clinic to combat discrimination in the Deep South, to later serving in Congress as counsel on the House Education and Labor Committee, where she helped write the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act to strengthen workers’ rights.
Back home in San Diego County, Marni served as a civil prosecutor in the City Attorney’s Office, where she cracked down on price gouging during the pandemic, held polluters accountable for toxic dumping and prosecuted the opioid industry for the addiction and devastation they caused. On City Council, Marni authored California’s first ban on untraceable ghost guns, launched affordable housing grants for teachers, raised wages, cut ambulance 911 response times, and opposed costly water and trash rate hikes to protect working families.