Capitol Weekly’s Top 100: Rick Rivas

No. 16 Rick Rivas

As long as Robert Rivas is Assembly Speaker his brother Rick will be somewhere on this list. Rick officially is California Vice President of the American Beverage Association, but around the Assembly he is better known as “Younger Brother of Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas.” It isn’t a joke. The younger Rivas is acknowledged for having a stellar political acumen and ample political savvy as well as an almost encyclopedic knowledge of campaigns. That has long made him the Speaker’s closest confidant and top political strategist, and he has been granted a heavy hand in just about everything the Speaker is doing. Critics have long contended it has been and remains too heavy of a hand. Whether or not Rick really does have some kind of Svengali sway over his brother, until it hurts the Speaker things are unlikely to change.

Updated Aug. 13, 2026