Faisal Qazi and Nick Anas Win “40 Under 40” Leadership Awards

By
Greg Diamond
– January 23, 2013Posted in: Fresh Juice
Faisal Qazi with Loretta Sanchez, Jay Chen and others

Faisal Qazi, center, on a panel at a CAIR-PAC function last fall with Michigan Congressional candidate Syed Taj and Rep. Loretta Sanchez (at left) and CAIR Los Angeles Executive Director Hussam Ayloush and Congressional candidate Jay Chen (at right.)

I don’t know much about the New Leaders Council, which since 2008 has sponsored national “40 Under 40 Leadership Awards” (see here for this year’s winners across the country), but I do know that it has good taste when it comes to picking a pair of people to honor from Orange County: Dr. Faisal Qazi and Nick Anas.

Faisal is an increasingly visible and already widely respected presence within county politics, in part due to his impressive charitable efforts (discussed below.)  Nick has enjoyed a meteoric political rise to become the Democratic Party of Orange County’s Executive Director at a time when the DPOC strongly needed stability.

Angelica Ramos, Orange County Chapter co-Director of the New Leaders Council,  announced their honors as follows:

“We announce with enormous pride that two of the 40 under 40 recipients come from and currently work in the Orange County area – which has historically been known for its conservative ideologies. Both Nick and Faisal have been instrumental in building a movement to help this county be more socially responsible and civically engaged. In this past year alone, Nick, in his capacity as Executive Director of the Democratic Party of Orange County, was able to mobilize and organize a community of over half a million registered Democrats. Faisal, in addition to his day job as a Neurologist, heads a foundation that provides medical access to uninsured patients. They are a true testament to our mission to passionately serve our community. It is an honor and a privilege to know our awardees and support their work.”

These sorts of awards to young achievers are supposed to signal observers as to whom they want to start to watch, if they haven’t done so already.  If you’re just starting to watch these two, you’ve already missed some great stuff — but there will be a lot more to come.  These are good choices — and it’s a good show for OC to bag two of the honors!

About Greg Diamond

Somewhat verbose attorney, semi-disabled and semi-retired, residing in northwest Brea. Occasionally ran for office against jerks who otherwise would have gonr unopposed. Got 45% of the vote against Bob Huff for State Senate in 2012; Josh Newman then won the seat in 2016. In 2014 became the first attorney to challenge OCDA Tony Rackauckas since 2002; Todd Spitzer then won that seat in 2018. Every time he's run against some rotten incumbent, the *next* person to challenge them wins! He's OK with that. Corrupt party hacks hate him. He's OK with that too. He does advise some local campaigns informally and (so far) without compensation. (If that last bit changes, he will declare the interest.) His daughter is a professional campaign treasurer. He doesn't usually know whom she and her firm represent. Whether they do so never influences his endorsements or coverage. (He does have his own strong opinions.) But when he does check campaign finance forms, he is often happily surprised to learn that good candidates he respects often DO hire her firm. (Maybe bad ones are scared off by his relationship with her, but they needn't be.)