Dede Alpert represented the San Diego region in the California State Legislature from 1991-2004, serving three terms in the Assembly and two in the Senate. She is widely recognized as one of the legislature's foremost experts on public education.

Alpert chaired the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee and the Joint Committee on the Master Plan for Education. She also chaired the Education Committees of both houses, the Senate Revenue and Taxation Committee, the Select Committee on Family, Child and Youth Development, and the Select Committee on Genetics, Genetic Technologies and Public Policy. She was appointed by two governors to serve as a member of the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission and the Pacific Fisheries Legislative Task Force.

The California Journal named Dede Alpert "Senator of the Year" in 2004 and named her the senator with the highest integrity in both 2000 and 2002. She was inducted into the California Tourism Hall of Fame, has been feted with Lifetime Achievement Awards by the California School Boards Association and the San Diego Domestic Violence Council, and was honored as "one of the extraordinary library advocates of the 20th century" by the American Library Association.

Many landmark laws are the result of Dede Alpert's efforts, including:

- Guided a four-year process to create California's Master Plan for Education, a long-term blueprint for improving California's education system pre-kindergarten through university.

- Introduced a total of four measures aimed at reforming California's convoluted system of categorical education funding. Her final bill, signed into law by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, consolidated 22 programs into six block grants providing increased local control in how these funds are managed.

- Co-author of Proposition 14, the Public Library Construction and Renovation Bond Act of 2000 and authored the bill to place a $600 million library construction and renovation bond act on the primary ballot in 2006.

- Authored first-of-its-kind legislation setting professional standards for the operation of mammography equipment and professional training for radiological technicians who perform mammography.

- Established Safe at Home for survivors of domestic violence, stalking and their families, which "cloaks" home addresses in public records, allowing them to establish a new life away from the batterer. More than 2,000 victims have been helped through the program.

- Expanded California's newborn screening program to include the new technology of tandem mass spectrometry, testing more newborns for treatable metabolic disorders such as : sickle cell disease, phenylketonuria (PKU), hypothyroidism, and galactosemia, and saving the state more than $100 million in avoided Medi-Cal, special education, developmental services and related costs.

- Authored the first-in-the-nation Workplace Violence Safety Act of 1994, allowing employers to obtain restraining orders against people who threaten individual employees or their places of work.

- Author of numerous education reforms requiring that statewide standards be established, including California's standardized testing and school accountability programs; the "ABC" education reform package which requires the integration of phonics, basic spelling and fundamental computational skills into school curriculum; and the law that allows parents to choose the public school their children will attend.