Before his election to the Senate, he served two decades as Mayor of West Sacramento in Yolo County. The former state highway between Capitol Mall and Highway 50/Business 80 was renamed as the Christopher Cabaldon Parkway in honor of the comprehensive and profound community transformation he shepherded during his long tenure. West Sacramento won the national designation as America's Most Livable Small City. It was the first city in the nation to implement universal preschool, college savings accounts for all kindergarteners, paid internships for high school students in college-and-career pathways, free community college and automatic college admission letters to every local graduating senior. One of the state's first ProHousing cities and top producers of affordable housing, West Sacramento under Cabaldon's leadership led the nation on innovations in personal mobility and next-gen transit, urban farms, flood protection, and urban revitalization.

An appointed education and environment official for five governors of both political parties, Senator Cabaldon represented California on the Western Interstate Commission on Higher Education prior to his election to the Senate. He served previously as vice chancellor of the California Community Colleges and director of the higher education committee for the State Assembly. He was national president for Asian and Pacific Americans in Higher Education, and president of the Linked Learning Alliance. President Obama appointed him to the national board, led by then-Second Lady Dr. Jill Biden, to launch and advance America's College Promise by making community college free in hundreds of cities and states, just as he had done in West Sacramento.

Cabaldon chaired the Jobs, Education & the Workforce Committee for America's mayors, and represented the United States in the Global Parliament of Mayors. He led the work of the nation's mayors on youth employment, college and career pathways, early learning, digital badging, and rebooting workforce development to meet the disruptive impact of trade and technology. He was also the inaugural chair of the national LGBTQ Mayors Alliance, and former chair of both the Asian/Pacific and LGBT caucuses of the League of California Cities.

As chair of the Sacramento region's metropolitan planning organization and its transportation committee, his pioneering work on integrating transportation, land use, environmental justice, housing, air quality, and climate change won numerous national awards, and became the basis for some of California's most sweeping transportation and climate reforms of the past two decades. He served on the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board and the state Delta Protection Commission.