SD-28: Special Election Set For Feb 15, 2011

California State Senate District #28

The Governor has set a special election date of February 15, 2011 to fill the 28th District State Senate seat occupied by the late Jenny Oropeza who was posthumously re-elected in November.

Former Assemblyman Ted Lieu (AD-53) is the frontrunner for the seat, having announced more than a month ago. Lieu was termed out of his Assembly seat and ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination for Attorney General. The special election is somewhat controversial, because it will be the first election to be  held using Proposition 14's "Top 2" open primary structure. Every voter in a primary will get the same ballot, and the top 2 votegetters will go to the general election. In the February 15th election if no candidate gets a majority then the Top 2 will run-off on April 19th.

SD-28: Ted Lieu Announces Run For Oropeza's Seat

Assemblymember Ted Lieu has announced his plans to run for the late Jenny Oropeza's State Senate seat in the 28th District. Sadly, Oropeza died on October 22, but was re-elected posthumously in the statewide general election on Tuesday November 1st.

Lieu currently represents the 53rd Assembly district, but will lose his seat on December 6th when Betsy Butler is sworn in to represent the South Bay-area district because Lieu decided to run for Attorney General this Spring since he was forced to leave the Assembly due to term limits. He lost in the Democratic primary in June 2010 to Kamala Harris, who is still in a too-close-to-call race with Republican Steve Cooley to be California's next Attorney General.

Another person who lost in the June 2010 Democratic primary, this time in the Lieutenant Governor's race (to Gavin Newsom) was Janice Hahn, who announced today that she would not run in the special election and endorsed Lieu. Another perso who may announce  a bid for the seat is Warren Furutani who represents the 55th Assembly district which covers part of the 24th Senate District. Furutani was able to win the 55th Assembly district when Laura Richardson gave it up to run against Oropeza in an August 2007 special election when Congresswoman Janice Millender-McDonald's 37th Congressional district opened up due to her untimely death. Richardson won that race and now represents CA-37.

Of course all these district lines will become open seats in the next election in 2012 when the lines are redrawn, thanks to Proposition 11 and Proposition 20 by an independent "citizen's" redistricting commission with data from the 2010 Census.

SD-15: Openly Gay John Laird Loses Special Election

John Laird will not be rejoining the California LGBT Legislative Caucus this year after all. He lost Tuesday's 15th District State Senate Special Election against Republican Sam Blakeslee. The 15th district seat was previously held by Republican Abel Maldonado, who is now Lieutenant Governor of California and running to hold on to this new post against San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom in November.


The official results were

Jim Fitzgerald 8014 5.1% 

Mark Hinkle 3162 2.0% 

John Laird 69649 44.1% 

Sam Blakeslee 77107 48.8%

Unfortunately, the seat will not be up for a vote again until 2012, so that leaves Democrats 2-votes away from the 2/3rds (27 votes) they need in the Legislature's 40-member upper House to pass a budget and raise taxes.

Saturday Politics: Laird is In; EQCA's Statewide Picks

Photo by Gloria Nieto

Today's edition of Saturday politics has a "blast from the past" and big moves by the state's largest LGBT political organization.

SD-15. John Laird was an Assemblymember from 2002-2008 representing the 27th district which included Santa Cruz. This week the 60-year-old openly gay politician announced that he is running to fill the 15th District State Senate seat vacated by Lieutenant Governor Abel Maldonado. The special primary election will be on June 22, and (if needed) the general election will be on August 22nd. The winner will be be filling out the rest of the term which expires in 2012. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is being sued by some of the counties in the 15th Senate District because, by refusing to set the calendar so that the general election could coincide with the statewide general election on November 2nd he is sticking them with an extra bill estimated to be 2-3 million dollars. Democrats would like the elections combined because larger turnout should favor the Democratic candidate in this competitive, Republican-leaning district.

EQCA. Equality California PAC announced their endorsements in statewide races.

• U.S. Senate: Senator Barbara Boxer
• Governor: Jerry Brown
• Lieutenant Governor: Gavin Newsom
• Secretary of State: Debra Bowen
• Treasurer: Bill Lockyer
• Controller: John Chiang
• Insurance Commissioner: Hector De La Torre
• Superintendent of Public Instruction: Tom Torlakson

Notice any race missing? Only, the most interesting and hotly contested race of them all: Attorney General! After getting all six Democratic candidates in a room two weeks ago, the EQCA PAC board apparently could not pick only one, unlike MadProfessah, who has picked San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris. Curious result from EQCA.

Remember, there are now exactly 30 days until the Statewide Primary election on Tuesday June 8th.

L.A. CD-2: Krekorian and Essel in Dec. 8 Runoff Election

MadProfessah-endorsed candidate Paul Krekorian was the top vote-getter in yesterday's special election in City Council District #2:

TAMAR GALATZAN                  1,871 12.94%
JOZEF "JOE" THOMAS ESSAVI       306 2.12%
CHRISTINE ESSEL              4,104 28.39%
MICHAEL MC CUE                  339 2.35%
PETE SANCHEZ                    699 4.84%
DAVID "ZUMA DOGG" SALTSBURG     410 2.84%
FRANK SHEFTEL                   441 3.05%
PAUL KREKORIAN               4,929 34.10%
MARY BENSON                     1,198 8.29%
AUGUSTO BISANI                  158 1.09%

Turnout was a measly 11.74% out of 123, 750 registered voters with more than half (55%) of all votes cast by mail. Krekorian will face Christine Essel in the Tuesday December 8 run-off election. If Krekorian wins, it will set off another special election for his 43rd District Assembly seat that he currently holds.

Paul Krekorian for City Council

Guess what? There's an election today in Los Angeles. Paul Krekorian is a strong supporter of the LGBT community and a current Assemblymember who is running for the Los Angeles City Council in District #2. The special election was set for today to fill the seat being vacated by Wendy Greuel who became Los Angeles City Controller on July 1st. Bizarrely, the Los Angeles Times has endorsed another candidate, Christine Essel, who has never held elected office but is movie studio executive following in Greuel's foot steps (and has been endorsed by her) from the board room to the council chambers.

The Los Angeles City council is a 15-member body that is the elected political body representing nearly 4 million residents. This is an important election.

Krekorian has been endorsed by Stonewall Democrats. MadProfessah endorses Krekorian for City Council.

AD-51: Bradford and Gray Vie To Replace Price

Former Assemblymember Curren Price was elected to the State Senate to fill the seat of Los Angeles County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, thus leaving Price's 51st district Assembly seat vacant. The seat will be filled in a special election to be held Tuesday September 1st.

The two front runners for that seat are Steve Bradford and Gloria Gray. Bradford originally lost the 2006 Democratic primary by a heartbreaking 112 votes to Price, who has now endorsed Bradford to be his replacement in the Assembly.

Equality California has endorsed Steve Bradford. They are aware that in the 51st AD Proposition 8 passed by a margin of 57.9 to 42.1 per cent.

Here's an excerpt from a statement from the candidate:

"If elected to represent the people of the 51st Assembly District, I will vow to continue fighting to protect the rights of all Californians including those of our LGBT brothers and sisters. In building a true state of equality, we must ensure that all members of our communities are given equal rights and protection under the law including the right to marry."

Stonewall Democrats have also endorsed Bradford. MadProfessah also endorses Bradford.