Let's have a brief respite from the coming California apocalypse to try and figure out which politician will beat a fast retreat out of Sacramento and into DC to replace Hilda Solis in the Congress. There are actually some good progressive possibilities here, which one would hope considering that Solis was such a progressive leader. The CapAlert early line matched with my expectations.
Democratic state Sens. Gil Cedillo and Gloria Romero say they're exploring running for the East Los Angeles County congressional seat that's expected to be vacated by Rep. Hilda Solis, reportedly President-elect Barack Obama's pick for labor secretary.
While Cedillo was expressing his interest Thursday to reporters on the floor of the Senate, Romero wandered by and said she was "definitely" looking at jumping into the race.
Told that in addition to Cedillo, the Calderon brothers -- Assemblyman Charles and state Sen. Ron -- could be contenders, Romero declared, "I can beat them all" -- and walked off.
I like the confidence.
Both Cedillo or Romero would be great additions to the House. I would give Romero the edge because it's actually her district - Cedillo serves a contiguous district. Romero would be a rare voice for prison reform in Washington, and while her advocacy proved fruitless in Sacramento, ultimately she will be proven right if we see mass releases in the next few months, and having her on the national stage would be very helpful to the prison reform movement. For Cedillo it's the same, only on immigration reform. I would imagine that both of them would join the House Progressive Caucus.
As long as the Calderons stay out of this seat, I'd be happy.
Other contenders are the sitting Assemblymembers in the district, Ed Hernandez and Mike Eng, as well as state Board of Equalization chair Judy Chu, who in a twist is married to Mike Eng, which would make for an interesting primary. I think Chu is good in her position but I can't say I know much about her on other issues.
The last special Congressional election gave us Laura Richardson. Hopefully we'll do much better with this one.
UPDATE: As per below, Jackie Speier won the last special election for Congress in CA, actually.
That was Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez today at an event in downtown Los Angeles, in front of a Chevron station (that was selling gas for a low low $3.49, I think the advance man could've found stations 30-40 cents higher without too much trouble), as he announced with Assemblymen Mike Davis, Mike Feuer and Mike Eng a series of bills to combat rising gas prices and the artificial depression of refinery supply. The bills will seek to oversee refinery maintenance, expand regulatory authority, and deal with the "hot fuel" issue. The Speaker said that "During the electricity crisis a few years ago, California adopted similar measures to keep energy companies from using these convenient (refinery) shutdowns to amp up their profits, and today we're going to make sure oil companies can't use Enron-like tactics on California consumers."
This is an object lesson in why now was the exact wrong time for the CDP to accept $50,000 from the prime progenitor of those Enron-style tactics. And it actually came up in the press conference. A full report on the flip, with audio to come.
Just before the primary election last week, the California Latino Leadership Fund, which is at least partially funded by the Latino caucus, sent a mailer to residents of AD-43 linking Paul Krekorian to terrorist wannabe Mourad Topalian.
The mailer sent by the Oakland-based Leadership Fund targeted Krekorian and the Armenian National Committee of America, an advocacy group that endorsed him.
The mailer accused the ANC of giving an award to "suspected terrorist" Mourad Topalian in 2000, and faulted Krekorian for accepting the ANC's endorsement in the Assembly race.
Topalian, a former Armenian National Committee leader, was sentenced in 2001 to 37 months in prison for storing stolen explosives and owning two machine guns. The ANC says it cut its ties with Topalian after his conviction.
In fact, Quintero himself had been endorsed by the ANC when he ran for City Council in 2001. (LA Daily News 6/9/06)
Well, now the Latino caucus is under fire for this rather vile hit piece. In another piece, a mailer went out against Mike Eng in AD-49 suggesting to white and latino voters that Eng "is not like us." Yikes! That's really a not so subtle racist remark, isn't it? The actual caucus members plead ignorance of the deal, but they are looking for answers on what happened to allow these attacks:
Political mailers bankrolled by the Latino Caucus, which linked Democratic Assembly candidate Paul Krekorian to a terrorist and played the race card against Democratic contender Mike Eng, are being denounced by community leaders and Caucus members who say they want to know who approved the attacks.
Capitol sources said that the job of the vice chairman of the Latino Caucus, Assemblyman Joe Coto, D-San Jose, may be on the line.
Several Caucus members met Tuesday across the street from the Capitol at private offices in the 11th and L Building to discuss the mailers, which were funded with independent-expenditure (IE) money. They are trying to figure out how to limit political fallout from some of the nastiest hit pieces in this year's primary campaign.
"It's an affront to us, especially because we for so long have been the victims of this kind of crap," said Assemblyman Hector De La Torre, D-Southgate. He and Assemblyman Albert Torrico, D-Newark, have launched an investigation into the flyers. (Capitol Weekly 6/15/06)
These kind of nasty, bordering on racist, ads have no place in politics at all. While they shouldn't be used on politicians of any party, to see them used in Dem on Dem attacks is particularly disconcerting. The incestuousness of the relationships portrayed in the Capitol Weekly article is rather discusting. Check it out.
