45th Assembly District Race Gets Media Coverage

The California statewide primary election is five weeks (35 days!) from today, on 06/06/06. Saturday's Los Angeles Times California section had a rather lengthy article on my local state assembly race: the 45th AD seat currently held by termed-out, openly lesbian Assemblymember Jackie Goldberg. The article was entitled "Family Ties May Falter in Fierce Race."

Home to 400,000 people, diverse even by the standards of Los Angeles, the 45th Assembly District has come to exemplify the city. Winning an election here requires a delicate dance across the city's east-west divide, one that appeals to the hipsters of Hollywood, the opulence atop Mt. Washington and the debilitating poverty of East L.A.

[...]

But with the primary less than six weeks away, [Christine] Chavez, 34, who has worked as the California political director of the United Farm Workers for the last eight years, has learned that becoming the first member of her storied family to win state office is not going to be easy. Like her grandfather [Cesar E. Chavez], who saw politicians turn their backs when he walked into the state Capitol, she has not been embraced by California's political establishment.

Goldberg has handpicked Elena Popp as her successor. Popp, 48, an attorney and an activist, has long worked as an advocate for social and economic causes, helping tenants establish cooperatives and helping small businesses get started.

Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez has anointed Kevin de Leon, a friend since their youth in Logan Heights, a poor neighborhood of San Diego. De Leon, 39, is a top official with the California Teachers Assn. who has long worked on behalf of public schools, crafting teachers' collective bargaining agreements and lobbying for increased education funding, the construction of new schools and health insurance for children.

[...]

The district stretches across Los Angeles north of the downtown area, from eastern portions of Hollywood through the southern pocket of Silver Lake, then through Echo Park, Chinatown, Boyle Heights, Cypress Park, Monterey Hills and other neighborhoods, stretching east into El Sereno and portions of East L.A.

While getting the basic facts of the race correct (and also mentioning the other minor candidates such as Gabriel Buelna and Oscar A. Gutierrez) the Times piece focussed on Christine Chavez' purported attempt to leverage her activist heritage into a political post without really delving into the key issues central to the race.

Bear with me, gentle readers, and I will try to give you a better sense of the details which the local paper left out. First, I should mention that MadProfessah, like Equality California and The Victory Fund, has endorsed Elena Popp in this race. This is probably because Elena Popp is the only openly gay or lesbian candidate in this legislative race, which is to replace a termed-out member of the California LGBT Legislative Caucus. Currently there are 6 members of this caucus but by 2008 the Caucus could disappear unless new members are elected in 2006 or 2008. The Times article mentions that Popp is the incumbent's choice to be her successor but doesn't mention that Popp is also openly lesbian.

The Times article mentions that the candidate with the most cash on hand, Kevin DeLeon, happens to be "B.F.F. (Best Friends Forever)" with the current Speaker of the Assembly but neglects to mention that until rather late last year he was not even a resident of the assembly district he hopes to represent!

35 days until the primary election.