AZ-09: Openly Bisexual Candidate Wins Primary

Krysten Sinema won a hotly contested Democratic primary election in Arizona's 9th Congressional District last night. She becomes the first openly bisexual major party candidate for a U.S. House seat and could potentially join a delegation of 8 openly LGBT Congresspeople elected this fall. Sinema was a State Senator in Arizona and resigned her seat to run for Congress. She defeated State Senate minority leader David Schapira who was accused by Sinema of resorting to homophobia-fueled attacks in the closing days of the primary campaign.

The 9th Congressional district is a new district that includes the city of Tempe. Her Republican opponent is still unknown because the primary is too close to call, but Vernon Parker is currently in the lead and is expected to place first in a crowded field of Republicans.

Hat/tip to Gay Politics.

Saturday Politics: Lopez Does The Math In AD-51

The official results in my local Assembly District primary election from Tuesday June 4th have been released and Jimmie Gomez placed first with 9,868 votes (37.5%) and my friend (and openly gay Latino activist) Luis Lopez placed second with 6,496 votes (24.7%). Arturo Chavez was close behind with 6,081 votes (23.1%). The new Top 2 primary in California forces only the Top 2 finishers in the June primary election to appear on the November general election, regardless of party and prohibits write-ins. This was a very close, tightly fought all-Democratic primary fight.

This leads to some important mathematical calculations in the general election which are very different from the mathematical considerations which dominated the primary election. In the primary election, the clear goal was to not only maximize your own vote but also to minimize the vote of your most dangerous opponent, which could be achieved by the same activity, or by having votes that do not go to you NOT go to your opponent. In the general election, every vote not for you is a vote for your opponent, it is a zero-sum game.

In AD-51, the candidate endorsed by the "establishment" is Gomez, who received the official nod of the Los Angeles County Democratic Party. However, Lopez was born in the district and has been active in the district's politics for decades, serving on commissions and President of a Neighborhood Council that was in the district when it was the 45th Assembly District.

Clearly Hans Johnson, Lopez's campaign manager (and partner) is capable of doing the math, because he and campaign manager Miguel Cordova sees a route to victory in November by coalescing the 62.5% that did not vote for Gomez in the primary into general election support for Lopez. To that end, the recent announcement that Chavez is endorsing Lopez and strongly urging his voters to support him is key:

Our 51st District is my home. Here is where I have grown up, devoted my career in public service, and raised my family. These are very special neighborhoods, sustained by the hard work and aspirations of people who come from different backgrounds but share a love of our community.

Now, at a crucial moment in our city and our state, we need the best possible leadership in Sacramento. I am proud to endorse Luis Lopez to be our assembly member. Luis is a homegrown leader of the highest standards, a unifying and effective advocate from and for our communities, for healthcare, education, good jobs and workforce training, for parks and protection of our environment, for immigrant families and full equality under law.   

My own push for the legislature formally ends today. But the vision, vigor, and spirit of my effort carry on in the campaign of Luis Lopez. Together we stand, and together we go forward. I urge all of my supporters to devote their energy and financial support, their heart and soul and voice to his campaign. Working as one, we will ensure that Luis Lopez wins November 6th and is our next Assemblymember.

Of course, it's easier said than done to make sure that all of Chavez's support actually does turn out and vote for Lopez. Even if they did, that would only constitute 47.8% of the primary vote. So, then the question is, where are Richard Frieberg's voters going to go?

If Lopez does win in November, he could be part of the largest LGBT Legislative Caucus in history, with potentially NINE openly LGBT members of the California Assembly and Senate.

California and Maryland both currently have eight openly LGBT state legislators. While this is Christine Kehoe’s last year in the California State Senate due to term limits, the election of Susan Eggman (State Assembly, District 13) and Luis Lopez (State Assembly, District 51) in November would make California’s LGBT Caucus the largest ever. 

Also victorious in their California state legislative primaries last night were incumbents Tom Ammiano (State Assembly, District 17), Toni Atkins (State Assembly, District 78), Richard Gordon (State Assembly, District 24),Ricardo Lara (State Senate, District 33), Mark Leno (State Senate, District 11), John A. Pérez (State Assembly, District 53), and Cathleen Galgiani (pictured), who is currently in the State Assembly and running for State Senate, District 5.

One openly LGBT candidate who will not be joining the California Assembly is Torie Osborn, who placed a very close third in a hotly contested and controversial race in the 50th Assembly District which split the gay male and lesbian communities down the middle. The gay men were in general supporting straight ally  Assemblymember Betsy Butler (and Equality California  board member) while the lesbians were working for openly lesbian Osborn. The 51st assmebly district includes much of  "Boystown" (a.k.a. West Hollywood) as well as the People's Republic of Santa Monica ("Home of the Homeless!") as well as parts of Bel Air. There were four main candidates and " Let's do the results ended up with barely 1,000 votes separating the 1st finisher from the 4th finisher (Butler: 15,362; Mayor of Santa Monica Richard Bloom: 15,087; Osborn: 14,458; Republican Brady Torgan: 14,340). In fact, they are still counting the cotes, but it is unlikely that the Top 2 finishers will change. Note that the turnout in the 50th was almost twice what it was in the 51st. Openly gay Speaker of the Assembly John Perez poured money into this race to get Butler re-elected. She had decided to move into this district instead of staying in the district where her previous residence was (in the former AD-53, before redistricting) but that new district has far more Republicans than the new AD-50. Even, so, Butler may have a tough campaign ahead of her to overcome Bloom in November.

Mark Takano May Become 1st LGBT POC U.S. Rep

Mark Takano, 50, is a serious contender to become
the first openly gay person of color elected to Congress

Mark Takano, a former school teacher who has been a longtime member of the Riverside County LGBT Asian Pacific Islander and Democratic Party communities, placed second in Tuesday's Top 2 primary election for California's 41st Congressional District, with 16,005 votes (36%) to Republican John Tavaglione's 19, 815 (45%). The Los Angeles Times describes the 41st District as having 42.3% Democratic registration and 34.9% Republican with 22.8% either Decline to State (Independent) or "Other." The 41st District is a new district drawn by the non-partisan redistricting commission and according to The Times is 6.5% Asian, 10.1% African-American, 55.9% Latino and 26.1% White. Twenty years ago, Takano lost a race to Republican Ken Calvert by 550 votes in the then-43rd Congressional district, the smallest margin in a Congressional race in the state's history.

Takano is endorsed by the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund and, if elected in November 2012, would become the first openly gay person of color elected to Congress.

Saturday Politics: California In Red, Blue and Purple

The Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) has a new analysis of California voters which splits the electorate not along partisan lines but along liberal-conservatives lines. Since California's electoral system is being rocked by dual political earthquakes of the incorporation of a Top 2 Primary system (the top 2 finalists in the June 2012 primary election regardless of vote totals or party affiliations will face off on the November 2012 ballot) as well as the impact of legislative districts for Assembly, Senate and U.S. House drawn by a non-partisan citizen redistricting commission The impact of these two reforms will be huge and may necessitate a change in the typical Democrat-Republican analysis of elections. PPIC used five categories of voters (loyal liberal, moderately liberal, conservative liberal, moderate conservative, committed conservative) which they define as:

Loyal Liberal: Very liberal on both social and fiscal issues (18% of the state’s population);

Moderate Liberal: Moderately liberal on both social and fiscal issues (24%);

Conservative Liberal: Conservative on social issues and moderately liberal on fiscal issues (25%);

Moderate Conservative: Moderately liberal on social issues and conservative on fiscal issues (17%);

Committed Conservative: Conservative on both social and fiscal issues (15%).

The graphic above demonstrates the geographic distribution of these kinds of voters. In the report, PPIC notes that every geographic section of the state has drifted ideologically towards Democratic positions except for the inland sections.

The report ends with this these thoughts about 2012 and California's political future:

California may tend to vote for Democratic presidential candidates , but many places around the state espouse views that fall to the right of the Democratic Party’s typical positions. In fact, only the Bay Area is home to extraordinarily large numbers of people who hold opinions associated with the Democratic Party.

This could signal an opportunity for Republicans. Moderate Liberal and Conservative Liberal places contain half the state’s population and seem sympathetic to many conservative positions—yet they tend to support the Democratic Party. Still, altering this status quo could prove difficult. The small number of liberal Republicans in every part of the state implies that the party's electoral coalition is ideologically solid—but that may also make the party resistant to expansion efforts. Only time will tell.

Regardless, California’s 2012 election promises to be exciting and unpredictable. Given the inherent tensions between ideology and partisanship in much of California, the political geography that emerges after the election could look very different from the current landscape.

Very interesting stuff! I encourage you to read the entire thing, "California Political Geography," by Eric McGhee and Daniel Krimm.

Saturday Politics: Closeted L.A. Congressman Retires

David Dreier, has been in the U.S. House since 1981

David Dreier has represented the 26th Congressional District of California as a Republican since 1981. He has also been repeatedly outed in the media as a closeted gay man. Due to redistricting in California, Dreier's district was carved into thirds and section of it moved into other districts which were heavily Democratic, leaving the longtime incumbent with no U.S. House district in which to seek re-election, so he announced his retirement from Congress this week.

Dreier is the sixth California House member to announce plans to retire when his term ends, shaking up a delegation that has built up clout on Capitol Hill because of its stability over the years.

[...]

Dreier's announcement was not a surprise. The California Citizens Redistricting Commission's new map collapsed his district into three new ones.

Two of the newly drawn districts — both based in the San Gabriel Valley — are solidly Democratic with large ethnic voter populations.

Rep. Judy Chu (D-Monterey Park) is running in one with a strong concentration of Asian voters, and Rep. Grace F. Napolitano (D-Norwalk) has moved into the other, which includes Dreier's San Dimas home and where Latinos make up 46% of registered voters.

The 59-year-old, unmarried Congressman has long been  rumored to gay. It will be interesting to see how long it takes him to come out of the closet officially after retires.

Hat/tip to Joe.My.God.

Saturday Politics: CA-44, AD-51, AD-50, AD-64, SD-33

It's been awhile since we had a Saturday Politics edition but there's been a lot of developments now that we are well into 2012 which is a year divisible by 4, otherwise known as a Presidential election year.

AD-51. In my home Assembly District my friend Luis Lopez is running for the Democratic nomination. Luis is openly gay and is well-known to LGBT activists as the co-founder of HONOR Pac and HONOR Fund, two Latino LGBT political organizations. What people may not know is that he was born in East L.A. and even though his mom died when he as 8, Luis went on to get degrees from Pomona and Harvard after attending public schools. Recently, many Los Angeles-area Democratic organizations have been having endorsement meetings for the June 2012 statewide primary election. The Northeast Los Angeles Democratic Club endorsed heterosexual Jimmie Gomez, while the Stonewall Democratic Club, the oldest LGBT Democratic club in the country (and one of the largest) endorsed Luis, as did the Foothills Democratic Club. The big fight is on to see what will happen with the Los Angeles County Democratic Club and California Democratic Party endorsements.

AD-50. The 50th Assembly District, although adjacent in numerical order, is most definitely not geographically adjacent to the 51st. Surprisingly, the two political races are somewhat similar in that they both feature a grassroots, openly gay candidate (Torie Osbone in the 50th, Luis Lopez in the 51st) facing a more establishment type figure (53rd District Assemblywoman Betsy Butler in the 50th, Jimmie Gomez in the 51st). This is only a superficial similarity because in actuality Butler is a currently elected Assemblywoman who previously defeated an openly gay candidate to win her current seat but who enjoys support from various sections of the LGBT community due to her longstanding friendship with West Hollywood City councilman John Duran and her presence on the board of directors of Equality California Institute. Osborne is a longtime lesbian and progressive activist, having served terms (somewhat controversially) as the heads of the L.A. Gay and Lesbian Center and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. The issue in this district is that it includes both The People's Republic of Santa Monica (Home of the Homeless) as well as West Hollywood a.k.a. "Boystown" (L.A.'s Gay Ghetto) and that due to redistricting, the heterosexual, somewhat moderate Butler decided to run for re-election in a seat most thought should (or would) be represented by an openly LGBT and/or progressive politician. Osborne recently received the endorsement of the Stonewall and Malibu Democratic Clubs. Butler has more money and the advantage of incumbency while Osborne has significant grassroots support since her former partner Sheila Kuehl had previously represented these areas for 14 years.

CA-44, AD-64. Everyone expected this to be an exciting three-way race between two incumbent Congressmembers and a rising African American political star, fighting to represent a newly drawn 44th Congressional district which was carved out to include multiple sections of Los Angeles where Black and Latino people live in large numbers (17% of the District is African-American, 68% is Latino and a mere 7% is White). It contains the cities of Carson, Compton and South Gate. The first person to announce their intention to run in that district was (the very white) Congresswoman Janice Hahn whose 36th District she had won in July 2011 was basically eliminated in redistricting but whose political base of San Pedro was included in the 44th. However, it was expected that Congresswoman Laura Richardson would also seek re-election in the new CA-44 district, since Richardson's previous 37th District covered more than 50% of the new 44th and she could be considered the incumbent. However, Assemblyman Isadore Hall shocked a lot of people when he announced he was running and demonstrated significant support by outraising both Congresswoman in the 3rd quarter financial filings. However, since I last reported on this race, Hall has decided to drop out of the Congressional race and seek re-election to the Assembly in the newly drawn AD-64 (which was very similar to the district he currently represents). Hahn then followed that up by releasing a poll showing her with a nearly 20 point advantage over the somewhat ethically challenged Richardson. This one should be interesting to watch.

SD-33. Ricardo Lara, the second openly gay person of color to be elected in California (after California Assembly Speaker John Perez) used to represent the old 50th Assembly District (not the district with that name that Lopez and Gomez are running in in which MadProfessah's California residence is located) but has decided to run for the newly drawn 33rd State Senate District in 2012, potentially becoming the first LGBT person of color to be elected to that body. Happily for Lara, he currently does not face any significant Democratic opposition and will almost certainly become a State Senator representing a District which is over 70% Latino (the second most heavily Latino district in California). Interestingly enough this Senate district is literally right next door and slightly overlaps Hall's 64th Assembly District and the Hahn/Richardson 44th Congressional District. It will be great that the State Senate could have as many as 3 openly LGBT members (out of 40) starting in January 2013.

SCOTUS Aiming To Be Factor In 2012 Elections

The U.S. Supreme Court has announced some decisions recently which indicate that they will be a major factor in the 2012 presidential election. They announced they would decide three politically fraught cases: the constitutionality of the health care reform law, the constitutionality of Texas's congressional redistricting map and the constitutionality of Arizona's wildly xenophobic immigration law SB-1070.

U.S. Rep. Barney Frank Retirement Announcement

The longest-serving openly gay member of Congress, U.S. Representative Barney Frank (MA-05), announced today that he would not seek re-election to the U.S. House in 2012.

There are currently on.y four openly LGBT members of Congress, and Tammy Baldwin is giving up her seat to run for the United States Senate. David Ciccilline looks to have a tough-re-election bid. Jared Polis recently welcomed a newborn son to his household.

Joe.My.God has a collection of reactions from the national LGBT organizations on the news of Frank's retirement.

Saturday Politics: Isadore Hall Outraises Both Incumbents in CA-44

Assemblyman Isadore Hall previously came to my attention because he announced he was interested in a run for Congress way back in June even before redistricting was complete which would have entailed him challenging a sitting African-American Congresswoman. Now that redistricting is complete, there is much drama in what is being called the 44th Congressional District because it contains most of U.S. Rep. Laura Richardson's old district but also contains pieces of the former 36th Congressional district which was won by former Los Angeles City councilmember Janice Hahn in a special election this July.

Now  U.S. Rep. Hahn has controversially decided to run in the 44th congressional district, a district specifically designed to be "majority-minority" against U.S. Rep. Laura Richardson and Assemblymember Hall, who are both African-Americans.

However, what is striking that this week came the news that in the last reporting period the state legislator out-raised both of his federal legislator rivals.

The National Journal reports:

Richardson’s been the subject of ethics questions recently: She’s accused of forcing her staff to work for and contribute to her campaign. She’s denied the allegations, but her fundraising dropped off in the third quarter, bringing in only $72,000 with just $116,000 in the bank. Hahn, after her special election, raised $139,000. A third Democrat, Assemblyman Isadore Hall, outraised them both with $158,000.

Very interesting. In the Los Angeles area there are a number of these intra-Democrat incumbent versus incumbent battles, the most amusing being Rep. Brad Sherman versus Rep. Howard Berman (in the new CA-30), who not only have similar sounding names but basically identical voting records.

Saturday Politics: AD-50 Gets Complicated

Assemblymember Betsy Butler represented
the 53rd Assembly District since 2010

Of course at MadProfessah.com we have been paying close attention to the impacts of redistricting on California politics in particular. You may recall that last year MadProfessah closely covered the ins and outs of the highly contested race for the 53rd Assembly District seat, where a viable openly gay, Black candidate was running. The seat was run by Equality California board member, lobbyist and straight ally Betsy Butler.

In redistricting the old 53rd was split between 3 new districts, the 62nd, 66th and 50th. Now, Butler has decided to move into the 50th and run for "re-election" from that district, instead of the 62nd where her current residence is. However Assemblymember Steve Bradford, who is African American, intends to run in the 62nd which has a significant Black population. However, the 50th District contains the liberal pockets of Santa Monica and West Hollywood and openly lesbian candidate Torie Osborne has announced her intention to represent this district. Previously, Osborne's ex-girlfriend, Sheila James Kuehl, was the first openly LGBT person ever elected to the California legislature and had been elected to represent West Hollywood in a similar district.

Butler's decision has not endeared her with LGBT activists.

But Osborn is facing powerful opposition from an unexpected source: Assembly Speaker John Pérez. The speaker is backing Assemblywoman Betsy Butler, who plans to move from Marina del Rey into the new 50th district. 

If neither side backs down, the contest could cost millions and drive a wedge through the L.A. Democratic Party. 

"This is gonna be the most exciting Assembly race in Southern California," said party chair Eric Bauman. Osborn's supporters hope it doesn't come to that. They argue that a seat that includes West Hollywood should be represented by a gay person. (Butler is straight.) 

[...] 

Much of Butler's current district has been drawn into the new 66th district, which is split almost evenly between Democrats and Republicans. Butler apparently feels she stands a better chance in the 50th, which leans heavily Democratic.

Bauman, who is an adviser to Pérez, pushed back against the claim that the 50th ought to be represented by a gay person.

"It's not a gay seat," he said. "There are many gay people in the Legislature now. That's a bogus argument."

Bauman said that Osborn would make an "outstanding" legislator. But, he said, "I think it's logical for any leader of any Legislative house to protect their members first."

There are other Democrats in the race, including Santa Monica Mayor Richard Bloom. West Hollywood Councilman Jeffrey Prang dropped out earlier this month, because he did not want to challenge Butler. 

It should be very interesting!

CA-44: Rep. Hahn Faces Two Black Challengers For Congress

The old 36th Congressional District becomes the new 44th

Whoa! The fallout from decadal redistricting continues. The latest drama surrounds Black political power in Los Angeles County and its representation in the United States Congress. The 36th Congressional District, which was won by Janice Hahn in a special election in July 2011 has been redrawn so that the Congresswoman's residence now resides in the new 44th District.The problem is that the new 44th District was deliberately drawn to have a higher percentage of African American voters, and as many people have noted, Janice Hahn is not Black. But recently Hahn announced that she will run for Congress in the 44th District.

However, Congresswoman Laura Richardson and State Assemblyman Isadore Hall are, and they have both announced that they are running for the new 44th District. Rep. Richardson is running because the district in which she lives has been re-drawn to have a lot more Republican voters from Orange County in it.

A few weeks ago, Janice Hahn released a poll showing her with a big lead over both Hall and Richardson:

Rep. Janice Hahn: 47
Rep. Laura Richardson: 24
Asm. Isadore Hall: 7


Hall's problem is that nobody knows who he is. Richardson's problem is that people know exactly who she is, and they don't like her. According to Hahn's poll, Richardson has a favorability rating of just 37%. (Though she does much better with black voters, at 68%.)


[...]


According to the poll, Hahn does better than Richardson even among black voters. Hahn claims a 74% favorable rating among African-Americans, to Richardson's 68%.

Black politicians who have long supported any Hahn for elected public office (her father Kenneth for County Supervisor, her brother James for Mayor of Los Angeles and Janice herself for City Council and Congress) are very angry.

However, this week Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa endorsed Janice Hahn for Congress in the 44th district.

1st Anti-Gay Ballot Measure (To Repeal SB48) Ready To Go

Bad news about SB 48, the FAIR Education Act Governor Brown signed into law on July 14, 2011. The heterosexual supremacists who brough California Proposition 8 have filed a referendum challenge to the law and received approval from Attorney General Kamala Harris to start circulating petitions in order to gather the 504,000 valid signatures to submit to Secretary of State Debra Bowen to place the question of the measure's legality on the June 2012 ballot.

Karen Ocamb of LGBTPOV has the scoop:

Referendum to Overturn Non-Discrimination Requirements for School Instruction.

Summary Date: 07/25/11 | Circulation Deadline: 10/12/11 | Signatures Required: 504,760

Proponent: Paulo E. Sibaja (909) 996-9391

If signed by the required number of registered voters and filed with the Secretary of State, this petition will place on the statewide ballot a challenge to a state law previously approved by the Legislature and Governor. The law must then be approved by a majority of voters at the next statewide election to go into effect. The law would require school instructional materials to recognize societal contributions of various groups; and would prohibit school instructional materials that reflect adversely on persons based on their ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation and other characteristics. (11-0023.) (Full Text)

By a referendum, all passage of the measure would do is take back the laws of California to the way they were prior to July 14, 2011. LGBT people and the disability community would not be required to be included in instructional materials. Previously the law mandated the teaching of many other groups, mainly racial and ethnic minorities and Equality California and Mark Leno sponsored legislation to add LGBT and people with disabilities to the list (and change American Indian to Native American and Asian Pacific to Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders).

This is basically a proxy fight over gay rights the right wing is hoping to use to increase conservative turnout in the June 2012 election which will be an incredibly important election (maybe more important than the Presidential election in California) as (almost) every single district-based political office in California will be up for election for the first time in a redrawn district.

I've also heard rumors of a second anti-gay ballot measure which would attempt to divorce the 18,000 same-sex couples that got married in California prior to Proposition 8 and preempt any positive decision striking down Proposition 8 as violating the federal constitution. This second measure seems like even more folly because any measure seeking to replicate or even out do Proposition 8 in anti-gay fervor would clearly also be subject to a similar lawsuit which will probably nullify that measure.

Understanding Redistricting, Part 1

It matters how you draw the lines

Dante Atkins of Daily Kos has a very useful article on the importance of redistricting for progressives.

In most states, the decennial maps for congressional districts are redrawn and approved by state legislatures. Why does this matter? Because partisan state legislatures are likely to divvy up the districts in a way that benefits their party. How does this work in practice? At its most elementary, let's hypothesize a state with a population of nine people: five Democrats and four Republicans. And from those nine people, the Census Bureau required creating three districts with an equal number of people. If the state legislature were controlled by Democrats, they might make a map that carves the state in a way that has a majority of Democratic seats. But if Republicans were to control the legislature—something that happens from time to time in Democratic-voting states such as Minnesota—they just might pass a map with different districts that gives the GOP a majority of the seats. 

The 2010 elections will have long-lasting consequences for control of the House of Representatives. The problem isn't just that Republicans won so many seats; the larger problem is that they won them at exactly the right time. Incumbent representatives are hard to defeat, but unseating freshmen is generally an easier task. Unfortunately, having a wave election in a redistricting year allows the new majority party to take advantage of the redistricting process to shore up vulnerable members, usually by taking some friendlier territory from a safer, better-known incumbent—serving essentially to "lock in" that majority for the rest of the decade. In addition, less scrupulous legislators can use the redistricting process to consolidate the districts of opponents to force their members into either retirement or a bruising primary fight and removing them from their seats regardless—a process playing out right now to eliminate Democratic seats in states like North Carolina and Michigan. The GOP has also shown its willingness to use redistricting to ward off potential political disadvantages at the state legislative level as well: for example, Wisconsin Republicans are redrawing the state senate lines in a hurry before the recall elections, even though doing so right now would create a bureaucratic nightmare. Clearly, the GOP is willing to use redistricting as a political weapon in spite of any resulting collateral damage.

While most states have this concern, California no longer does. In 2008, voters passed Proposition 11, which created a so-called Citizens Redistricting Commission that removed the authority to draw legislative lines from the state legislature and put it into the hands of a supposedly non-partisan commission (in 2010, a second proposition was passed that put the authority to draw boundaries for congressional districts as well into the hands of this same body). The Democratic Party opposed this measure for obvious reasons: As Democrats have a substantial majority of seats, they control the redistricting process and could use it to maximize Democratic seats while ensuring no contentious primary battles among the state's delegation. (Full disclosure: I serve on the executive board of the California Democratic Party.)Furthermore, the commission's mandated structure is hardly representative of California's population: despite the fact that California is an overwhelmingly Democratic state, the commission is required to have an equal number of Democrats and Republicans serving, with absolutely no guarantee of geographic or ethnic diversity.

The commission has had other problems, such as missed deadlines and cancellation of draft maps—and right now, the current maps are likely to face suits, especially from organizations in the Latino community who feel that the maps dilute their community's voting power and are thus illegal under the Voting Rights Act. Nevertheless, among Democrats the mood of uncertainty at the congressional level has yielded to a cautious optimism, as the commission's draft maps (should they hold) will likely result in Democratic gains of multiple seats, and defeat or retirement of several longtime Republican members. 

Isadore Hall Announces Intention To Run For Congress

Assemblymember Isadore hall has announced his
intention to run for a South LA Congressional seat

The decennial redistricting will lead to a lot of turnover of the California congressional delegation, especially since a non-partisan commission is drawing the boundaries of every congressional and state legislative district in the state. This means that every current officeholder will be running in a brand new district. Many ambitious politicians will seize this opportunity to run for higher offices.

One such politician is Assemblymember Isadore Hall III, an African-American pastor who represents the 52nd Assembly District which includes part of North Long Beach and all of Compton. Hall recently announced his intention to run for a new Congressional district which is intended to be "majority-minority." There are currently 4 Black members in the 53-member Congressional delegation, all women: Maxine Waters (CA-35), Karen Bass (CA-33), Laura Richardson (CA-37) and Barbara Lee (CA-09). The district that Hall is eyeing would probably be one that Waters would be expected to run in, unless the 72-year-old Congresswoman decides to retire instead.

Hall's staff sent out a press release about his political intentions:

Compton, California – California State Assemblymember Isadore Hall announced his campaign for Congress today. Hall intends to run in a new Congressional District, which according to the first draft of maps released by the California Citizens Redistricting Committee on June 10th, might include the cities of Compton, Carson, Lynwood, Hawthorne, Gardena, Lawndale, portions of the City of Los Angeles and Unincorporated Los Angeles County.  

“As a local School Board Member, Councilmember and Assemblymember, I have worked tirelessly to make a difference in this community,” said Hall. “Our district needs a representative that will fight cuts to education and gang prevention programs, protect critical frontline services, and partner with President Obama to create family wage jobs.” 
“I have spent the past few days talking with friends and community leaders about running for this new seat,” Hall added.  “The response has been overwhelming and I am energized by the grassroots support we have already received.”

Hall is a former two term President of the Compton Unified School District Board of Trustees. He was elected to the Compton City Council in 2003 where he served in various leadership positions including Mayor pro Tempore.  Hall was elected to the California State Assembly in 2008 and served as Assistant Speaker pro Tempore during his first term. He currently serves as a member of the Appropriations, Elections and Redistricting and Human Services Committees. He chairs the Assembly Committee on Government Organization.
The youngest of six children, Hall was born and raised in the City of Compton. Hall holds a bachelors degree in Business Administration, a Masters Degree in Management and Leadership from the University of Southern California, a Masters Degree in Public Administration from National University and will be conveyed his Ph.D. from Next Dimension Bible College later this summer.

No incumbent member of Congress currently lives in the proposed Congressional District; however, Hall will not seek election to Congress in the event that Congresswoman Maxine Waters seeks to represent the new district.

I'm pretty confident that this will be the first of a lot of similar announcements.