New Central Coast district strongly favors Democrats
by Brian Leubitz
There were winners and losers in the redistricting process this year. Certainly Howard Berman and Brad Sherman were none too pleased to be forced to go around collecting endorsements right around now. And Elton Gallegly and Lois Capps won’t be thrilled with their new toss-up seats either. (Gallegly has been talking retirement for years, so that may happen now.)
But the new Senate map draws more ire than any of the other maps. Partially because Democrats are so close to getting a 2/3 majority, but also because a few gerrymandered seats were redrawn that will make them hard to keep in the GOP column. Chief among those is the seat of Sam Blakeslee, who recently defeated friend of Calitics John Laird last year in a special election to replace temporary LG Abel Maldonado. His seat was a toss-up, with a slight Democratic registration advantage. The low-turnout special election obviously favored conservatives (and thus his victory), so even if he were running in the same district he would face a tough challenge against Asm. Bill Monning.
But that is just the beginning for Blakeslee. The 17th Senate District is now essentially a Safe Democratic seat, with a 16pt Democratic registration advantage. (For more on safe/toss-ups, see this excellent CaliGirl in Texas diary.) In a presidential year, with the expected high turnout, Blakeslee faces very long odds.
And give Blakeslee credit for acknowledging as much.
“I want my community to understand that by making this decision, I’m not walking away from a fight,” Blakeslee told The Tribune. “But I’m not willing to lose the entire last year in office in (a vain) pursuit of office. I’m 100 percent engaged to make sure this last year is the most impactful as it possibly can be.”(SacBee)
Now, Blakeslee did leave the door open if the district is more friendly when it is decided upon by the Supreme Court in San Francisco soon. But, unless the district changes soon, it looks like we have a couple of good opportunities to pick up the 2/3 vote in the Senate
The other way Blakeslee “won” was with tons of negative advertising paid for by his big-oil backers. I did lots of phone banking for John Laird, and the things I heard from voters were straight out of the Karl Rove slime manual.
I’m sorry to hear Sam plans to spend his last year in office playing dirty bait-and-switch games with the governor–his legislative “achievement” so far in the Senate. But I’m really, really glad to know we’re going to be seeing the back of him very soon. We’ll all be so much better off with Bill Monning in this seat. Bill is my assemblyman and I’m looking forward to having him as my state senator.