There’s nothing like an Assemblyman who abandons his old seat mid-term to run in a district that he doesn’t represent.  This is the case with Asm. Bill Emmerson (R-Redlands Hemet) as he clearly wants the SD-37 seat that is being vacated by John Benoit.

Emmerson, R-Redlands, said he will formally announce his candidacy in the next few days. Assembly members Brian Nestande, R-Palm Desert, and Jeff Miller, R-Corona, said Thursday they are strongly considering a run, as is former Assemblyman Russ Bogh, R-Beaumont.

Democrat Justin Blake, a member of the Palm Springs school board, announced his candidacy for the seat Thursday.

*** *** ***

Redlands, though, isn’t in the 37th, which extends from Corona to Coachella and includes none of San Bernardino County. Emmerson said he is renting a home in Hemet, which is where he grew up and ran a dental practice. The city is fully within the 37th.

“I have a lot of friends there,” he said.(P-E 11/06/09)

Oh, yes, why I heard that Tom McClintock knew a cat in CA-04 too. And hey, it worked for him, so why not! Asm. Brian Nestande, one of the members who represents a portion of the District, has now said that he will not run for Benoit’s seat.

While Justin Blake might have something of a Google problem, I can assure you that he is not the Internet rip-off guy. He is a Palm Springs school board member and 12 year resident of Rancho Mirage, which, you know, is in the District. No website for him yet, but we’ll be sure to provide plenty of links when he does.

Arnold Schwarzenegger appointed Republican State Sen. John Benoit to fill a vacancy on the Riverside County Board of Supervisors. This will create yet another special election cycle, but as David Dayen reminded us, he was already equivalent to an empty chair, since he already votes “no” on budget bills.

Benoit had been lobbying Arnold hard for the job…but that wasn’t why he voted for all of the water bills. You know, that was because he’s totally down with the peripheral canal.

Earlier in the week, Benoit said there was no connection between his desire for the supervisor’s job and his support of the water package, which includes an $11.1 billion bond.

“One thing they told me is that they’re not going to do anything until after (water) is done, because it’s a critical issue facing California,” Benoit said of the governor’s office Monday. “I’m expecting nothing to happen until after this is done.

“Tying the two together is not right, no.” (P-E 11/4/09)

As for the Senate seat, SD-37 includes about half of Palm Springs, so the registration advantage isn’t that huge for Republicans at about 4 percentage points (41-37). And in fact, Obama won the district, 50-48.  As for who could take a stab at the seat, the most obvious Dem candidate would be Palm Springs mayor Steve Pougnet. However, he’s currently running against Mary Bono Mack. There are a slew of Republicans looking at the seat, but has anybody heard about any Democratic interest?

On the Democratic side, our big dogfight of a primary is up here in the Bay Area in SD-03. For the Republicans, it's down in Riverside County for SD-37. There Assemblyman John Benoit is duking it out with former Assemblyman Russ Bogh. CapAlert has more on the race.

The campaign has been a consistent flow of barbs between the two of them. But what I thought was most funny was the ongoing accusation from Bogh on Benoit being a “Gray Davis Republican.” There's even a website! Now, to any objective political watcher, Benoit has very little to do with Davis. However, he did vote for the Democratic budget a couple of times, so, I guess he's the evil spawn of Davis.

And this isn't the only place the phrase it is being used. Also in Riverside County, Brian Nestande, son of a former Assembly member, is also being called a “Gray Davis Republican. It looks like the Republicans are having some sort of bizarro race more than ever. They are fighting to be the ones that stood up against a sound budget. Yes, you heard me right, they want everybody to know that they want to cut more services. They want to cut education.

Apparently Benoit isn't vigilant enough about hacking our education budget to pieces. Apparently Bogh intends California to go to 50th in the nation in per pupil spending from our current 46th position. As Dave said on the podcast on Monday, look out Mississippi, we're coming for ya!