CA-32: Who Might Succeed Solis?

As you may know, President-elect Obama has tapped Rep. Hilda Solis to be his Secretary of Labor. Assuming she is successfully confirmed, this will lead to a special election to fill her seat. This very blue district voted 68-30 for Obama, which means that, barring an MA-05-esque debacle, this race should get decided in the primary.

I’ve been thinking for a while now that open-seat blue district primaries have been an overlooked opportunity for the netroots. These are often low-turnout affairs (particularly in special elections) where a bit of extra help can put more progressive candidates over the top. Indeed, MA-05 is a good example: The incredibly mediocre Niki Tsongas won her primary by just 5%, a mere 2,400 votes. Here’s another: In HI-02 in 2006, top-notch progressive Colleen Hanabusa lost by only 0.7%, or 844 votes.

CA-32 might offer us a similar chance to make a difference, but only if we do our due diligence. So I’m particularly glad that L.A. resident Meteor Blades has given us an in-depth look at some of the possible candidates. A few excerpts follow, though I encourage everyone to read the full piece:

At the head of the list for the seat are two long-time politicians, Gil Cedillo and Gloria Romero.

Born of immigrant parents, Cedillo grew up in gritty Boyle Heights on the eastern edge of Los Angeles proper. His father was a member of the United Steel Workers and his mother was a garment-maker. After law school, Cedillo worked for the Service Employees International Union and was SEIU’s general manager from 1990 to 1996, then was elected to the state Assembly, then to the state Senate, where he’ll be termed out in 2010. He chairs the legislative Latino Caucus. Although he is progressive by any measure, his actual policy achievements are quite modest. …

The other candidate with a reasonable chance of winning is Gloria Romero, who replaced Solis in the state Senate and is now Senate Majority Leader. Like Cedillo, she was born Barstow, Calif. Before being elected to the state Assembly in 1998, Romero was an adjunct psychology professor at state universities. She’s widely recognized as an expert on prisons and education. And she’s a close friend of [Los Angeles Mayor Antonio] Villaraigosa. …

Other possible candidates are the Calderon brothers, Charles and Ron, both on the conservative side of the Democratic Party. Charles was in the Assembly in the ’80s and got involved in a losing power struggle there together with other conservative Dems out to oust renowned Assembly Speaker Willie Brown. He was elected to the Senate in 1990 and termed out in ’98, the same year he lost the primary race for A.G. He’s been back in the Assembly since 2006, one of the few people to go from the Senate to the Assembly. (His previous terms in the Assembly were before the term limits law.) Brother Ron served in the Assembly for two terms and has been in the Senate since 2006. Neither has much chance of emerging victorious in the special election.

One probable candidate, Ed Hernandez, is a one-term Assemblyman whose chances come in around absolute zero.

Possible candidates Judy Chu, chairwoman of the State Board of Equalization (the state tax authority), and Mike Eng, her husband, an Assemblyman who replaced her when she was termed out, fall politically somewhere between the Calderons and the more liberal Latinos in the race. But neither Chu nor Eng stands much of a chance, even though Chu has a long history in politics, having started at the school board level.

The front-runners may not be the most inspiring of choices, but in a special election, lots of things are possible – such as two well-established candidates bashing each other so hard that a third option emerges victorious. With NY-26 fresh in our memories, this is something I won’t rule out.

Anyhow, who would you like to see run here?