This week’s primary election results aren’t yet certified, but by Friday they had revealed a major blockage in the Sacramento-to-Los Angeles pipeline that legislators have long used to claim elected office after hitting term limits in the state Senate and Assembly.
Several big-name Sacramento politicians came up short in their campaigns for city council, Board of Supervisors and congressional district seats in Los Angeles County. As a result, many accomplished policymakers now find themselves potentially without a job come November, or at least out of the running for the job they wanted.
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“The idea that you can just think ‘I’m the state legislator, I represent more people, I know how to fundraise, I’m going to walk over there and become the next supervisor, next councilmember, next mayor,’ this election showed you that you have got to really rethink that formula,” said Fernando Guerra, professor of political science at Loyola Marymount University.
As of Friday’s vote-count update, state Sen. Anthony Portantino, D-Glendale, and former state Assemblymember-turned-L.A. City Attorney Mike Feuer, are not likely to make the run-off for California’s 30th Congressional District, the L.A.-area seat that Rep. Adam Schiff is vacating in his run for the U.S. Senate. High-profile, longtime State Sens. Susan Rubio and Bob Archuleta were flailing in the race for California’s 31st Congressional District in the San Gabriel Valley.
L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger is poised to clinch the 5th District seat in the primary, putting a swift end to Assemblymember Chris Holden’s effort to dethrone her. And over at the L.A. City Council, both Assemblymembers Reggie Jones-Sawyer and Wendy Carrillo had swing-and-miss campaigns.
So what is the pattern behind all of these big name flops? And, what does it say about the future of L.A. County politics?
According to political experts, there were three key factors behind these…
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