Democrats stage two juicy duels

By DAN WALTERS
Sacramento Bee
Friday, May 25, 2007

When the Legislature and then-Gov. Gray Davis reconfigured the state's 173 legislative and congressional districts in 2001 with the intent _ and the effect _ of eliminating two-party competition for seats, they created a vacuum that begged to be filled.

If the two parties could not contest for seats, competitive instincts would be shifted into factional rivalries within the parties themselves _ a syndrome heightened by legislative term limits, which produce crops of term-limited, but ambitiously office-seeking politicians.

A perfect example of the syndrome has emerged in Los Angeles County, where the death of Democratic Rep. Juanita Millender-McDonald has touched off an elbow-throwing, three-way scramble.

To state legislators facing term limits, a congressional seat is golden _ essentially a lifetime job _ so it was not surprising when two Long Beach Democrats, Sen. Jenny Oropeza and Assemblywoman Laura Richardson, declared they'd run in the June 26 special election. It shaped up as a chapter in the jockeying of Latino and African American politicians in urban Los Angeles.

Oropeza's chances improved when Millender-McDonald's daughter, Valerie McDonald, also joined the race, potentially dividing the black vote, and when state Sen. Sheila Kuehl, the Legislature's foremost advocate of gay rights, denounced Richardson as "homophobic," apparently payback for some decade-old Richardson campaign literature.

This week, however, the very influential Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, a major factor in the rise of Latino political power, backed Richardson. Oropeza's camp blamed the endorsement on her vote for gambling compacts with Indian tribes that unions opposed, but it also reflected efforts by the labor federation's chief, Maria Elena Durazo, to maintain its internal racial coalition and not be seen as abetting a Latino takeover of a black seat.

There's not an ideological crack wide enough for a human hair among the congressional candidates. This is a duel about race and personal careers, which is why it's so entertaining to political aficionados and why it's likely to become even nastier as Election Day nears.

The same observation applies to what could be 2008's hottest legislative race _ the only-in-San-Francisco primary duel between state Sen. Carole Migden and Assemblyman Mark Leno, two liberal Democrats and prominent members of the Legislature's gay contingent, but with very different personalities.

Migden is a brawler with a somewhat grating manner while Leno is as friendly as a puppy, and it has been shaping up as a personality contest in the overwhelmingly Democratic San Francisco-Marin County district.

That was, however, before Migden began driving erratically on Interstate 80 and after a couple of minor mishaps plowed her state-issued SUV into another car on Highway 12 near Fairfield last Friday, slightly injuring an occupant of the other vehicle.

At first, Migden blamed the accident on taking a wrong turn and being distracted by a cell-phone call, but when reports of the other incidents surfaced, she then declared that it might have stemmed from medication to battle leukemia.

"I don't have a recollection of what happened. I can only conclude I had a medical event I can't explain," she told the San Francisco Chronicle. "It's not an excuse; it may be an explanation."

Migden also said, "I owe an explanation to the public and myself and, in particular, the person I hurt."

Whatever the outcome of the Highway Patrol investigation, the incident hurts Migden politically. Whether diverted by a cell-phone call or impaired by medication, her erratic driving implies irresponsibility to many _ and thus bolsters the image of arrogance that was already her greatest vulnerability.

(Contact Dan Walters at dwalters(at)sacbee.com. Back columns: www.sacbee.com/walters.)