One of the most interesting special elections of all time could be shaping up in California's 12th Congressional district just below San Francisco to replace Tom Lantos. Jackie Speier has quickly locked up establishment support and cleared the field for the April 8th special election date.
California's 12th, which takes in western San Francisco, is a Democratic bastion that CQ Politics rates Safe Democrat. Voters there gave 2004 Democratic presidential challenger John Kerry 72 percent of the vote and President Bush 27 percent. Lantos took 76 percent of the vote in his 2006 election and never received less than two-thirds of the vote in any general election since 1984.
Lantos endorsed former state Sen. Jackie Speier as his successor after his January retirement announcement. Speier quickly cleared the field of at least one potentially competitive challenger, state Sen. Leland Yee, and has landed endorsements from the state's two Democratic senators, Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer , as well as Rep. Anna Eshoo of the neighboring 14th District, Rep. Mike Thompson, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.
Speier, an attorney, ran for Congress nearly 30 years ago to succeed her late boss, Democratic Rep. Leo Ryan. Speier was one of several individuals who accompanied Ryan on a 1978 trip to Jonestown, Guyana, to investigate reported abuses at the People's Temple commune. Members of the group attacked Ryan and others at the airstrip as the group attempted to fly home. Ryan and five others were killed. Speier survived five gunshot wounds.
The district is heavily Asian-American, so clearing the field of Yee looked like a strong political move for Speier. That is, unless, another white challenger jumps into the race, someone like Larry Lessig who brings his own base of support. If Yee were in the race, my guess is that it would basically be impossible for Lessig to win, since he would not be able to consolidate the anti-establishment vote.
The themes in the race would be fascinating. Already we see a 'Change Congress' site set up and linked off of the Draft Lessig blog, and Lessig has focused of late on corruption as a root cause of poor decision-making. Speier is a very tough candidate, so beloved in the distrct that she has a bullet train named after her. She was willing to take on Lantos in a primary, mostly on local issues but with some critiques of his foreign policy stances, so she is quite a fierce and ambitious competitor with high name ID.
I like both of these individuals very much, and I would love to see Lessig jump in. The Silicon Valley area is seeing a surge in local Democratic activity and organizing, as it is a blue area that had let its grassroots atrophy. That's a network into which Lessig would probably have to tap to compete with all the establishment support from Boxer and Feinstein, both of whom are radically out of touch in their own unique ways.
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