CA-32 Looks Like A Progressive Victory-- Judy Chu

With less than a quarter of the votes still to be counted, Judy Chu is well ahead of Gil Cedillo in a race to replace Hilda Solis in CA-32. The L.A. Times has the most up-to-the-minute results and they're showing Judy with 32.8%, Gil Cedillo with 24.2% and Emanuel Pleitez with 14%. Betty Chu is leading among Republicans with 10.1%. Final results in the morning.

Judy Chu was the favored candidate of the progressive community and had the most endorsements from unions, grassroots groups, local legislators. We covered her campaign in mid-April and, like most netroots activists, have been hoping that she would be able to stop Cedillo. It appears that she has done just that and will be in Congress soon, joining the Progressive Caucus and working towards implementing President Obama's change agenda, and pushing him-- where needed-- in a more progressive direction. Emily's list explained their endorsement:




UPDATE: It's Official-- Judy Won!

With all votes counted it breaks down like this:

Judy Chu (D)- 15,338 (31.9%)
Gil Cedillo (D)- 11,244 (23.4%)
Emanuel Pleitez (D)- 6,509 (13.5%)
Betty Chu (R)- 5,016 (10.4%)

And statewide, the rejection-- rightly-- of a series of ill-defined budget measures, is being looked at as a complete rejection of Arnold Schwarzenegger and as proof of a dangerous and severe state of dysfunction in the Golden State.

[V]oters in the special election refused either to extend new tax hikes or to cap state spending. They also declined to unlock funds that they had voted in better financial times to set aside for special purposes.

Nearly a century after the Progressive-era birth of the state's ballot-measure system, it is clear that voters' fickle commands, one proposition at a time, are a top contributor to paralysis in Sacramento. And that, in turn, has helped cripple the capacity of the governor and Legislature to provide effective leadership to a state of more than 38 million people.

Clogged freeways, the decline of public schools, an outdated water system and a battered economy are just a few of the challenges demanding action by state leaders. Instead, they are consumed by yet another budget crisis, one that voters worsened Tuesday.

"No one's really stepping back and confronting the harsh realities that face our state in a critical sense, because of constraints put on our elected leaders," said Mark Baldassare, president of the Public Policy Institute of California. "We're unable to focus on the long term and the big picture at a time when we desperately need to do so."

The results Tuesday fit Californians' long-standing pattern of demanding what is ultimately irreconcilable, all the more so in an economic downturn: lower taxes and higher spending.

...The public's contradictory impulses were laid bare by a recent Field Poll. It found that voters oppose cutbacks in 10 of 12 major categories of state spending, including the biggest, education and healthcare. Yet most voters were unwilling to have their own taxes increased, and they overwhelmingly favored keeping the two-thirds requirement for tax hikes.