Congratulations Congresswoman Judy Chu

After she won what started out as a long shot bid to replace Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis as the congressmember from the largely Hispanic 32nd CD, centered in the San Gabriel Valley, it was almost a certainty that Judy Chu would win a run-off against a token GOP candidate whose only hope was in the confusion that she could cause because her name is also Chu. Not enough people were confused and strongly progressive Judy Chu beat the pants off the reactionary Betty Chu in a two to one landslide. As the San Gabriel Valley Tribune pointed out, Betty Chu is a typical Republican creep. She started calling herself Betty Chu for the sake of the campaign and her "campaign has a propensity for doctoring photographs of opponents in its mailers, adding facial moles and bad dentistry, as she did to Monterey Park council candidate David Lau and to Judy Chu in May."

It was an extremely low turnout but the right-wing Chu, who was also caught cheating on fundraising reports during the campaign, didn't manage to break a third of the vote. Judy Chu is the first Chinese-American woman ever elected to Congress.

Judy Chu had been endorsed by DWT and by virtually all the media in the district. Last week in their endorsement, the San Gabriel Valley Tribune said the choice couldn't be clearer. And they pointed out that "She has the backing of virtually every other city council member in the diverse district in part because of her obviously solid credentials and in great part because her local service ensures that she understands the crucial needs of our cities. And before that, equally importantly, she served on the Garvey School Board."

In the highly Democratic district, it wasn't a surprise that it was a Democrat-- Judy Chu-- who took the highest plurality of votes in May. But political observers did watch with interest to see how much mere ethnicity seemed to matter in the 32nd, which is 51 percent Latino, and 30 percent primarily Spanish-speaking. About 7 percent is Chinese surnamed, with another 7 percent Vietnamese surnamed, and something on the order of 5 percent Filipino.

Three of the major primary candidates were Latino, but clearly many voters paid more attention to other factors than a person's race--- and that's a great sign for electoral politics in America.

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.

Who To Vote For In The CA-32 Congressional Election Tuesday

There are two great candidates to replace Hilda Solis in CA-32 this Tuesday, Judy Chu and Emanuel Pleitez, both of whom we had as Blue America guests (at the links above). Chu probably has a better shot at winning the seat but if a song and YouTube could determine the outcome...