Now that the election is over and the Democrats nationwide have fallen like so many autumn leaves in a rightward gust, albeit one which California steadfastly resisted, let’s take a look at the situation in which our own member of US Congress, Laura Richardson, finds herself.
Hers was by far the most interesting Long Beach race Tuesday, not because her reelection was ever in doubt, but because her future after 2010 undoubtedly is. Richardson, considering her poor relations with other Long Beach Democratic officeholders and a spate of bad press, has always been ripe for a primary challenge. Depending on the results of the upcoming redistricting process, 2012 will probably be the true test of her political survival skills, and her margin in last Tuesday’s election had the power to either strengthen or weaken her heading into that unforeseeable new terrain.
First, a look back. Rep. Richardson has had a troubled tenure these last three-and-a-half years since she beat out the recently deceased State Senator Jenny Oropeza in a 2007 special election to replace the then recently deceased Congresswoman Juanita Millender-McDonald (for whom I was a staffer). That campaign ended ugly, with a deceptive Richardson mail piece which implied Oropeza had missed votes in the legislature without cause, when in fact the absences were due to her cancer treatments. Not a great start for a congressional career, and things got worse with news that she had three different homes in various stages of foreclosure and unpaid property tax. The foreclosure scandal brought Richardson her first exposure to national media, and the cloud essentially has hung over her ever since. A House Ethics Committee inquiry into whether the bank gave her special treatment (by reversing the auction sale of one home) intensified the pressure, not to mention the frequent sport-making of her situation by KFI radio hosts John and Ken.
So when perennial losing candidate Peter Mathews once more challenged her in last June’s primary, I awaited the results with curiosity. The power of incumbency is such that the outcome was assured. The question was by what margin. In the end, her 67- to 18-percent victory was as big as one would expect, and thus it appeared any chance of an interesting general election was lost.
Enter the Star Parker campaign. Since the drawing of its lines a decade ago, the currently configured 37th Congressional District (which covers four fifths of Long Beach; all of Signal Hill, Carson, and Compton; and a big chunk of LA’s Watts/Willowbrook) has never seen a realistic, well funded Republican challenger. The overwhelmingly Democratic registration is such that, like so many lopsided districts around the country, no serious contender from the other side has wanted to waste the time and money.
But this time things were different. The national Republican Party recruited Star Parker— a black, inner-city welfare mom turned nonprofit director, author, and rightwing commentator— to run here in our 37th, just in case Richardson’s troubles might have made her vulnerable. And they made sure she was well funded— Parker’s visibility, including television advertising, glossy mail pieces, billboards, banners, and signage, attested to that. The Republican Party has for years been working to diversify its stodgy, WASP-y image, and in this very diverse district in particular they must have thought that a bright, smiling, attractive African-American face splashed all over the place might just have an outside chance, despite the inconvenient ‘R’ after her name.
Well, the results are in, and the answer is…not a snowball’s chance on a 90-degree Long Beach day. Now, one must acknowledge that Rep. Richardson was recently cleared by the House Ethics Committee, and she was able to point out that Parker carpetbagged into the district. Nonetheless, I’d wondered if, in what increasingly appeared to be a Category 5 anti-Democratic headwind season, the combination of tons of bad press and a photogenic, well funded opponent might not shave some major comfort-space points off Richardson’s winning percentage. Well, it did not. She won 69 to 23, a 46-percentage-point spread, not far off the 50-point spread she garnered in 2008 againt near-fundless Independent Nick Dibs (who also ran this year and got 8 percent). Much as the rest of the state, the 37th voted as reliably Democratic as ever, almost as if the national anti-Dem massacre was walled off at the border.
Thus it appears Laura Richardson may have a future in Long Beach politics after all, despite the headlines and her uncomfortable relationship with the rest of the city’s political establishment. It really depends on two factors:
1) How will the redistricting commission (newly empowered to draw congressional lines by the passage of Prop. 20) redraw the 37th? Will they move it to the southeast, denying Richardson her bastion of support in the poorer, more African-American neighborhoods west of the 710, and reconnecting the bulk of Long Beach with whiter, less liberal areas, like Lakewood, Belmont Shore, and Naples? There has long been a call to make Long Beach whole again, as it was in the ’90s, and the commission is charged with drawing more geographically cohesive districts. And if that happens,
2) Who steps up to challenge Laura Richardson? While Mayor Bob Foster is instead looking to a 2014 bid for State Treasurer, an obvious contender is the term-limited State Senator Alan Lowenthal. Another would be his former wife, Assemblywoman Bonnie Lowenthal, and yet another would be his former daughter-in-law, Vice Mayor Suja Lowenthal. Of the three, Suja has shown the most interest in running for Congress, having nearly entered the special election three years ago. And of course there may be other council members, business leaders, or civic figures pining for their shot at DC.
Whatever happens, congressional politics in Long Beach is set to get a lot more interesting in the coming year and a half.
Ian Patton is a former congressional staffer and Long Beach political consultant.
