California saw plenty of change to its congressional delegation last year, with the long-serving Pete Stark (East Bay area), David Dreier (San Dimas), Jerry Lewis (Redlands), Joe Baca (San Bernardino County), Elton Gallegly (Simi Valley), Mary Bono Mack (Palm Springs) and more either retiring or getting turned out.
For their remaining veteran colleagues, reelection seems all but certain. Nancy Pelosi, the former Speaker of the House and current Democratic Minority Leader, hasn’t had a serious challenger since inheriting her San Francisco seat in 1987 on the death of Sala Burton, who had taken over from her husband, Phil Burton, a liberal lion and legendary master of gerrymandering.
But Pelosi is 73 ,and her age probably will see her out of Congress before another decade goes by.
In that way, Pelosi is typical of the state’s 53-member delegation, replete with sexagenarians and septuagenarians.
Look at the solidly Democratic districts stretching hundreds of miles south from Pelosi’s turf: Jackie Speier, 63, of San Mateo; Anna Eshoo, 70, of Palo Alto; Zoe Lofgren, 65, whose district reaches from San Jose to Gilroy; Mike Honda, 71, of San Jose, Sam Farr, 71, of Monterey County and Lois Capps, 75, of Santa Barbara County.
Stark Truth About Stark
Of that aging group, only Capps had a serious challenge last year, but she still easily fended off Republican Abel Maldonado, the former appointive lieutenant governor.
Any of them could draw a challenge at any time, as did Stark. A 40-year congressional veteran from Alameda County, at 80 years old, he was the dean of California’s delegation until he was surprised by a primary challenge from 31-year-old Eric Swalwell, a Dublin city councilman. Ten years earlier, Swalwell was an intern for ex-Congresswoman Ellen Tauscher. Swalwell won the all-Democrat November runoff by a narrow 52 to 48 percent.
Already Honda is being challenged by a former deputy national trade representative, Rho Khanna, 37, who drew major Silicon Valley players to one recent $2,600-per-person fundraiser.
No one can be sure what other upstarts may be lurking in the weeds to take on senior citizen incumbents south of Pelosi or elsewhere.
Take Doris Matsui of Sacramento, 68, or Buck McKeon, a 74-year-old Santa Clarita Republican who chairs the House Armed Services Committee, or San Diego Democrat Susan Davis, 69, or 73-year-old Henry Waxman of West Los Angeles and the South Bay suburbs or 68-year-old former Lt. Gov. John Garamendi, who won by only about eight percent last year over a previously-obscure Republican challenger.
All these folks should have learned last year that the state’s three-year-old Top Two primary election system makes seats once-safe seats quite a bit shakier.
But for that system that puts the top two finishers in the primary election into the November runoff, regardless of party, Stark likely would still be in Congress. No Republican could have beaten him in his district, but a fellow Democrat did.
Top Two Can Be Deadly
If that didn’t put other incumbents on notice, what happened to Baca surely did. He lost to a fellow Democrat, 71-year-old Gloria Negrete McLeod of Chino.
That race illustrated state legislators subject to term limits won’t always be content to leave office and retire. Some will try for Congress. Which means few in Congress can be sanguine, having to look over their shoulders as long as they serve.
Which means the still-pretty-new primary system is achieving one unanticipated benefit: Keeping incumbent politicians more alert than they ever needed to be. It's too soon to know whether that means they will accomplish more than they did before.
Chances are the next congressional shakeups won’t be as striking as they were last year, when 14 new members entered Congress.
Democrats already are eyeing the districts of Republican Congressmen Jeff Denham of Modesto and Gary Miller of Rancho Cucamonga.
“The party apparatus will begin to focus on these races in earnest very shortly,” said Eric Bauman, of Los Angeles the Democrats’ state vice chairman.
However, the most change will come from districts already occupied by Democratic veterans, none of whom has any intention of stepping down. When they do, plenty of younger folk will be waiting to replace them. If the old-timers don’t get out of the way on their own, at least some of those ambitious potential replacements are sure not to wait their turns. Like Swalwell, they will pounce on their own where they see an opening.
Mr. Elias is author of the current book “The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government's Campaign to Squelch It,” now available in an updated third edition. His email address is tdelias@aol.com
