54th District voters elect assemblywoman
Two other special elections for the chamber will be decided in June runoff.
SACRAMENTO — Sydney Kamlager, a Los Angeles community college trustee, is headed to Sacramento after winning a special Assembly election Tuesday.
Contests also held last week to replace two Democratic San Fernando Valley state assemblymen who resigned amid accusations of sexual misconduct are headed to a June primary, with Democrats favored to keep both seats.
Kamlager, 45, will serve the remaining seven months in the term of former Assemblyman Sebastian RidleyThomas, who cited health issues in his resignation late last year.
Unofficial returns on Tuesday showed Kamlager winning almost two-thirds of the votes cast for any of the four candidates on the ballot in the 54th Assembly District — more than enough needed to win the job outright without a runoff election.
“It’s an awesome responsibility I have ahead of me,” Kamlager said.
The other races won’t be decided for two months.
Democrats Luz Rivas and Jesse Gabriel each won the most votes in their respective races to fill the remaining terms of former Assemblymen Raul Bocanegra and Matt Dababneh in the heavily Democratic districts, according to initial but still unofficial results.
Rivas, a 44-year-old science educator and Los Angeles Public Works commissioner, beat out four other Democrats on the ballot with 41% of the vote. She will face No. 2 finisher Republican plumbing and electrical contractor Ricardo Benitez, 60, who claimed 21% of the vote in the race to replace Bocanegra.
Rivas and Benitez are competing to represent the 39th Assembly District, which includes Sylmar, Sun Valley and North Hollywood. Just over 52% of voters in the district are registered Democrats; 14% are Republicans.
In the 45th Assembly District, Gabriel, a 36-year-old Encino attorney with degrees from UC Berkeley and Harvard, came away with 32% of the vote, besting five other Democrats on the ballot and one candidate with no party preference, former Los Angeles City Councilman Dennis Zine. Republican Justin Clark, a 19-yearold freshman at Cal State Northridge who works at a Calabasas ice cream shop, won 27% of Tuesday’s vote.
Zine, a 12-year veteran of the council, used to be a Republican but entered the race without a party affiliation. He probably had the most name recognition of any candidate when the election began, but dropped out of the contest in February. His name still appeared on the ballot and he finished fifth with 8% of the vote.
About 48% of voters in the district, which includes Hidden Hills, Canoga Park and Northridge, are Democrats; about 22% are Republicans.
Voter turnout was low in both contests, with just 6.45% of voters casting ballots in the 39th district and 9.43% of voters in the 45th district.
Gabriel and Rivas were among the top fundraisers in their races and were aided by outside spending from a pro-charter school group called California Charter Schools Assn. Advocates. Rivas benefited from $595,000 in support while Gabriel received $292,000 worth of support.
Rivas was backed by a new political action committee aiming to boost the low numbers of women serving in the California Legislature. The group, also made an effort to replace men accused of harassment with women, backed a different candidate for the Dabaneh seat.
The Republicans are struggling in fundraising.
Clark said he had raised about $1,500, while Benitez said he has raised around $2,500. Both expressed confidence in the face of long electoral odds.
“Our challenge is going to be making a dent in the fundraising race,” Clark, who describes himself as a constitutionalist on Twitter, said about his campaign. “We have the message, we have the passion — we just need the funds.”
Eric Bauman, chair of the California Democratic Party, boasted about Kamlager’s victory and the two other special elections. He said the results “show that the Resistance is thriving and our progressive values are advancing in California.”
“These results only further energize us as we prepare for a Big Blue Wave in June and November," Bauman said in a statement.
Voters might get a little confused when they go to vote June 5 to pick a candidate in these two races to fill the remaining terms of the resigned assemblymen.
That is because, on the same day, they will have to pick between a similar field of candidates in a general election primary to pick the person to fill the same seats during the next full term in the Assembly.
Kamlager, who will be sworn in this month, has a similar predicament and isn’t finished with campaigning. She is also a candidate for a new full two-year term that begins in December and will have to compete for that stint — as the incumbent — in June.
The Democrat was elected to the Los Angeles Community College Board of Trustees in 2015. She also serves as district director for state Sen. Holly Mitchell (DLos Angeles). Kamlager cited not only education, but criminal justice reform and poverty as issues she hopes to focus on upon her arrival in Sacramento.
“I think people responded to my experience in the district,” she said.
The Assembly district encompasses communities west of downtown Los Angeles, from Crenshaw to Culver City and as far north as Westwood.