June 8 Primaries

From Assemblyman
Anthony Adams' website
California's 59th Assembly District sprawls along most of the San Gabriel Mountains out to the west tip of the San Bernardino Mountains. The district, gerrymandered to guarantee a reliably Republican seat, covers parts of two counties, running eastward from La Crescenta. The district picks up Altadena, then goes on to Arcadia and Monrovia, continues east through La Verne and Claremont, reaches a finger out to Redlands, heads north into Crestline and Lake Arrowhead, and then out into the high desert to catch Hesperia and Apple Valley.

Our current Assemblyman is Anthony Adams, who last year avoided a recall election when recall petitioners failed to gather sufficient signatures to initiate a recall. The recall effort stemmed from conservative voters' anger over Adams crossing the aisle to vote with Democrats to temporarily raise taxes in order to resolve last year's state budget crisis.

Adams decided not to run for re-election, probably because he knew he stood a good chance of losing the June Republican primary. Given Republicans' 43% to 35% edge in the district's registered voters, the Republican primary effectively decides who will represent the 59th.

Adams' decision to step down left the district seat up for grabs. As a result, there are six Republican candidates (their occupations are taken from smartvoter.org) :

• Iver Bye, attorney (Apple Valley)
• Corey Calaycay, councilman/businessman (Claremont)
• Tim Donnelly, small business owner (Twin Peaks)
• Ken Hunter, real estate broker (Lake Arrowhead)
• Chris Lancaster, business executive (La Verne)
• Anthony Riley, businessman/school trustee (Hesperia)
  

The Riverside Press-Enterprise had a rundown of the field for the Republican primary. The article also notes that there is also Libertarian primary with two candidates: Dan Fernandes from La Verne and Apple Valley's Tony Tyler.

Darcel Woods, also from La Verne, is running unopposed in the Democratic primary. American Independent candidate Robert Gosney from Hesperia is running unopposed as well. Both will be on the ballot in the November general election.

There's a website called 2010californiaracetracker.com that breaks down all of California's local and statewide elections. The site has links to the candidates' campaign finance disclosures (if they've filed one). In the Republican primary, Chris Lancaster raised the most money for the 1/1/10 to 3/17/10 reporting period. Lancaster collected $116,974. Corey Calaycay was next with $73,097 for the same period. At the end of that reporting period, Lancaster had $70,513.50 remaining, and Calaycay had $54,416.44.

The election is in two weeks on June 8. Whatever your political inclinations, don't forget to vote.