Meet Your State Senator

Our district's State Senator, Bob Huff, will be in town 2pm tomorrow to meet with the Claremont City Council. The special meeting's agenda says that you can hear a discussion about "items of interest and concern within the City of Claremont."

You can meet with Senator Huff and the City Council in the Citrus Room at City Hall.

City Council Special Meeting

2:00 PM
Citrus Room, City Hall
207 Harvard Avenue
Claremont, 91711

Call (909) 399-5460 for information.

Down-ballot Election Results

A smattering of some of the down-ballot results of interest to Claremont. It's hard to get reliable links to the official elections websites, so take these with a grain of salt. (Results compiled between 6 and 7 a.m. on Wednesday, November 5)

David Dreier, incumbent congressman from the 26th district, which includes Claremont, appears to have withstood a challenge from Democrat Russ Warner. With 318 of 469 precincts reporting, Dreier had 53.5% of the vote to Warner's 40.2%. We commented here on one of the mail pieces opposing Dreier. The Federal Election Commission has now posted the campaign finance disclosure from the Blue America PAC for the hit piece. It cost $19,652.44 to prepare and mail.

click on image to enlarge

See here for latest results in Dreier's race.

In a district adjacent to Claremont, the north Pomona division of Three Valleys Municipal Water District, carpenter John Mendoza appears to have trounced incumbent Fred Lantz, 55% t0 45%. This has a lot of the look of the election two years ago when Xavier Alvarez took his seat from the then-incumbent: a relative unknown versus a long-time water wonk. We don't know much about Mendoza, he has no website and didn't fill out the League of Women Voters Smartvoter information. Mendoza didn't come off all that well in an article in last month's San Gabriel Valley Tribune, where he rapped the current board for "making a lot of decisions about water but they are just sitting there at the top, collecting pay and benefits." The article goes on to say that Mendoza, if elected, would still collect benefits, "but I won't take advantage of them." Huh?

Lantz is husband of Pomona councilmember Paula Lantz. Maybe some of our friends in Lincoln Park (Meg?) can elaborate on this race. [Update: John Clifford over on M-M-M-My Pomona points out that John Mendoza not only ran for and won the Three Valleys seat, but also ran unsuccessfully for a city council seat in this election, losing to Stephen Atcheley but edging out the Daily Bulletin-endorsed Querubin. Mendoza was busy; he also sponsored an increase in the Utility Tax in Pomona, Measure PC, which failed by nearly three to one.]

In incomplete returns, 21 of 25 precincts reporting, Glenn Southard nemesis Michael Wilson is trailing by 900 votes in Indio's city council election. Try this link for updated results--no guarantees it will work. The margin against Wilson has widened as more returns have come in. According to the Desert Sun, Wilson was outspent by the two leaders by four or five to one. Leader Wilson raised more than $60,000; incumbent Watson raised some $45,000, and Wilson raised around $12,000.

Measure R, the new Los Angeles County half-cent sales tax increase, squeaked by 67.4% to 32.6%. It needed 2/3 to pass. It was opposed by Claremont Mayor Ellen Taylor, the Claremont City Council, and many local politicos. It's a win for LA Mayor Anthony Villaraigosa and the MTA and the Westside. Whether we will see much out here in the San Gabriel Valley is doubtful, according to opponents.

Norma Torres, police dispatcher and Pomona mayor, and "Friend of Xavier", is on her way to the State Assembly. With about 2/3 of the votes counted, she leads by more than 15,000 votes, 60.6% to 32.8% for Wendy Maier.

Anthony Adams and Bob Huff both are leading comfortably in their races as Claremont's State Assemblyman and State Senator, respectively.

For you national political junkies, here is an interesting set of maps on the Obama-McCain race, with analysis.

Huff Wins Republican Nomination for 29th Senate District

According to results posted on the California Secretary of State website, Assemblyman Bob Huff trounced former Assemblyman Dennis Mountjoy for the Republican nomination in the 29 Senate District race.

Huff: 28,320 votes, 68.4%
Mountjoy, 13,137 votes, 31.6%

Joseph Lyons, the lone entrant in the Democratic primary, received 22,363 votes, 100%

Libertarian Jill Stone won her primary with 209 votes, 100%

As noted yesterday, because the 29th was gerrymandered to be a safe Republican district, Huff's win in the primary virtually assures his election to the state senate in November.

Election Day Today: A Race to the Bottom

This has been in many ways a dismal election season here in California. We already had our primary way back in February so there's not much interest or coverage in the down-ballot races, the two measures, or the myriad judges before us now in June.

We've been so engrossed by the Norma Torres-Xavier Alvarez juggernaut down Pomona way that we've totally ignored our own race.

Claremont is in the 29th State Senate District where our state senator, Bob Margett, is termed out this year. This has resulted in a race for the Republican nomination between our former assemblyman, Dennis Mountjoy, and current 60th district assemblyman Bob Huff, from Diamond Bar, whose assembly district stretches from Anaheim to Whittier and San Dimas but does not include Claremont.

(Democrat Joseph M. Lyons--who appears not to have a website nor could he be bothered to fill out the Smartvoter free page--and Libertarian Jill Stone are each running unopposed for the nomination to the 29th)

A friend of ours who gets the Republican campaign literature reports having been inundated by Huff for Senate flyers: no fewer than ten four-color pieces proclaiming his conservative values, his list of endorsements (including our former mayors Al Leiga and Peter Yao--those endorsements are gonna get our blood pumping), and finally morphing into hit pieces on the somnambulent Dennis Mountjoy.

It seems--and we could be wrong but this is the way it looks to us--that Dennis Mountjoy's chief claim to office is that his last name is "Mountjoy". Or, as Bob Huff now reminds the Republicans every day: "Dennis is not Dick". Dick Mountjoy, our former and long-ago termed out state senator was last seen running for the U. S. Senate against Dianne Feinstein. We don't have to tell you how that came out: Feinstein is still in Washington after running up narrow margins in San Francisco County--haha. We hear that Dick Mountjoy concentrated his California U. S. Senate campaign in the 29th district, even walking precincts there to keep the Mountjoy name in front of the local voters--just in case.

By all accounts Dick Mountjoy was a legislator of journeyman if far-right skills but in recent years his chief activity and goal has been to keep his son Dennis in work. He was successful in this; Dennis Mountjoy was actually elected to three terms in the Assembly where he impressed Tom McClintock and, except for his dad, no one else. See, Dennis is kinda dim (photo, right).

Now we hear from the aforementioned friend that he received a Robo-Call yesterday, the day before the election, from "Senator Mountjoy"--no first name given, so it was presumably Dick. The gist of the call was to be sure that you, the call recipient, understood that "conservative" was synonymous with "Mountjoy" and that "Mountjoy" was synonymous with "Senator". It mentioned you should be certain to return some kind of mail-petition (our friend is certain he never saw one) and ended with the key tag line, just in case you'd missed it: "This is Senator Mountjoy". Again, no first name.

This appears to be nothing more than a ham-handed attempt to help the witless voters conflate Dennis Mountjoy with Dick Mountjoy, and to make them think they are getting the Dick when when they are actually getting the Dennis. It is breathtaking in its manipulative cynicism. And we'd like to know if there is even the petition mentioned in the call, but good luck trying to get the California Fair Political Practices Commission to look into anything.

A pox on both their houses, Mountjoy's and Huff's. Mountjoy because ALL he has is his last name; Huff because all he has are endorsements and attacks on the hapless Dennis. Republicans in the 29th District are faced with the choice between a well-financed politico only a small step above Leiga and Yao and a Neanderthal.

This choice that is no choice, as we have said many times, is the logical outcome of Machine Politics as practiced in the Inland Empire. Norma Torres in the 61st Assembly District; safe for the Democrat so the winner of the Democratic primary will win the election. Mountjoy and Huff in the 29th Senate District, safe for the Republicans, so the winner of that primary will win in November.

Vote for somebody else in November.