California’s 2009 Congressional Delegation – Another Season of “Incumbent Idol”

[We here at Johnny California have been so busy with Prop. 8 aftermath, that we called in guest-blogger KG to fill you in how the California congressional races shook out]

It seems that no matter how many times you recreate civil war battles, they always end the same, removing any sense of the actual drama of the civil war.  The same can be said about California Congressional elections.

Regardless of how often many congressional races were referred to as “hotly contested”, California voters were treated to another round of “Incumbent Idol” where whatever exciting races may be advertised, an Incumbent will surely win.

It’s hard to imagine that a state with 53 congressional races, there would be no upset, no surprise, no WOW.  The only surprise was how close some of the races were compared to previous elections.  Obama may have helped some Democratic contenders shorten the distance, but Prop 8 and Prop 4 likely capped the damage by getting otherwise-depressed conservative voters to turn out.

While Democratic Senators Di-Fi and Bar-Box may have just increased their power by a large margin in the Senate due to seniority and a new democratic President who will feel their pain on infrastructure, environmental issues and green jobs, only a few members of the California Congressional Delegation can say the same.

Among those few are Speaker Pelosi and Henry Waxman.  Waxman is attempting a semi-coup of the uber-powerful House Committee on Energy and Commerce chairmanship over current chair, Rep. John Dingell of Michigan. Personally, I liked Waxman as Chair of the Oversight committee, but this is a power play to have some say over policy shaping, rather than policy protection.

The other big winner in this election is Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D) who is looking to Washington for green tech initiatives for her Silicon Valley District in San Jose.

Among the rare close house races this year, is in San Diego county where Brian Bilbray (R) beat challenger Nick Leibham (D) by less than 5 percent, scaled back from a much larger 10% victory in 2006. This was Randy “Duke” Cunningham’s seat.

In the O.C., Rep. Rohrabacher won re-election, but had to do it with some 54,000 less votes than 2004. In perhaps the only truly exciting contest, an open seat out of CA04, Tom McClintock (R) is a mere several hundred votes ahead of challenger Charlie Brown (D).  This was a contest that Dems poured a lot of resources into because the seat was vacated by Republican John Doolittle, who retired in the aftermath of, yes, a lobbying scandal. We may have to wait the weekend out on that one.

In the end, our congressional election will not move California into the future, but keep us right here in the present, where parents can hand congressional seats to their kids (check out Rep.-Elect Duncan D. Hunter, son of Rep Duncan L. Hunter who gave up his seat in the 52nd District to run for President) and spend time vacationing in Hawaii rather than campaign.

But doe sent’ Prop. 11 give us hope for the future?  Nope.  Prop 11 allows redistricting to occur on the state level, and doesn’t include Congressional boundaries.  As reported in the San Jose Mercury News:“House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Democratic colleagues threatened a large-scale campaign to kill it if congressional redistricting were thrown in.”  Thus ensuring that we see this same sordid affair play out over and over again.  But hey, the Dems control more than just a simple majority of California congressional seats, so why would they rock the boat?

I have a new slogan for all incumbent congressional candidates I think may work well.  You may have heard it before… “What, me worry?”