In The News
Jockeying starts for potentially vacant 28th Assembly seat
Thursday April 16, 2009
By Donna Jones of the Santa Cruz Sentinel
source: http://www.mercurynews.com/centralcoast/ci_12155930
The Santa Cruz Sentinel, April 16, 2009
http://www.mercurynews.com/centralcoast/ci_12155930
Jockeying starts for potentially vacant 28th Assembly seat
Updated: 04/16/2009 02:40:27 PM PDT
As 28th District Assemblywoman Anna Caballero prepares for a possible future in the state Senate, the scramble to replace her has started.
Watsonville Mayor Pro Tempore Luis Alejo and behind-the-scenes political player Rick Rivas are eyeing the seat.
Though she hasn't made her final decision, Caballero, D-Salinas, established a campaign committee earlier this month for a potential 2010 bid for the 12th Senate District seat held by Jeff Denham, R-Merced.
Denham, who faces term limits, is running for lieutenant governor.
"It's a good time for me personally, but also a good time for the district to see change," Caballero said of the chance to move up.
Caballero said Democrats have a shot at flipping the seat into their column after eight years of Denham. She said voter strength tips toward Democrats in the district, which runs northeast from the Salinas Valley to encompass the Central Valley cities of Modesto and Merced. With large numbers of Latinos and an agricultural base, it's familiar territory.
"It's what I know," she said. "It's very much like the Salinas Valley."
Caballero isn't the only Democrat interested in the seat. Monterey County Supervisor Simon Salinas, who preceded Caballero as the 28th District's representative in the Assembly, also said he might run, but that he wouldn't make a decision until at least after the May 19 special election.
"I'm open to the idea," Salinas said.
"I'm focused on the budget right now."
Caballero's decision could set up a competitive race between the two young Latinos mulling bids to replace her. Both men have farmworker roots and are highly educated and politically connected.
Alejo, 34, was elected to the Watsonville City Council in November after years of laying the groundwork as a community and Democratic Party activist. He moved into the vice mayor's chair in March.
A Watsonville High School graduate, Alejo earned a law degree from UC Davis and a master's degree in education from Harvard. He is a staff attorney with the Monterey County Superior Court, and previously worked as a legislative aide to an assemblyman from San Jose and as a California Rural Legal Assistance lawyer.
Alejo said he's been approached about the seat by people at home in Watsonville, as well as in Hollister and Salinas.
"It would be an honor to serve the people of the 28th Assembly District, but I am still talking to other area leaders before making any final decision to run," Alejo said.
Rivas, 29, who grew up in a farmworker camp in Paicines, ran Caballero's successful campaign for the Assembly in 2006. He graduated from Santa Clara University with a political science degree before heading off to the University of Michigan to earn a master's degree in public policy.
He served as an intern and aide to U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and worked for EMILY's List, a group that seeks to elect women who support abortion rights. More recently, he helped pass a school bond in Salinas and a sales tax in Hollister.
He runs political operations at the Civil Justice Association of California, a nonprofit group working to end frivolous lawsuits.
"Sacramento's a tough town to do business," Rivas said. "My interest is in seeing we have the best representation."
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