Right and White

Which is why so much of the conventional literature on the changing political climate of California is a bit off-base in its rosy projections of a new conservatism. To be sure, the huge growth of such exurban or nonurban areas as Northern San Diego County, Riverside County and the San Joaquin Valley will create new Republican districts. But it is also the case that old-line suburbs that were previously Republican -- not just in the nether reaches of L.A. County, but also in Northern Orange County and Western San Bernardino County -- are moving Democratic. In some cases, even left-Democratic. Long Beach is likely to be represented in the Assembly after November by Alan Lowenthal and Jenny Oropeza -- two populist progressives of the kind one expects from traditionally liberal Central L.A. districts. The San Gabriel Valley will be represented in Congress by Hilda Solis -- one of the most pro-labor, pro-choice, environmentally friendly members of the state Senate, who‘ll bring those positions to Washington.

The story of the transformation of L.A.’s peripheries is in part the story of the resurgence of the L.A. labor movement, whose clout now reaches into almost all of L.A.‘s working-class burbs. The Fed was a major factor in Solis’ amazing 69-percent-to-31-percent victory last week over incumbent Congressman Marty Martinez, a centrist who‘d crossed labor at least one time (by supporting the administration’s fast-track proposal) too many. With the administration‘s new proposal to grant permanent most-favored-nation status to China shortly to come to the Hill, the fate of Marty Martinez may now loom large in the calculations, or apprehensions, of Grace Flores Napolitano -- like Martinez, a Latino Democratic member of Congress from an Eastside, working-class, urban-suburban district, and, like Martinez, a charismatically challenged representative with an unfortunate propensity to line up with the administration in favor of the free-trade flavor of the month. What the Fed did to Martinez last week, it could do to Napolitano two years hence.

So, yes, that was a right-and-white electorate we heard from last week, but anyone who thinks it portends a Republican resurgence in California is lost in a dream, or a nightmare. Don’t take my word for it. Ask Governor Lungren.