CA-34

CA-34 in Los Angeles is the district next door and to the east and south of mine. I'm there a lot; it's basically down the street. It includes Angelino Heights, Mount Washington, Eagle Rock, Highland Park, City Terrace, Boyle Heights, the Arts District, the Financial District and Koreatown.

Tuesday night Jimmy Gomez became the first Democrat to win a House seat since Trump was elected president. He won pretty overwhelmingly-- 60-40%-- in a deep blue Los Angeles district. Generally Republicans don't even try in districts like CA-34. The jungle primary, in fact, resulted in 2 candidates with "D" next to their names facing off this week in the general election.

Republican money has flooded into Ahn's campaign war chestAs part of our series on "ex"-Republicans, we have a guest post today by Paul Ahrens, one of my neighbors in Northeast Los Angeles. Paul has been a member of the entertainment labor union IATSE for 30 years and has served as Assistant Business Agent of IATSE Local 44 since 2004.

Bad for American working familiesAs we mentioned recently, the runner-up in the special election primary for CA-34 is wealthy "ex"-Republican opportunist Robert Lee Ahn.

The "special election notice" you're looking at was a mailer sent to every registered Republican in CA-34 just before the special election last week. Notice on the bottom who it was paid for, not the Republican Party and not the former head of the Republican Party, Shawn Steel, who wrote it. It was paid for by the official, FEC-registered Ahn for Congress congressional campaign.

Yesterday, as expected, progressive Democratic Assemblyman Jimmy Gomez came out far ahead of any of the other 23 candidates in the first round of the congressional contest to replace Xavier Becerra. CA-34 in an overwhelmingly Hispanic district entirely within the confines of Los Angeles. It goes from Eagle Rock. Highland Park, Mount Washington Cypress Park and El Sereno down to Chinatown, Downtown L.A., City Terrace, Boyle Heights and Koreatown.

L.A. County is not a Republican-free zone, even though areas of L.A. are. Hillary won the county 1,893,770 (71.4%) to just 620,285 (23.4%) for Trump. Steve Knight (CA-25) is the only Republican member of Congress with a substantial piece of L.A. County in his district-- and he's only still in Congress because of massive and repeated DCCC incompetence.

Republicans have been reciting their talking points like little automatons all week-- Obamacare is collapsing, premiums going up, deductibles, a third of the counties... etc. Few people people have been taken in other than those already brainwashed by Hate Talk Radio and Fox. Yesterday, though, Secretary of Health Tom Price took the campaign of lies a step further.

Showing up at congressional town hall meetings is sending a powerful message congressmembers are hearing. Marching and demonstrating against Trump and Trumpism is sending a message they're hearing as well. Supporting the voices of the Resistance inside Congress is another way of sending a strong, clear message.

Debra Spector presents Jimmy Gomez with Planned Parenthood's Champion of Choice awardPlanned Parenthood was never an unhinged group of self-serving profiteers the way EMILY's List is, but many women candidates expect to be endorsed by an organization with Planned Parenthood's stated objectives, which are, after all, focused primarily towards making the lives of women better.