Look at the recent Daily Bits on the website. The Resilience of the Democratic Presidential Candidates, Obama’s Advice
Political Note #252 Christy Smith CA CD 25
2020 Special Election. Lost Special Election, running in the General Election.
Sisterhood.
Congresswoman Katie Hill resigned. She resigned during a sex scandal that included nude pictures, a denial of claims she had slept with a Congressional staffer, and an acknowledgement that she had slept with a campaign staffer. Long ago, she acknowledged that she was bisexual.
She resigned from Congress, but not from political life. Two tweets tell a story:
Katie Hill tweeted: A local gal flipped a decades-long Rep seat to win by 9 pts. A local gal is the only one who can keep it blue and the only one the community deserves. I called @ChristyforCA25 before I resigned to make sure she would run. Boys, please be gentlemen and step aside. She’s got this.
Christy Smith tweeted in response to two out of district men announcing their interest in the seat: Here’s an idea. How about all of you man spread in your own damn districts?!
Like Hill, Christy Smith https://www.christyforcongress.org/ is a Democratic woman. She is not the same kind of candidate.
- Christy Smith is 50 to Hill’s 32.
- Christy Smith is married to a man and has two children.
- Hill, a declared bisexual, is divorcing a man. She has no children.
- Christy Smith was a PTA mom and school board member before she ran for the California Assembly.
- Hill ran a farm with her ex-husband for homeless animals.
- Christy Smith’s signature issue has been education.
- Hill’s was homelessness. Before being elected to Congress, she led an effort to pass a successful referendum to provide assistance to the homeless.
- Christy Smith is a middle class suburbanite.
- Hill is a free spirit; a tough free spirit whose hobby is rock climbing.
California governor, Gavin Newsom scheduled a special election to fill the vacancy in California’s 25th Congressional District on March 3 – the same day as the California Democratic primary. A lot of Democratic voters will show up. Will it be enough in this formerly Republican district?
Christy Smith was given a head start by Katie Hill. She is using that head start and may be the only Democratic candidate. That is a big deal in California’s non-partisan primary system. No Democratic opponents means no danger of splitting the Democratic vote. Christy Smith could get a majority of the vote in the non-partisan primary and eliminate the need for a re-run between the top two vote-getters.
Christy Smith’s political head start? She was a policy analyst for the US Department of Education, was elected twice to her local school board, and was elected in 2018 to the California state assembly, flipping a seat held by a Republican. Flipping that seat was expensive. Christy Smith raised more than two million dollars in the campaign for a state assembly district.
She touts successes in the Assembly. Christy Smith’s bill to compensate victims of human trafficking became law. As did a law of which she was a joint sponsor to include mental health coverage for first responders in worker’s comp. Sadly, that law was passed in time to support first responders in Christy Smith’s home town of Santa Clarita where there was a school shooting in early November.
There is a good chance that Christy Smith’s principal competition will be CA 25’s former Republican Congressman. I wrote in 2018 when Hill was running against him: Knight is a tough guy. He was a Los Angeles cop for 18 years. During the 2014 election, he had a verbal quarrel with a protester. When the protester touched him, he shouted “I’ll drop your ass….”
Despite initial reluctance to endorse Trump, Knight fell in line like most Members of Congress. He was loyal to Trump — supporting the tax cuts, repeal of the Affordable Care Act, delays in Defense Department rules prohibiting pay day loans, and religious freedom provisions that permit corporations and others to discriminate based on sexual orientation. Knight’s father William had been the author of a proposal to ban same sex marriage in California.
Sisterhood?
Christy Smith would be an older sister to millennial Katie Hill, equally opposed to macho Steve Knight. Elect Christy Smith https://www.christyforcongress.org/. She’ll need to win in March and again in November. If election to the State Assembly could cost more than two million dollars, election to Congress will be more. Provide her with some support. She will need every dollar she can raise.
I encourage readers to donate to individual candidates. There are organizations worth donating to.
DNC The Democratic National Committee – Elect a Democratic President https://democrats.org/
DSCC The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee – Elect a Democratic Senate https://www.dscc.org/
DCCC The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Maintain the Democratic majority in the House https://dccc.org/
DLCC The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee Elect state and local Democrats https://democraticgovernors.org/
DGA Democratic Governors Association Elect Democratic governors https://democraticgovernors.org/
Indivisible Grassroots grassroots effort to elect progressives https://indivisible.org/
Swing Left Focuses on crucial winnable races https://swingleft.org/
Tony the Democrat Send postcards to get out the vote https://onethingyoucando.com/tag/tony-the-democrat/
Daily Kos Progressive blog with many contributors https://www.dailykos.com/
Two newsletters that don’t solicit donations:
Today’s Edition Robert Hubbell’s great daily Newsletter Write to ask to be put on his email list rhubbell@gmail.com
Lenspoliticalnotes Len Lubinsky (that’s me) recommends Democrats to support Write to get on his mailing list lenlubinsky@gmail.com or enroll on the website lenspoliticalnotes.com
