THE DOUBLE X FACTOR

From "The Nooner"on 8/14/12 (see full post here)

I have written a few times on the prospects of women candidates to the state Legislature. There was a moment last year at which it appeared that there could be a significant reduction--when there were discussions of serious intra-party challenges to three Democratic women senators, Loni Hancock (SD09), Carol Liu (SD25), and Fran Pavley (SD27).

Some very tense discussions in legislative caucuses and elsewhere quelled each of those attempts. So, where are we?

There are currently 21 women in the Assembly--including 6 Republicans and 15 Democrats. In the Senate, there are 12 women, consisting of 2 Republicans and 10 Democrats.

In the Assembly, four seats currently held by women will switch to men--AD08 (Huber), AD19 (Ma), AD23 (Halderman), and AD50 (Butler). There are two more seats that are 50/50 as to whether a woman will continue to represent--AD20 (Hayashi --> Ong v. Quirk) and AD47 (Carter --> Baca, Jr. v. Brown).

Thus, women will lose 4-6 seats that are currently held, with all but one being Democrats.

There are four seats currently held by men where pickups will or might happen. AD58 (C. Calderon --> Garcia) and AD75 (Jeffries --> Waldron) will be picked up by women, and AD67 and AD76 are competitive with a woman running.

In the upper house, three seats currently held by women will switch to men: SD15 (Alquist --> Beall v. Coto), SD21 (Runner --> Knight), and SD39 (Kehoe --> Block v. Plescia). There are two possible pickups in SD13 (Simitian --> Lieber v. Hill) and SD27 (Strickland --> Pavley v. Zink).

Pavley will likely be succeeded in her "old" seat by Hannah-Beth Jackson.

In the end, there will likely be 2-3 fewer women in the Legislature, but it won't be as bad as it briefly appeared last year.