Things have been hectic since Arnold turned on all of us. I meant to post this a little sooner.
The 59th Assembly District is one of those districts drawn in a very gerrymanded way. It goes from Monrovia in LA County along the 210 to the San Bernardino County Border. It then shoots north through the Angeles National Forest over to Hesperia.
Dennis Mountjoy is termed out. There are four candidates at this point running in the GOP Primary. No Dems need apply. You can read Brad Mitzelfelt’s take here.
I have endorsed no candidate. I know or have met with them all. CRA has not endorsed a candidate. Obviously, that could put one over the others.
Bart Doyle is a former Sierra Madre City Councilman. Nice guy. He has ties to Antonovich and a small base in the murky world of transportaion and government committees. To be honest I don’t see how he gets to 1st in a GOP Primary.
Chris Lancaster is a former Covina City Councilman and son of former Assemblyman Bill Lancaster. Bill represented much of the LA County District up to 1992. Covina is not in the district. Chris resigned and moved to La Verne to run.
Chris has an impressive list of endorsers on the LA side of the district. One problem is that he was recalled from the Covina City Council after voting for a utility tax. (I was involved in that campaign) Since that time he got elected back onto the council and the tax was never repealed. But what are voters in Hesperia going to think? He is truly the local government type candidate and shouldn’t be dismissed.
Harry Scolinos is supported by Mountjoy. He can self fund. He did run for Congress in the old Jim Rogan District. For me the big question is when is he going to do it and to what degree. Scolinos hasn’t realy started hustling in this race.
Anthony Adams is the only candidate from the SB County side and has solid support from the Postmus machine in the county. He is the candidate hustling on both sides of the line.
Scolinos and Adams are the most conservative and it will be interesting to see how they distinguish themselves from each other. But, if Scolinos doesn’t start soon it won’t matter.
Adams should be considered the frontrunner.