The 2014 midterm election is over, and the results are in! On one front, not much has changed in Los Angeles County: all incumbents to the House of Representatives were re-elected. On the other front, the county will see new faces in long-held seats: Democrat Ted Lieu took retiring Democratic Congressman Henry Waxman’s seat in the 33rd district, and Sheila Kuehl has succeeded Zev Yaroslavsky for LA County’s Board of Supervisors’ Third District. In addition, voters passed Measure P, the special $23 parcel tax to fund parks and elected former Long Beach Police Chief Jim McDonnell to lead the LA County Sheriff’s Department. Voter turnout in LA County was 23.4%.
Moving to the state level, Democrats swept the field: Governor Jerry Brown was re-elected to an historic fourth term, and Democrat Alex Padilla defeated Republican Pete Peterson for Secretary of State in a race that was too close to call until this morning. However, the same could not be said for all of the state’s propositions. Propositions 1 and 2, the Brown-backed ballot issues that tackled water and the state budget, respectively, both passed. Contrastingly, Propositions 45 and 46 regarding insurance rates and medical malpractice did not. The state’s effort at continuing sentencing reform, Proposition 47, succeeded in becoming law whereas Proposition 48 failed to bring another casino to the state. Overall voter turnout for the state of California stood at 29.9%.
What do these results mean for LA County and California? Will these results ripple on a national scale?
Guest:
Jonathan Wilcox, Republican Strategist; former speechwriter for Governor Pete Wilson
Matt Rodriguez, Democratic strategist, Rodriguez Strategies; former senior Obama advisor in 2008
Linda Feldmann, White House and Politics correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor
Frank Gilliam Jr., Dean of the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs and a professor of public policy and political science
Jessica Levinson, Professor at Loyola Law School, where she teaches Campaign Finance, Former Director of Political Reform at the Center for Governmental Studies
Francine Kiefer, Congressional Correspondent, Christian Science Monitor
