Historic Election Results

Some statistics from last night’s elections:

• Biggest Incoming Assembly Class in a Two Generations. The most recent vote counts indicate that the Class of 2013 will include 37 new Assemblymembers. That’s a lot. The last time we saw more was back in 1935 (when 39 new Assemblymembers arrived). It’s also the largest incoming class (Senate and Assembly) since the start of the Fulltime Legislature in 1967.

 

• Democrats hold super-majority in both houses. The last time the Democrats held a super-majority in the Senate was 1992. The last time they held one in the Assembly was 1978. The last time a single party held super-majorities in both houses was 1933, when the Republicans controlled Sacramento.

 

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  Two Berryhill brothers (Tom and Bill) serving in the Senate together. This will be only the second time in state history that siblings have served together in the State Senate. The last were Jack McCarthy (R) and Robert McCarthy (D) who served together in 1954-58.

 

• General Richard Roth elected to the Senate. We’re not quite sure the last time a military General was elected to the Legislature, but we think it has been a while. Mariano Vallejo was a General in the Mexican Army before statehood and J. Lancaster Brent served as a General in the Confederate Army during the Civil War. Attorney General Evelle J. Younger (who never served in the Legislature) was a Major General in the USAF. Are we forgetting someone more recent than that?

 

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  30 Years of Calderon. Ian Calderon became the latest Calderon to be elected to the state legislature. Between his father and uncles, there has been at least one Calderon in the Legislature for thirty years. Charles Calderon was first elected to the Assembly in 1982.

 

• Fewest Women in a Decade. With 31 females in the 2013-14 Session (not counting Senator Negrete McLeod, who will be an early departure when her term in Congress begins), the number of women in the Legislature is at it’s lowest point in more than a decade. We last had 31 women in the Legislature in 2000.

 

• Nielsen Gets Ten? Winning the SD-04 Special Election last night, Jim Nielsen is on the edge of historynow faces a dilemma. If he postpones his inauguration until December 4th, Nielsen will be eligible to serve the remainder of La Malfa’s term (two years) plus an additional two full terms (eight years). Together with the twelve years he served pre-term limits, this will get him to 22 years (the longest Senate service since the departure of Ralph Dills.

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Updated 11/9: After writing the note on Ian Calderon, we were reminded that Ian will be the youngest Assemblyman since John R. Lewis was elected at age 25 in 1980.

Updated 11/21: Cathleen Galgiani has pulled ahead in the SD-05 race, building a large enough lead that it appears unlikely that Bill Berryhill can overcome it. The McCarthy brothers remain the only siblings to serve together in the State Senate.