Who cares about Pleasanton? Who cares about Pleasanton? (October 22, 2004)

Since city was split into three Assembly districts, candidates focus their efforts elsewhere
by Jeb Bing

Candidates for State Assembly will be canvassing the neighborhoods and soliciting votes on downtown streets this weekend, but don't look for any of them in Pleasanton. With the city split into three Assembly districts, the total of 36,000 registered voters overall in Pleasanton, the highest ever, still makes the number of voters in any one of them just too small to matter.

Take the 15th Assembly District, where redistricting in 2002 moved the boundaries to include all of Livermore and Walnut Creek and other cities along I-680 and I-5, including the fast-growing southern Sacramento County cities of Golf and Elk Grove. Registered voters there total 258,283, making it one of the largest Assembly districts in the state, but covering only 15 percent of Pleasanton, or less than 6,000 voters. The district's incumbent Republican Assemblyman Guy Houston and his Democratic challenger Elaine Shaw will be spending their final campaign days in the more populated areas, where it counts.

Even in the 18th District, which now has about half of Pleasanton, stretching west from Santa Rita Road and including downtown, most of the district's 190,675 voters live in the heavily populated areas of Hayward, San Lorenzo and San Leandro. It has been represented by Democrat Ellen Corbett for the last eight years, and her Democratic Party successor is Johan Klehs of San Leandro, a lecturer in Political Science at UC Berkeley. He is being challenged by Ronald J. Colfer on the Libertarian Party ticket, with no Republican Party challenger on the ballot. Neither Klehs nor Colfer has campaigned for any of the 17,000 possible votes in their Pleasanton district and have no plans to do so.

Corbett, who is termed out this year, has announced her candidacy for the 10th State Senate District seat now held by Sen. Liz Figueroa (D., Fremont), who will be termed out after eight years in the Senate in 2006.

In the 20th Assembly District, which includes Vintage Hills and other southern parts of Pleasanton, eight-year Assemblyman John Dutra is also being termed out. He is supporting fellow Democrat and Newark Vice Mayor Alberto Torrico over Republican Cliff Williams. Although Torrico has held several fundraisers in Pleasanton, he is not campaigning here.

Before the state Legislature's redistricting of Assembly and Senate districts in 1982, Pleasanton was entirely in the 18th Assembly District. When well-known Democratic Assemblyman Carlos Bee died in 1975, Pleasanton Mayor Floyd Mori, also a Democrat, was chosen in March of that year to fill his seat. At that time, the 15th included Livermore, Dublin, Hayward, Union City, San Lorenzo and half of Castro Valley, as well as Pleasanton.

In 1980, hammered by a critical San Francisco television report aired on the final weekend of the campaign, Mori lost to Livermore Republican Gib Marguth, a computer engineer. The results, which political pundits attributed to the landslide victory of Ronald Reagan as president, stunned Democrats who thought they had a lock on the 15th. By 1982, the state Legislature had changed the boundaries of the 15th, moving much of it, including a part of Pleasanton, into the Democratic-controlled 18th District and leaving the 15th, including a small portion of Pleasanton, with Livermore and cities along the I-680 corridor.

Marguth stepped down in 1982 to run for State Senate against Bill Lockyer, now the state Attorney General. Although he lost, his 15th District Assembly seat was won by Republican Bill Baker, who later went on to become a U.S. Representative in the 10th Congressional District.

At the same time, the Legislature also moved the southern section of Pleasanton into the 20th, along with Union City, further solidifying its Democratic dominance by the cities of Milpitas, Newark and Fremont. Redistricting in 1992 and again two years ago further strengthened the political controls of Pleasanton's three districts, with the 15th dominated by voters in Livermore, Walnut Creek and the surging population centers along the I-5 corridor; the 18th by San Leandro and Hayward; and the 20th by Fremont and neighboring large population centers.

Mayor Tom Pico and mayoral candidate and Councilwoman Kay Ayala like having three Assembly districts.

"Frankly, it gives us three legislators to call on and more influence in Sacramento," said Ayala, who has appealed to legislative committees on issues affecting Pleasanton.

That's also how Mori sees it. Now an international business consultant in Salt Lake City, Mori said that through redistricting, Pleasanton has gone from having a single Assembly person representing the city to now having three advocates in the Assembly.

"Of course, the downside is that there aren't enough votes in any of the district to have an effect on who gets elected," Mori said.

Marguth, who has lived in Livermore since 1961, said the reapportionment of 1982 was "one of the most creative incumbent protection measures that I've ever seen." He believes Pleasanton had more influence in Sacramento when it was represented by its own Assemblyman.

Assemblyman Houston agrees.

"I think it would be much better for Pleasanton and would give it a stronger voice in the Legislature if it was part of a unified Assembly district," Houston said.

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