Incumbency is a factor not to be ignored in politics. In some election cycles it’s an advantage. However, in our current environment it’s clearly a political liability that anyone serving in office seeking re-election has to deal with.
In this election cycle we also have to make the determination of incumbency status following a historical redistricting that saw radical changes in legislative and Congressional seats.
Consider Assembly District 74. This is a seat entirely within Orange County that includes all or parts of the cities of Huntington Beach, Costa Mesa, Newport Beach, Irvine, and Laguna Beach.
So who is the incumbent here?
According to the Election Code, the incumbent in AD 74 would be Assemblyman Don Wagner if he wanted to run for this seat.
Election Code 13108 gives the first right of incumbency to the elected representative from that exact district, then to someone with the same district number if they are from the same county as the district was previously, then the law allows in new districts the label to fall to the person that represents the most territory.
Wagner’s current Assembly District (AD 70) makes up more than 60% of the land area in the new district. Parts of the remainder of the district are currently represented by Assemblymembers Jim Silva, Diane Harkey, and Allan Mansoor. However, Wagner does not live in the part of the district that is included in AD 74 and has indicated that he will run for re-election in a neighboring district where he should be easily returned to the Assembly in 2012.
Finally, after all of those factors are considered, the law has a catch all provision that grants incumbency to fall to anyone that meets the residency requirement and serves in the Assembly.
Yet, if incumbency meant the candidate representing the most voters, it would be Newport Beach City Councilwoman Leslie Daigle. Newport Beach has 64,539 registered voters compared to the 60,477 currently represented by first term representative Mansoor.
Mansoor will claim to be the incumbent because he is the only person currently serving in the Assembly that is running in this seat. However, with Wagner running in another district and another candidate having a larger campaign war chest (over $150,000) and a larger voter base, then for all intents and purposes, the incumbent in this area is probably really Leslie Daigle.
It certainly is going to make it an interesting Primary.