The spotlight on the long and historic Presidential election made our electoral season here in California electric. Days before the election candidates for Congress, the Senate and state legislatures were battling until the polls closed.

We are proud of our Democratic women candidates who ran phenomenal and competitive campaigns in really difficult races and WON! While some of the races and ballot propositions have not yet been decided, here’s what we know:

Congratulations to the following Democratic women who won their seats, as well as Republican Mimi Walters who also won.
The newly elected Democratic Senators include:  

 Lois Wolk (SD 5, Stockton, Yolo)

Loni Hancock (SD 9, Alameda, Oakland)

Carol Liu (SD 21, Burbank)

Fran Pavley (SD 23, West Los Angeles, Santa Monica)

Also, congratulations to incumbent State Senators Elaine Alquist (SD13, Santa Clarita) and Christine Kehoe (SD 39, San Diego) who won their re-election bids.

CALIFORNIA LIST is thrilled that there are now 13 women serving in our State Senate. This is the higher number than ever before which is a remarkable accomplishment for both our state and our organization.

California State Assembly women also scored tremendous victories, but as predicted, we lost women in our state assembly. Thus, the slow downward trend in the number of women elected to our state government continues. However, together we minimized loses to one seat forestalling the two to three seat loss which trended over the last few election cycles. The good news is that we did pick up a seat in a Republican stronghold with candidate extraordinaire Joan Buchanan. Joan not only won an Assembly seat that is traditionally Republican and that the Democrats have been trying to win for years, but she won by a wide margin.

Congratulations to the following Democratic women who will now serve in the Assembly:

Mariko Yamada (AD 8, Yolo County)

Nancy Skinner (AD 14, Berkeley)

Alyson Huber (AD 10, Elk Grove)

Joan Buchanan (AD 15, Oakland, East Bay)

Bonnie Lowenthal (AD 54, Long Beach)

Norma Torres (AD 61, Pomona, Montclair)

Congratulations to the incumbent women who won their re-election bids:

Noreen Evans (AD 7, Napa)

Fiona Ma (AD 12, San Francisco)

Cathleen Galgiani (AD 17, Stockton)

Mary Hayashi (AD 18, Oakland)

Anna Caballero (AD 28, Salinas, Monterey County)

Julia Brownley (AD 41, Santa Monica)

Karen Bass (AD 47, Los Angeles)

Wilmer Amina Carter (AD 62, San Bernardino, Fontana)

Lori Saldana (AD 76, San Diego)

Mary Salas (AD 79, San Diego)

Our election of women remains stagnant this cycle. While we lost one possibly two Democratic seats for women, the number of Republicans elected continues to remain the same. Remarkably, while our Assembly member count decreased our seats in the Senate increased for Democratic women and even more significant was the gain of a woman Republican in the Senate because there has not been a Republican woman serving in the State Senate for 8 years.

Thank you to all our members, donors and supporters. Even though we have managed to keep the losses of women to a minimum, it becomes clear that the need to continue to build our network is vital. With your support we are already beginning to start work on the 2010 election cycle.  

Also, we continue to lose women to term limits. In 2010, we will lose six legislators; two in the Senate and four in the Assembly. We are already beginning to work on the 2010 election to continue to reverse the decline of elected women!

CALIFORNIA LIST continues to believe that electing women legislators is important. The women we help elect are the women who will march into Sacramento as champions for universal health care, better education and as protectors of our natural resources. These women are mothers, wives and workers who understand the issues their fellow women face in both the home and employment arenas. This is why electing women matters and maintaining a sustainable pipeline of women moving up the ladder of elected offices is the only way to ensure enough women representatives will be seated.

CALIFORNIA LIST works to help identify strong women candidates to fill the pipeline and actively supports candidates with training, public relations and campaign finance. Our local elections feed seasoned women into the state pipeline and each election cycle we are losing an average of two women elected. California is suffering a famine of women who can run and win.  

JOIN CALIFORNIA LIST TODAY!

Even in our victory, we must acknowledge the fight for equal representation is far from over. The trend seems to be that we lose two to three elected women legislators every election cycle. Despite yesterday’s victories, women still hold less than 24% of the California state seats and therefore we must remain vigilant to maintain gender representation.

We need your help to increase the pipeline and reverse the decline of women electeds. Visit our website to learn more about the benefits of CALIFORNIA LIST membership or to renew your membership. Your membership can make a difference–join us today!