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Hahn defeats Richardson; Lacey, Jones-Sawyer win

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The third time is the charm for Reggie Jones-Sawyer, who Tuesday was elected to represent the 59th Assembly District.

After dropping out of the Los Angeles City Council 10th District race in 2002 and barely losing out to Holly Mitchell in the contest for the 47th Assembly District in 2010, Jones-Sawyer will now join Mitchell in Sacramento. She was re-elected to the Assembly by defeating Keith Mc Cowen 83.4 to 16.6 percent.

Jones-Sawyer says the key to his success in this district, which is about 70 percent Latino, was reaching out and talking with his Hispanic friends and allies and assuring them that he will take care of their constituents and doing the same thing for African American leaders in the district.

Among his top priorities are reducing the high unemployment in the Assembly district.

“It’s embarrassing. When I hear about unemployment rates of 8, and 10, over 20 percent in the 59th. That is unconscionable.”

The Los Angeles City employee says he is going to use his work experiences to create jobs within his district and then work on a way to duplicate that effort on a statewide basis.

Jones-Sawyer says he will concentrate on the billions of dollars of refurbishment’s that need to be done on state-owned buildings to promote construction trade job-training programs. Additionally, the newly elected assemblyman is looking to generate revenue for the state that can be reinvested in education by selling surplus state property.

In other Assembly races, Isadore Hall ran unopposed and was re-elected to represent the 52 District.
Diane Feinstein has won re-election to the U.S. Senate, defeating Elizabeth Emken 61.4 percent (5,613,610) to 38.6 percent (3,528,510).

In congressional races, Karen Bass easily defeated Morgan Osborne 86 to 13 percent while Maxine Waters collected 70.6 percent of ballots cast versus 29.4 by her opponent Bob Flores.

In a hard-fought battle, Janice Hahn reprised her primary win in the newly redrawn 44th Congressional District to defeat beleaguered Laura Richardson 75,678 (60 percent) to 50,393 (40 percent).

According to her campaign spokesperson, Dave Jacobson, Hahn is already poised, based on her first year in Congress, to find bipartisan ways to create to solve some of the key issues facing the nation and the district. Jobs is one of those, and Jacobson points to the ports caucus that Hahn partnered with Texans Republicans as an example.

Previously the ports had not been a major issue in Congress, but it really is, pointed out Jacobson, noting the connection to job creation and homeland security.

In the race for Los Angeles County District Attorney, Jackie Lacey defeated Alan Jackson and credits running a positive campaign that focused selling her strong points, including 27 years as a successful prosecutor and leader.

“We felt in the end voters with would ignore the slick commercials . . . and look at the issues and qualifications., and that turned out to be true in the primary and last night,” says Lacey of her Tuesday win of 55 percent of the vote compared to 45 percent for opponent Alan Jackson.

Now, Lacey said, the key issues that must be addressed are realignment (the shifting of inmates from the state prison to the county lockups) and how to keep the crime rate down.

She also wants to expand alternative sentencing courts and look at how these can efficiently manage a population of the people who commit lower-level crimes and would benefit form drug or alcohol counseling or mentoring such as veterans who are suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome.

“We also want to engage in an active crime prevention program to warn seniors about the financial scams that target them,” said Lacey adding that she also will continue the office’s policy’s regarding juveniles.

That includes holding fitness hearings before trying juveniles as adults.

“We’ve also got to continue a lot of crime prevention by keeping children in school.”

Lacey says that as she puts together her transition team for the D.A.’s office, one of the issues she will be looking at is how suspensions and truancy play into the level of juvenile crime, which she said is way down.

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