Congresswoman Janice Hahn rode to victory Tuesday night over former Manhattan Beach Mayor Steve Napolitano in the race for a seat on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.
With all precincts reporting, Hahn claimed 56.13 percent of the vote in the Fourth Supervisorial District, totalling 241,961 votes to Napolitano’s 189,132, according to the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder.
The favorite throughout the race, Hahn fought back a surprisingly resilient campaign from Napolitano. While some political observers thought she might clinch a majority of voters in the June primary, she emerged with plurality of 47 percent to Napolitano’s nearly 37 percent, forcing the November runoff. At an election night party in San Pedro, Hahn appeared with family and supporters and cited initial projections giving her a lead, which that ultimately held throughout the night. She credited her get-out-the-vote operation, which texted more than 100,000 voters in the past week. And she spoke of the fond memories that many voters had for her father Kenneth Hahn, a longtime member of the Board of Supervisors and the namesake of the county Hall of Administration.
“So many people said they voted for me because they remember Kenny,” Hahn said.
Hahn has an extensive career in public service representing portions of the South Bay. She spent a decade on the Los Angeles City Council representing the 15th District, which includes San Pedro and the harbor area. And in 2011, she was elected to the House of Representatives, defeating Torrance Republican Craig Huey in a special election to replace longtime Congresswoman Jane Harman in the California’s 36th District. After state-mandated redistricting changed the district’s boundaries, she successfully ran in the newly created 44th District, which includes San Pedro, and was reelected in 2014.
Hahn entered her election-night gathering to Rachel Platten’s pop hit “Fight Song,” dancing and smiling with early projections of her victory. The party attracted a number of Los Angeles power players, including U.S. Rep. Alan Lowenthal (D-Long Beach), and Hahn’s brother Jim, an L.A. County Superior Court Judge and former mayor of Los Angeles.
“It’s extremely exciting to see my baby sister Janice. She’s going to make a great supervisor,” the former mayor said as he introduced his sister.
Hahn may quickly confront an opportunity to act on one of her stated priorities from the campaign: homelessness. On Dec. 9, the board will consider whether to call a special countywide election for March 2017. Other members of the board, including Second District Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, have previously discussed a proposed sales tax increase to fund the county’s services for the homeless. Hahn has not said whether she supports a sales tax measure, but previously said she would look for “every possible revenue source” to attack the problem.
Hahn will replace outgoing Supervisor Don Knabe, who has represented the Fourth District since 1996 and is being forced out by term limits. Although the supervisor position is officially non-partisan, Hahn will join three other Democrats on the board to form a liberal supermajority. Kathryn Barger, a moderate Republican, claimed victory Tuesday in the race to succeed termed-out Michael Antonovich in the Fifth Supervisorial District, which covers the northern portion of the county and the Antelope Valley.
With Knabe and Antonovich gone, the board could potentially push through raises for some of the county’s more than 100,000 employees. Unlike many city governments in California, Los Angeles County was able to weather the 2008-09 recession without significant furloughs or layoffs, and some critics have expressed concern that an overly indulgent board could overcommit the county’s resources.
In an interview last month, Hahn pointed to her experience working with city unions, saying she was able to exact cuts where needed in tough times. But she pointed out that public employee unions have a stake in the long-term financial viability of the county, and indicated that curtailing retirement benefits for long-time employees would be wrong.
“That’s the American dream: you work hard all your life, then live out your golden years with some kind of dignity and respect. I hope we don’t renege on that promise,” Hahn said.
Jaime Regalado, professor emeritus of political science at Cal State L.A., said in an interview last month that while labor is cheering Hahn’s election, she will not be a rubber stamp.
“It’s going to be dicey. The county is not going to just roll over on every labor issue 4-1,” Regalado said. “There will be some splits, and the unions understand that they are going to have to fight. But they are going to battle, if not among friends, than among sympathetic colleagues.”
