AD 63 UPDATE: Candidate Mark Westwood Leads in Race for Dem. Party Endorsement
Posted by: SB Insider | 03/27/2008 2:04 AM
At a recent endorsement conference of area Democratic Party activists, 63rd Assembly District candidate Mark Westood won over 90 percent of California Democratic Party delegates in the region of the legislative seat he seeks to represent in the State Capitol. Due to his result in area preference voting, Westwood, a Yucaipa-based wedding disc jockey by profession, is now nearly guaranteed an official endorsement of the California Democratic Party this weekend at their annual convention in San Jose.
Mark Westwood, who is openly liberal, is being challenged in the June Democratic Party primary by Rancho Cucamonga resident Jonathan Abraham. Westwood was the 2006 Democratic Party nominee for the 63rd Assembly District. In that campaign, Mark Westwood was trounced by 20 points by popular incumbent Republican Assemblymember Bill Emmerson - the same Republican who Westwood would face again this November.
At the recent meeting of local Democratic Party activists, Mark Westwood received 92 percent of the votes recommending his formal endorsement by California's Democrats for the upcoming legislative contest. His lone opponent for the Democratic Party nomination, Jonathan Abraham, received a paltry four percent of delegate support - roughly the same percentage that wanted a recommendation of "no endorsement."
Despite the relatively-heated competition between the two inter-party rivals, voter registration figures are squarely against the Democratic Party's chances in a November General Election which pits the winner of the June Democratic primary against the Republican nominee. The 63d Assembly District has a wide eight-point GOP voter advantage over Democratic voters and has sent Republican lawmakers to Sacramento every election cycle since its inception in 2002.
Still, an impressive show of support for the Yucaipa liberal among area Democrats, despite the enormous odds the standard-bearer of the Democratic Party will face come Fall.
Hasn't the Republican party done enough damage to our country already?
Isn't it time to start with a clean slate and start with Mark Westwood. He is a fine person with honest scruples and integrity.
Mark Westwood's recent Letter to the Editor of an Inland Empire newspaper clearly made the case against Red Light Cameras [RLCs]. About a year ago, my son was hit by an illegal alien driver without a license in Hawthorne. His car was totalled but because of air bags, he was not badly injured. A day or so later, I drove him to a facility to rent a car. As luck would have it, following him home he turned on to an expressway just as a light was yellow. If I'd made a dead stop I might have lost him on the expressway and not being from Hawthorne wouldn't have been able to find his apt.
About a month later I get a $391 bill from somewhere in AZ. My infraction is adjudicated through a court in Inglewood where I exercise the option of filing a Trial by Written Declaration. I attached about 10 photocopied pages detailing Ken's accident as well as explaining the extenuating circumstances. Think it made any difference? Not one iota. In my case, as Mark points out, "many drivers are caught in the snare of the moment, rather than because they have consistent bad driving habits." My written declaration was a waste of time.
Westwood also makes the point that some municipalities are obviously using these devices as revenue generators that have nothing to do with safe driving. In Dallas, RLC fines are $75; in Washington, $125. California has the highest fines for RLC violations in the nation. But in an ironic twist, he says that to rent these machines costs $26,000 a MONTH! Apparently those entities that don't own them wind up in the red. Serves them right!