Congressional Elections 2010

Confirming speculation about her political plans, state Assembly Speaker Karen Bass (D-Los Angeles) said she would seek the seat of retiring Democratic Rep. Diane Watson, who appeared with Bass at a Los Angeles news conference Wednesday to give the speaker her endorsement. "This is a very, very humbling moment," Bass told community leaders and supporters who joined her outside her Mid-Wilshire-area office. "I am so proud to announce I'm going to throw my hat into the ring." If elected, Bass said, she'll have "very big shoes to fill."

Joseph Cao -- the most politically endangered member of Congress, the one and only Republican who voted for President Obama's healthcare plan, a target of Democrats and a source of frustration to many in his own party -- is facing a hometown crowd. "Oftentimes I'm pretty sure that decisions I make might not be the decisions you would make," the lawmaker tells about 125 people lured by free beer and jambalaya to a smoky tavern near downtown. "You might want to scream and bang your head against the wall" or "reach out and strangle me," he continues, but one constant, his one guiding principle, is "a focus on service . . . how I could better serve the people of my district."

A leading Latino lawmaker asserted Monday that Latinos, angered at President Obama for his failure to push immigration reform legislation, could stay home from the polls this year. "People are angry and disillusioned," U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) said in an interview. Gutierrez criticized the Obama administration for not pushing harder for legislation that would provide an opportunity for legalization for some immigrants. But he conceded that he lacks the votes in the House to pass the bill he backs.

As Senate candidate Carly Fiorina spoke to a standing-room-only meeting of local Republicans here, she hit familiar points -- her rise to become leader of Hewlett-Packard, her "common sense" approach to fixing the nation's economy and her pledge to give incumbent Barbara Boxer the fight of her life. Amid all the fiscal talk, Fiorina dropped in a line about her conservative social beliefs. "Barbara Boxer has never faced a candidate like me. . . . I will not permit her, for example, just to assume that all the women of California will vote for her," Fiorina told hundreds of people crowded in a hotel ballroom.

In another blow to the Democrats, Vice President Joe Biden's son, Beau Biden, announced Monday that he would not seek to fill the U.S. Senate seat vacated by his father. Adding to the party's woes, Democratic Rep. Marion Berry of Arkansas said he would retire, putting his seat up for grabs in an election year that looks increasingly favorable for the GOP. Biden, Delaware's attorney general, had been considered an obvious choice to fill the seat for that state. His announcement came as Democrats reel from last week's special-election loss in Massachusetts for the seat that had been held for decades by the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy.

Republican candidates for Congress are latching onto Scott Brown's bolt-from-the-blue win this week in the Massachusetts Senate race, with political outsiders and longtime office-holders alike casting themselves in a similar mold -- or seeing him in their image. Brown was a fairly obscure state senator who shocked the Democratic favorite, Martha Coakley, in the race to replace the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) by employing a tightly focused, populist, anti-Washington message.

The Supreme Court's decision Thursday to wipe out most campaign spending limits, coming on top of the Massachusetts Senate race upset, could prove to be a major blow to Democrats and a boost to Republicans in the November midterm elections. The Massachusetts vote, which ended the Democrats' filibuster-proof 60-vote majority in the Senate, is already reverberating through lobbying and business-oriented interest groups. Some are rethinking their willingness to cooperate with President Obama on such contentious issues as healthcare and the environment.

The impact of Tuesday's Senate election in Massachusetts hit California within hours, as Republican office- seekers moved to grab opportunities and nervous Democrats scrambled to assess how vulnerable their party's largest stronghold may have become. Until recently, many Democratic strategists believed that incumbent Sen. Barbara Boxer was a prohibitive favorite for reelection in November and that their party's presumed candidate for governor, Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown, would coast to victory.