Election 2014 season is underway with an all-female candidate pool. Betsy Butler, Autum Burke and Gloria Gray, are the three most viable candidates hoping to become the successor to current 62nd AD Mr. Steve Bradford.
Betsy Butler currently represents the 53rd District. She is a democrat out of Marina Del Rey and currently represents the beach cities and Torrance. She has supported legislation to remove toxins from baby bottles and advocates for seniors. Noticeably missing are minorities. The 62nd District covers Gardena and Inglewood, whose residents are African-American and Latino. She has a website up and is actively raising money. She has no endorsements, visible on her campaign site, as of today. Betsy’s voting record shows she is on auto-pilot with her “yes’s” but voted NO on ammending the three strikes law.
Autumn Burke is the daughter of former LA County Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite-Burke. She is also from Marina Del Rey, which puts both her and Butler out of touch with the vast minorities the 62nd AD covers. Her political affiliation is not listed on her campaign website. With no clear record to stand on, Autumn is relying on name recognition to get her to the top two candidates. She is busy raising money and has miraculously picked up the endorsement of the California Legislative Black Caucus.
Gloria Gray is currently serving as board member of the West Basin Municipal Water District. Gloria has been successful in previous elections for the simple fact she hasn’t had a challenger nor had to fundraise. This is evident for she isn’t raising money now given she does not have a website up for her campaign for the 62nd. This can be troublesome for Gloria for without money, how does she penetrate Marina Del Rey?
Gloria is well-known throughout Inglewood having served on the Inglewood Unified School District board and IUSD Personnel Commission. If Gloria is not successful in placing in the top two, then she will definitely have her work cut out for her re-election to West Basin. She is a facing a challenger who has already begun fundraising for the seat.
Although Gray has received numerous awards for her work in water, the majority of her work at West Basin involves awarding contracts. West Basin is currently promoting Water Reliability 2020, which is the technique of taking ocean water, removing the salt, and making it available for consumers to drink. A process called desalination.
The question voters will have to ask themselves is: 1) do we want to keep the seat African-American and if yes, 2) will it be Autumn Burke or Gloria Gray?
Oops, looks like she is also facing City of Inglewood council member Eloy Morales who has already squirreled away $60k.
Gloria clearly needs to catch up! Call us Gloria, we got you!
1 Comment
What’s this I’m hearing that an Inglewood council member has raised $60k for his assembly bid? Do Latino’s have that type of voting power in the 62nd?