Fundraising begins for Assembly District 54 seat

Asm. Sydney Kamlager-Dove is the current represenative for Assembly District 54.  With the vacancy of her mentor Supervisor Holly Mitchell’s Senate seat, she is busy collecting the signatures needed for the special election slated for March 2, 2021.  Kamlager-Dove currently has $292,271 in cash in her Assembly 2020 account, which will most likely be moved to the senate race.  Should she defeat her challengers, it will create a vacancy for her Assembly seat and potential candidates have already began fundraising as a precaution.

In the November election voters overwhelmingly passed Measure J, which dedicates no less than ten percent of the County’s locally generated unrestricted funding to address the disproportionate impact of racial injustice through community investments such youth development, job training, small business development, supportive housing services and alternatives to incarceration.

Isaac Bryan was co-chair for the Measure J committee and is hoping to capitalize off the momentum and earn a place in the state legislature.

“We put justice on the ballot. We put care, healing, and opportunity on the ballot,” said Isaac Bryan, co-chair of the Measure J committee. “We challenged systems of incarceration. We were powered by the people.”

Political consultants, who have worked on similar measures caution that being the “Black face” of police reform isn’t a slam dunk for winning an elected seat.

“Bryan has done great work as Director of Public Policy at Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies at UCLA but will his job experience transcend to voters who have no idea who he is,” said the consultant who wished to remain anonymous.

2UrbanGirls believes it can and can point to Dr. D’artaganan Scorza as someone who pushed the NFL stadium initiative in Inglewood, and was promptly elected to the Inglewood Unified School Board shortly after the city approved the project.

“Keep in mind Scorza is from Inglewood, and made a name for himself in Inglewood, running a successful non-profit, engaging the community on healthy eating through community gardens, establishing his Black Male Youth Academy, convinced the city of Inglewood to support farmers market, pushed for rent control which the city formally adopted AND had the balls to sue over housing rights under the Surplus Land Act,” said the consultant.  “If Bryan is hanging his hat on simply co-chairing Measure J, as why constituents should vote him into the State Assembly, he needs to re-evaluate his candidacy.”