Jackie Speier for Congress: News Articles

Speier wins in landslide

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0700

U.S. Rep. Jackie Speier, D-San Mateo, will likely keep her newly won Congressional seat after last night’s landslide in the Democratic primary.

Speier won the position during an April special election held after Tom Lantos died while serving his 27 year in Congress. Speier was already planning to challenge Lantos during the primary. She is now running as an incumbent to keep the seat. By winning yesterday’s primary against Democratic challengers, Speier will face Republican Greg Conlon in November.

Conlon won 64.6 of the Republic primary. His only challenger, Mike Moloney, received 35.4 percent of the vote, according to reports released by the San Mateo County elections office at 11:30 p.m. Tuesday.

Speier took in 91.6 percent of the Democratic vote, according to the elections office. Both candidates received similar voting percentages from voters registered as declined to state.

The 12th Congressional District represents most of San Mateo County and a southern portion of San Francisco. Tom Lantos held the seat for 27 years and was expected to defend the seat against Speier in November, but died Feb. 11 of esophageal cancer.

Speier began her political career as a staff member for U.S. Rep. Leo Ryan in the 1970s. She went with Ryan to Jonestown, Guyana to investigate Jim Jones and the People’s Temple cult in 1978. During that trip, Ryan was assassinated and Speier was shot and left for dead on a tarmac in Guyana. She survived and her career continued.

She ran an unsuccessful campaign to fill Ryan’s seat after his assassination. She was later elected to the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors in 1980 at the age of 30. She was elected to the state Assembly in 1986 and served until termed out.

Speier was elected to the state Senate in 1998. She made an unsuccessful bid for lieutenant governor in 2006.

Dana Yates can be reached by e-mail: dana@smdailyjournal.com or by phone: (650) 344-5200 ext. 106.

Speier seals primary deal

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Jackie Speier, D-San Mateo, had raked in an overwhelming 92 percent of the Democratic vote by 11:30 p.m. Tuesday, setting her up to defend her seat in the U.S. House of Representatives this fall.

Speier replaced 12th District Congressman Tom Lantos in an April special election following his death in February. Tuesday's primary was for the next two-year term, which begins January 2009.

Republican Greg Conlon will face Speier for the spot in Congress in November. As of 11:30 p.m., he had won 65 percent of his party's vote.

Speier's campaign manager, Alex Tourk, said Tuesday's win reflects more than voter approval of her brief show in Congress.

"It's part of a 30-year career of accomplishments and she's someone that they know and trust," Tourk said.

Of Speier's win, Democratic opponent Robert Barrows said, "mazel tov, good for her."

Although he plans on supporting his party's candidate, Barrows said he still thinks Speier isn't right for the job.

"I can't tell you any brilliant things she has said during this campaign, any motivating or inspiring things that she's promised to do," said Barrows, who had received less than 3 percent of the vote as of 11:30 p.m.

On the Republican side, Conlon said he plans to run a "credible campaign," and that voters will have to decide whose policy stands they support. Conlon said his views are opposite Speier's, and that he mainly wants to balance the budget without raising taxes.

"It's not 'American Idol,'" he said. "We're not voting for the person who's most liked or most nice-looking."

Republican Mike Moloney, who has run for the seat several times, had received just 35 percent of the vote as of 11:30 p.m. He could not be reached for comment.

Even though November's election looks easy for Speier, Tourk said she won't soften her campaign strategy.

"In politics you never take anything for granted," he said. "Campaigns are about door-to-door, person-to-person connections."

Conlon acknowledged she'll be tough to beat.

"I've got my work cut out for me," he said.

Also on the fall ballot will be Libertarian Kevin Peterson, Green Barry Hermanson and Peace and Freedom Party nominee Nathalie Hrizi, all of whom ran unopposed in Tuesday's primary.

An apparent glitch surfaced Tuesday in election results posted on the Secretary of State's Web site. For most of the night, Barrows was leading Speier with 70 percent of the vote, though San Mateo County Elections Manager David Tom said those results were incorrect.

"The Secretary of State's Web site is updated later than ours," said Tom, adding that his staff was working to figure out the reason for the discrepancy. The discrepancy had been fixed as of midnight.

New Career on the Hill For Survivor of Killings

Fri, 30 May 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Of all the comebacks on Capitol Hill, Rep. Jackie Speier's ranks among the most unexpected. Her first stint here, 30 years ago, nearly killed her.

In November 1978, Speier, then a 28-year-old legal aide to Rep. Leo J. Ryan (D-Calif.), accompanied the maverick lawmaker, a handful of reporters and concerned family members into the jungles of Guyana to investigate the People's Temple cult. The group's roughly 1,000 members had abandoned San Francisco and built a compound in the South American nation.

Cult members attacked and killed Ryan and several members of the entourage. Speier was shot five times and left for dead, and more than 900 cult members committed mass suicide at the urging of their leader, Jim Jones.

After recovering, Speier made an unsuccessful attempt to win the special election to succeed Ryan, then settled into a life of local and state politics, intending to erase the horrors of the experience.

"I had kind of washed my hands of D.C. There were a lot of painful memories," she said in a recent interview, her voice trailing off as she recalled the time. "It just didn't hold the same interest that it held before."

Now Speier, a Democrat, is in the House seat once held by her old boss, representing a portion of Silicon Valley, after winning a special election this spring to succeed the late Tom Lantos (D). .

She used her first floor speech, on the day she was sworn in, to excoriate President Bush's handling of the war and Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), the likely GOP presidential nominee, for suggesting troops could be in Iraq for decades to come. She was heckled by Republicans in response.

"After I was booed, I really felt like I do belong here," she said. "I'm not unaccustomed to the rough-and-tumble world of high-stakes politics, and there's a lot at stake....To evoke that kind of response, it suggests you hit a chord."

Throughout her political career, Speier has battled assertions that her public profile came from one searing moment that made worldwide headlines. Speier said that she has forged her own political identity, one that goes far beyond her Guyana experience, and that she is much more than just the 20-something who barely survived tragedy.

She has served on the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors and in the state Assembly and Senate, and ran unsuccessfully for lieutenant governor in 2006. She touts a record of passing more than 300 pieces of legislation in her 16 years in Sacramento, including hard-fought battles with the insurance industry and prison guards. She has suffered other tragedies as well, including the death of her first husband in a 1992 car accident.

"I think I have been able to, over the years, overcome that [Jonestown] moniker," she said.

Yet Speier freely admits that her experience at the People's Temple settlement, including waiting 22 hours to be rescued by Guyanese police, is the defining moment that guides her political philosophy.

"I think the experience in Guyana just made me more fearless, because I believe that once you have looked death in the eye you're just not nearly as afraid," she said. "So there's a real sense that, once I survived, I didn't want grass to grow under my feet. And I didn't want to ever forget the lessons learned in that experience: You're just not guaranteed a tomorrow."

Ryan, whose constituents included members of the People's Temple, began investigating the cult after complaints from family members. The visiting delegation's suspicions were confirmed when a member slipped a note that read "help me get out" to an NBC reporter.

When Ryan tried to take some defectors with him, Jones ordered an attack at the airstrip that killed the congressman, an NBC cameraman, a San Francisco Examiner photographer and two others. Speier was shot five times on her right side.

While Speier and a couple of reporters who survived the attack awaited rescue, Jones launched the mass suicide at the compound.

Speier was flown to Andrews Air Force Base, where she underwent four hours of emergency surgery. Then came a grueling recovery period that included treatment for gas gangrene and about 10 more surgeries, including skin grafts.

She eventually recovered and, at 29, ran for Ryan's seat but lost to a Republican in a special election. Lantos claimed the seat in 1980 and held it until his death this year, making Washington the last place Speier thought she would end up.

"It's also very humbling, because it makes me realize, you know, that there's a plan out there, there's a plan for each of us. You're not always privy to it," Speier said.

But just before the Memorial Day recess, Speier learned the reality of life in the Capitol: No matter how well-known you may be at home, you're still just one of 435 in the House. Hoping to win a seat on the coveted Energy and Commerce Committee, with its oversight of the technology and biotech issues important to her district, Speier instead was given a seat on the Financial Services panel.
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Despite not getting her first choice, Speier said she is happy to have been assigned a committee after five weeks of waiting. "I kept telling people, 'come and visit me -- I have nothing to do,' " she said.

Speier looks to fend off challengers

Thu, 29 May 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Nine people running in Tuesday's primary

Jackie Speier's term in Congress has just begun, and she's already up for re-election.

Speier, D-San Mateo, won a special election in April to fill the unexpired term of Tom Lantos, who died of cancer in February, through the end of this year. Now she must fend off challengers for the full two-year term that starts in January 2009.

All told, nine people are running for the seat in Tuesday's primary election - four Democrats, two Republicans, a Green, a Libertarian and a Peace and Freedom candidate. They'll appear on their respective parties' ballots in the 12th Congressional District, which includes much of San Mateo County and a portion of San Francisco.

Decline-to-state voters can participate by requesting either a Democratic or Republican ballot.

Speier's huge margin in April, when she gained 77 percent of the vote in a five-way race, makes her a safe bet to hold onto the seat. Her passionate remarks before Congress on the Iraq war last month may have stirred controversy in the Capitol, but there's no indication they've hurt her popularity in a district where anti-war sentiment runs strong.

Still, the candidates vying against her are determined not to give her a free pass.

Robert Barrows, a San Mateo businessman who has challenged Lantos in past Democratic primaries, said Speier has already cast several votes with which he disagrees. One was her vote to stop shipments of oil to the nation's strategic petroleum reserve, a move meant to counter the rise in gas prices.

"It's a dangerous step to take in terms of national security," said Barrows, adding that it hasn't appeared to work since oil prices continue to rise.

He also disagreed with her support of the Farm Bill, with its hefty agribusiness subsidies, and he disapproves of her idea to reinstate the ban on direct-to-consumer marketing by pharmaceutical companies.

The other Democrats on the ballot, Frank Wade and Michelle McMurry, both of San Francisco, couldn't be reached for comment Wednesday. McMurry effectively stopped campaigning after gaining just 5 percent of the vote in the April special election.

Two candidates who are still campaigning are the Republicans, Greg Conlon of Atherton and Mike Moloney of Foster City.

Conlon, who got 9 percent in April, is hoping his mainstream conservative views again triumph over the anti-war, Libertarian-leaning stances of Moloney, who received 6 percent.

"I think (Speier) and I differ on virtually every issue," Conlon said. "I'm here to give voters a choice on Iraq, border protection, the price of gasoline - everything."

Moloney, who joins Speier in favoring withdrawal from Iraq, says his top concern remains standing up to the foreign policy of the Bush administration. He suspects Bush will lead the country into war against Iran next, perhaps before the November election.

Moloney predicted light voter turnout Tuesday and said he hopes his name recognition will help carry him to a win. He has run against Lantos in the past, losing by wide margins.

Green Party member Barry Hermanson of San Francisco, an advocate of a living wage and a critic of Pentagon spending, is unopposed in the primary, as are Libertarian Kevin Peterson and Peace and Freedom Party member Nathalie Hrizi.

E-mail Will Oremus at woremus@dailynewsgroup.com

Honoring vets past and present

Wed, 28 May 2008 00:00:00 -0700

As the flag rose slowly Monday morning over Golden Gate National Cemetery, hundreds of people of all ages stood silently to remember fallen veterans laid to rest at the San Bruno site and elsewhere.

In many ways, the annual Memorial Day ceremony was a traditional homage to those who paid the ultimate price, complete with a brass band playing American classics and more than 112,000 miniature flags waving in the green hills.

But attendees of the annual Memorial Day ceremony were also reminded to keep active military men and women in their thoughts as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan continue.

"There are no words I can offer to lighten their burden or make their mission any less dangerous," said newly elected U.S. Rep. Jackie Speier, D-San Mateo, the event's keynote speaker.

But she promised that when the troops come home, "we'll have their back" with education funding and robust health care.

"A headstone and six feet of earth should not be the extent of the package we guarantee our fighting forces," Speier said.

Monday was the 140th observance of Memorial Day and ceremonies across the Bay Area took place to honor the memory of military service-people. On the Peninsula, Speier also spoke at an afternoon ceremony at Cypress Lawn Memorial Park in Colma.

Speakers at the San Bruno event said they were grateful for the ample turnout, which left standing room only in front of the speaker's podium.

"It is your unwavering support that makes me proud to serve this great nation," said Maj. Ted Wong of the U.S. Marine Corps, a 22-year veteran of the service.

The day started with a parade featuring Boy Scouts, California Kids for Troops and the United Services Organization marching to the sounds of a bagpiper.

Occasional references to the ongoing military conflicts were unavoidable, but the service focused more on those who died in past wars, dating to 1868 when Memorial Day was first conceived by Gen. John Logan to honor Civil War veterans on both sides.

Capt. Roland Harris of the U.S. Navy, a fourth-generation member of the service, choked up a bit when mentioning his father, who was shot down near the end of the Vietnam War.

"We are all family because we have done something that few can ever really grasp - that is, a true service above self," Harris said.

Several also spoke in homage to Rep. Tom Lantos, the longtime San Mateo Congressman who died in February of cancer.

Anita Maxwell, president of the Avenue of Flags committee that put on the ceremony, said Lantos "has always been supportive of the veterans' needs and he loved this great country called America."

Speier, who on her first day in office gave a fiery speech calling for troop withdrawals from Iraq, said troops that have died in combat should be remembered with hopes "that others never have to meet their fate."

"They deserve our solemn and unabiding guarantee that, from this day forward, the powers that decide when and where we commit our military will think less of politics and economics than they do the lives and families and communities that are devastated by the atrocities of war," Speier said.

E-mail Shaun Bishop at sbishop@dailynewsgroup.com.

Speier's first weeks a whirlwind

Tue, 27 May 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Jackie Speier's 58th birthday was memorable, not for any celebration or family gathering but for how it underscored the new world she has entered as a rookie congresswoman.

After a long day in the Capitol, including an important roll-call vote on the farm bill, she finished work at about 8 p.m. and headed back to her apartment alone.

"I got back to my apartment, put on my pajamas, ate a bowl of soup and watched CNN,'' Speier recalled. Laughing, she added, "This is not a glamorous job.''

Perhaps not, but that isn't stopping the newly elected Democrat from Hillsborough from throwing herself into it. In her first six weeks in office, she has made headlines with controversial comments about the Iraq war, proposed legislation regulating pharmaceutical imports, confronted anguishing choices on floor votes and begun assembling ideas for bills on consumer protection.

And each weekend, she flies back home to the district to be with her family. Unlike her predecessor, the late Tom Lantos, Speier said she does not intend to move to the Washington, D.C., area.

"When that happens, there is a mind-shift," she said, "and I don't want that mind-shift to take place. I love this area. I love the people. I love the people coming up and stopping me in the stores to talk to me."

On Tuesday, Speier discussed what she's been up to so far and what she has in mind for the future. Despite her 18 years of experience in the state Legislature, she is finding that a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives comes with its own steep learning curve.

"It's like drinking from a fire hose," Speier said.

She started her tenure in Congress with a bang that set Republicans booing and scurrying for the exits. In her remarks to the House chamber after being sworn in, she took a swipe at likely Republican presidential nominee John McCain and called for U.S. troops to come home from Iraq immediately.

She took a humbler path when faced with a vote on the farm bill earlier this month.

Championed by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, the $300 billion bill has taken heat from environmentalists and fiscal conservatives alike for its heavy subsidies. Speier admitted she disliked major aspects of it, but she fell in line with her party's leadership and voted for it anyway.

"I regret that vote now," she said. "You cannot defend the kind of subsidies we are providing to agribusiness. But to be on board for three or four weeks and buck your entire party before you've even been assigned to a committee."

As it turned out, Speier didn't get her top-choice assignment, the powerful House Committee on Energy and Commerce. She had hoped to use the post to push for regulations on pharmaceutical companies.

Speier said she had in mind a law requiring that all imported drugs be labeled with their country of origin, but she found out the committee chair already had such legislation in the works.

Instead, she was named last week along with two other brand-new Democrats to the House Committee on Financial Services. In the wake of the news, Speier said she is "shifting gears" to focus on consumer protection and financial privacy — issues she was known for in the California Legislature.

Her goal in the committee, Speier said, is to "upload all the bills I had signed into law in California" to the national stage. Those include the landmark California Financial Information Privacy Act, the toughest of its kind in the nation when she authored it in 2003.

"Financial privacy is something that should be a right for everyone," not just Californians, Speier said.

She'd also like to someday see a national consumer financial services commission. It would be similar in concept to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, but for things such as subprime mortgages instead of coffee makers.

Meanwhile, Speier has been seeking advice from the Congressional Research Service on how to tackle the issue of legislative earmarks, which she views as a corrupting influence in Congress.

So far, she has allowed local earmarks pushed by Lantos to move forward. But Speier said she hasn't sought any of her own and won't entertain lobbyists' requests.

"I've put everyone on notice," Speier said, "it's not going to be business as usual on my watch."

Speier wins seat on banking committee

Fri, 23 May 2008 00:00:00 -0700

The Bay Area's newest lawmaker, Rep. Jackie Speier of Hillsborough, got her first committee assignment Thursday: the House Financial Services Committee, which could give her a powerful perch to continue her push for new consumer privacy laws.

As a state senator in Sacramento, Speier made headlines -- and enemies in the financial services industry -- for spearheading some of the nation's toughest consumer measures, including a prohibition on banks and insurers selling consumers' private information. She chaired the Senate Banking, Finance and Insurance Committee for eight years.

The House committee could also be a financial boon for Speier: Lawmakers on the panel often draw huge donations from Wall Street and the industries they regulate.

Speier easily won a special election in April to fill out the term of Rep. Tom Lantos, who died of cancer in February, with 77 percent of the vote. But a big campaign war chest would scare off future challengers and boost her power in Congress by allowing her to help more vulnerable House Democrats.

Speier said she had asked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for the assignment.

"I've spent the lion's share of my legislative career fighting for consumers, and under Chairman (Barney) Frank's leadership, I am optimistic that we can bring some of the reforms enacted in California to the rest of the nation," she said in a statement.

Frank, D-Mass., whose committee has recently been rewriting the nation's housing and mortgage rules, issued a statement saying that Speier's "expertise in consumer protection, especially privacy issues, will make a great contribution to the work of the committee."

Speier had made other committee requests. She learned early on that she would not get a coveted seat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which has broad authority on issues ranging from energy and the environment to health care. She is still angling for a seat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, the House's chief investigative panel, which Lantos served on for two decades.

The assignment was approved by the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee, a panel controlled by lawmakers loyal to Pelosi. Speier's aides said Pelosi felt the freshman lawmaker could use her assignment to help Californians hit hard by the mortgage debacle.

In a statement, Pelosi said: "Congresswoman Speier has a deep understanding of the housing crisis facing our state and will be a leader in our efforts to strengthen our economy and protect the American dream."

E-mail Zachary Coile at zcoile@sfchronicle.com.

Mortgage crisis tops Speier's concerns

Tue, 13 May 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Newly elected U.S. Rep. Jackie Speier, D-San Mateo, marked her first 30 days in Congress with a town hall meeting and residents expressed their concerns about the mortgage crisis, health care and foreign affairs.

Speier who spent the last few months on the campaign trail listening to concerns from constituents was prepared with answers on a number of different issues Saturday at the Doelger Community Center in Daly City. At least 200 people turned up for Speier's first community meeting and it seemed as though there were as many questions for the junior delegate.

Speier, a longtime consumer rights advocate, told constituents she was most interested in working to solve the home mortgage crisis and reforming health care into a single payer system.

Speier is supporting a plan that would in part allow judges to help determine loan settlements and grant $15 billion in federal funding to help save people from defaulting on their loans, she said.

A number of residents asked Speier specific questions related to their loan situations. Those residents said they were frustrated by major lenders that would not work with them to re-negotiate loans as they worked to avoid the possibility of foreclosure.

Much of the room applauded Speier's call for a single-payer health care system.

"We've got to get serious about health care in this country. Fifty percent of people who file for bankruptcy do so because of a health situation. Of that, 70 percent have health care," Speier said.

Sparked by a personal experience obtaining her father's prescription at the hospital, Speier said she is also plans to introduce legislation that would require the origin of medicine be listed. She recently learned that the majority of this countries prescription medication is manufactured outside the United States. In her recent experience, she learned her father's medication was recalled because it was produced at double strength.

"Some things need regulation. It's important we have regulations about health and safety issues," she said.

Speier was also urged to continue in the footsteps of the late Tom Lantos, who previously held the seat, in terms of foreign affairs. She was urged to support Burma, Israel and prevent escalating tension between the United States and Iran.

Speier said she plans to hold another town hall meeting marking her 100th day in Congress.

Dana Yates can be reached by e-mail: dana@smdailyjournal.com or by phone: (650) 344-5200 ext. 106.

Speier to talk about first month in Congress

Fri, 09 May 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Rep. Jackie Speier will hold a town hall meeting this morning in Daly City to talk about her first 30 days in office since she won a special election last month that sent her to Washington.

Speier, D-San Mateo, was elected by a landslide April 8 to fill the term of Tom Lantos, who died in February. She received 77 percent of the vote in the 12th Congressional District, beating a fellow Democrat, two Republicans and a Green Party candidate.

On her first day in Congress two days later, Speier criticized President Bush's Iraq policies and called for an immediate troop withdrawal, prompting some Republicans to boo and walk out of the chambers.

Since then, she has voted for a bill that would ban private firms from collecting IRS debts and another, signed Wednesday by Bush, that guarantees federal student loans will continue to be issued despite a turbulent economy.

Speier also has co-sponsored 21 bills, among them measures to recognize the Armenian genocide, protect students' health coverage and hold China accountable for unsavory business practices, but has not yet authored any legislation.

"This is just going to be the first time she's gotten to talk to the public and her supporters about what the first month has been like," said Alex Tourk, her campaign manager.

Speier still is hiring staff and waiting for a committee assignment, said her spokesperson, Mike Larsen.

"We thought we were going to hear the second week but we haven't yet," Larsen said. "It's been kind of frustrating for her."

Speier still is in campaign mode, with less than a month until the June 3 primary to become the Democratic nominee for the 12th District in the November election. That's when voters will choose someone to serve a new two-year term beginning in January 2009.

The town hall meeting starts at 10:30 a.m. at the Doelger Center, 101 Lake Merced Blvd., Daly City. A luncheon at noon will follow.

Ex-Lawmaker Wins Race for Lantos' Seat

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0700

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) -- Former state lawmaker Jackie Speier, a survivor of the Jonestown tragedy three decades ago, won a special congressional election to fill the seat of the late Rep. Tom Lantos.

With her win Tuesday, Speier avoided a runoff in the contest to replace the 14-term congressman, who died in February. Speier, a former state assemblywoman and senator, also plans to seek a full term in 12th Congressional District later this year.

Speier, 57, had nearly 78 percent of the vote in unofficial returns. She needed more than 50 percent to avoid a June 3 runoff election. Also on the special election ballot were a fellow Democrat, two Republicans and a member of the Green Party.

In 1978, Speier was an aide to Rep. Leo Ryan and accompanied him on a mission to Guyana. The purpose was to investigate claims that Peoples Temple leader Jim Jones was holding followers against their will at the California-based group's Jonestown compound in the South American country.

An ambush at the Jonestown airstrip left Ryan and four others dead and Speier severely wounded. Jones and his followers then committed mass murder-suicide, drinking cyanide-poisoned punch. More than 900 people died, including hundreds of children.

Speier lost a special election to fill Ryan's seat in 1979 but went on to represent the area as a San Mateo County supervisor and in the state Assembly and Senate. In 2006, she narrowly lost a campaign for the Democratic nomination for lieutenant governor.

She had been endorsed by California's leading Democrats in Congress -- Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Her election Tuesday makes her a Democratic superdelegate; she told The Associated Press she supports Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Also Tuesday, an ex-Senate aide defeated a former city councilwoman in a runoff election in Texas as Houston-area Republicans chose a nominee for former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's old congressional seat.

Pete Olsona former aide to U.S. Sens. Phil Gramm and John Cornyn, overpowered Shelley Sekula Gibbs with 68 percent of the vote to her 31 percent in unofficial, complete returns. The winner will face first-term Democratic Rep. Nick Lampson in November.

Sekula Gibbs, a former Houston City Council member, had been the top vote-getter in a 10-person Republican field in the March 4 primary.

In the race for district attorney of Harris County, which includes Houston, Pat Lykos, a former police officer and judge, defeated Kelly Siegler, a flamboyant prosecutor, with 53 percent of the vote to 47 percent to gain the Republican nomination.

Chuck Rosenthal resigned as district attorney amid a contempt of court charge and a scandal involving racist and sexual e-mails found on his county computer, as well as political campaign material that wasn't supposed to be on a government-owned machine.

Speier to Congress

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Former state senator Jackie Speier succeeded in her bid to represent the 12th Congressional District, fulfilling a goal she first set for herself 29 years ago.

Speier first ran for the seat as a young legislative legal council who survived gunfire in Guyana, which killed the U.S. Rep. Leo J. Ryan. She lost the campaign to fill her assassinated boss’s seat in 1979, but won last night with 79.9 percent of the vote in San Mateo County. The 12th Congressional District represents most of San Mateo County and a southern portion of San Francisco. Tom Lantos held the seat for27 years and was expected to defend the seat against Speier in November, but died Feb. 11 of esophageal cancer.

"Often times there are not many second chances and I feel grateful for this opportunity," Speier told a crowd of supporters at the Machinists Hall in Burlingame.

The 57-year-old Speier will board a plane tomorrow for Washington, D.C. where she will immediately begin working.

She told supporters that she will fight for issues citizens have discussed with her over the course of her campaign. Those issues include putting home buyers needs before those of "Wall Street speculators," quality health care, adequate college financing, an improved Environmental Protection Agency and the end to the war in Iraq.

Republican Candidate Greg Conlon received 9.6 percent of the vote, Republican Mike Maloney received 5.1 percent, Democrat Michelle McMurry received 3.7 percent and Green Party candidate Barry Hermanson received 1.7 percent, according to the San Mateo County Elections Office.

Speier began her political career as a staff member for U.S. Rep. Leo Ryan in the 1970s. She went with Ryan to Jonestown, Guyana to investigate Jim Jones and the People’s Temple cult in 1978. During that trip, Ryan was assassinated and Speier was shot and left for dead on a tarmac in Guyana. She survived and her career continued.

She ran an unsuccessful campaign to fill Ryan’s seat after his assassination. She was later elected to the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors in 1980 at the age of 30. She was elected to the state Assembly in 1986 and served until termed out. During that time, Speier’s husband Steven Sierra was killed in a car accident involving an uninsured driver. Speier was pregnant with her second child at the time.

Speier was elected to the state Senate in 1998. She made an unsuccessful bid for lieutenant governor in 2006.

Dana Yates can be reached by e-mail: dana@smdailyjournal.com or by phone: (650) 344-5200 ext. 106.

Speier to fill Lantos's seat

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Former state Sen. Jackie Speier (D) won a resounding victory in the open special election for the seat of late Rep. Tom Lantos (D-Calif.) seat on Tuesday night, taking 78 percent of the vote in a five-candidate field and stamping her ticket to Congress.

Speier was expected to win the race, but her opponents had hoped to force a runoff at least. In the end, they did not come close.

Lantos died of cancer in February but endorsed Speier before his death. The 57-year-old former congressional aide will likely be able to hold on to the heavily Democratic seat for as long as she wants.

Speier wins right to fulfill Lantos's term

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Longtime Peninsula lawmaker Jackie Speier breezed to an easy victory Tuesday in a five-candidate field to serve out the remainder of Tom Lantos's congressional term. The 12th Congressional District seat became open when Lantos succumbed to cancer earlier this year.

Speier took nearly 80 percent of the vote Tuesday. Her district includes parts of the Midcoast as well as southern sections of San Francisco and much of San Mateo County.

Speier had been an aide in the district for U.S. Rep. Leo Ryan in the 1970s. She has since served as a county supervisor and in the Assembly and state Senate.

Because she won more than 50 percent of the vote, there will be no runoff this time. But her tenure will be brief. She faces a June 3 primary and November election for a first full term after Lantos's 14th term expires later this year.

Survivor of Jonestown attack wins Californian election

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Jackie Speier, a former U.S. congressional aide who was attacked during a 1978 visit to the Guyana cult compound of Rev. Jim Jones, was elected on Tuesday to finish the term of the late Tom Lantos, a California lawmaker who died of cancer in February.

Speier, 57, won 78 percent of the vote in the special election in the U.S. congressional district that stretches from South San Francisco to Palo Alto, election officials reported.

Speier was shot five times and left for dead after the attack by followers of Jones at an airstrip in Jonestown, Guyana, while accompanying her boss, U.S. Representative Leo Ryan, who was killed in the raid.

Ryan and Speier were investigating allegations that members of his San Francisco-area district who had joined Jones' doomsday cult, the Peoples Temple, had been kidnapped and taken to his jungle compound known as Jonestown.

The shooting touched off the mass suicide by more than 900 cult members at the compound who, according to news reports at the time, drank Kool-Aid laced with cyanide and sedatives.

Speier waited 22 hours for help to arrive, according to her Web site. She later was elected to the San Mateo County board of supervisors in California and served in both chambers of the California legislature.

Lantos, also a Democrat, had endorsed Speier two weeks before his death on February 11 at age 80 after 27 years in the House of Representatives. The Hungarian-born Lantos escaped from a forced-labor camp after the occupation of his country by the Nazis.

(Reporting by Philipp Gollner, editing by Philip Barbara)

Voters send Jackie Speier to Washington

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0700

(04-08) 21:35 PDT Burlingame -- It took 29 years, but Jackie Speier is on her way to Congress.

The former state senator took a huge early lead Tuesday night in the race to finish the term of the late Democratic Rep. Tom Lantos and never looked back, collecting more than the 50 percent plus one vote needed to put her on a flight to Washington this morning.

"I'm looking at this room at people I've known for my entire legislative life," Speier said as she waited to give her victory speech at the Machinists Union Hall in Burlingame. "This is one of those moments in my life."

With all the San Francisco precincts reporting and only a handful of precincts remaining to be counted in San Mateo County, Speier had captured more than 75 percent of the vote, far more than she needed to avoid a June 3 runoff. Her closest competitor was Republican Greg Conlon, far back with 9 percent of the vote.

In 1979, Speier was recovering from the near-fatal bullet wounds she received at an airstrip in Jonestown, Guyana, where she was shot and left for dead by followers of the Rev. Jim Jones. Those same attackers killed her boss, Rep. Leo Ryan.

Speier left the hospital still carrying a pair of the bullets in her body, and ran in the special election to replace Ryan. She finished third then, but on Tuesday she made the most of her second chance.

"Without a doubt, it means something special to replace (Ryan), since he was my political mentor," she said.

The contest to fill the few remaining months of Lantos' term had little suspense. Speier was the odds-on favorite to finish on top in the five-candidate race that listed everyone on the same ballot, regardless of party.

The night's only question was whether she would be able to grab the outright majority needed to win the congressional seat Tuesday. If that had not happened, the leading candidates from each party would have met in a June runoff election.

"With a lower-than-usual turnout expected, my opponents are hoping that they'll be able to get enough votes in today's election to try to deny us an outright majority," Speier said in an e-mail sent to supporters Tuesday.

That's probably the best that Republicans Conlon and Mike Moloney, Democrat Michelle McMurry and Green Party candidate Barry Hermanson could have hoped for. Democrats outnumber Republicans in the district, 51 percent to 20 percent, and the 57-year-old Speier has represented much of the area for more than 20 years as a San Mateo County supervisor, assemblywoman and state senator.

The runoff question was settled in a hurry. Speier pulled 80 percent of the vote-by-mail ballots in San Mateo County and 69 percent in San Francisco. With mail ballots accounting for more than 60 percent of the total votes cast in each county, that ended any suspense.

About 17,000 ballots were cast in San Francisco, and more than 50,000 in San Mateo County.

Speier had been talking about challenging the aging Lantos in the Democratic primary when the 14-term congressman announced in January that he had cancer of the esophagus and would not be running for re-election.

Just two weeks before his death in February, Lantos endorsed Speier as his successor, calling her a "first-class public servant who has made the community's most pressing priorities her own."

By then, Speier had cleared the field of any prominent challengers. San Francisco state Sen. Leland Yee opted out of the race and Stanford Professor Larry Lessig, well-known in Bay Area progressive circles, decided not to run in a district that stretches from San Francisco's Sunset District south to the outer edges of Redwood City.

More than 40 local elected officials joined Speier when she opened her campaign Jan. 13 in Foster City at Leo J. Ryan Park, named for her murdered boss.

Tuesday's special election marked a full circle for Speier, no longer the 28-year-old congressional aide but a veteran politician with a decades-long track record.

Speier will fly to Washington today and be sworn into office Thursday. She will immediately take her seat in Congress.

Speier and the other contenders will be back on the ballot in their respective party primaries on June 3. The primary winners will meet Nov. 4 to decide who will win the full two-year term in Congress that begins in January.

E-mail John Wildermuth at jwildermuth@sfchronicle.com.

California Dem Speier Wins Special Election to Succeed Lantos

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Democratic attorney Jackie Speier, a former state senator who survived a cult massacre early in her long career in the public sphere, won election Tuesday in California's 12th District to fill the seat left vacant by the Feb. 11 death of 14-term Democratic incumbent Tom Lantos.

Returns posted on the election sites of California's Secretary of State and the counties that make up the district showed Speier easily exceeding the majority-vote threshold needed to win the seat outright in what was technically a special election primary. By far the best known of the five candidates who ran in the single-ballot, all-party contest, Speier led with 78 percent of the overall vote with nearly three-quarters of all precincts reporting. She was way ahead in both major jurisdictions that make up the 12th District, with 80 percent in San Mateo County and 71 percent of the total vote in San Francisco County.

Speier, despite her easy special election win, is not yet free of campaign concerns. The regularly scheduled primary for the district's November general election for a full House term will be held on June 3, less than two months away. But Speier will be heavily favored to win the Democratic nomination over three opponents, including health policy director Michelle T. McMurry, who trailed by a wide margin in Tuesday's early special primary returns.

Two Republicans and three third-party candidates also filed for the June 3 primary, according to the roster posted by California's Secretary of State. But none of them has more than a remote chance of victory this November in a district that gave 72 percent of its votes to 2004 Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry and 76 percent to Lantos when he ran his final House race in 2006. CQ Politics rates the district as Safe Democrat.

The special election victory will make Speier the new member from a Democratic-stronghold district that includes part of San Francisco and southern suburbs such as Daly City and San Mateo -- and covers territory where Speier three decades ago broke into politics as an aide to Democratic Rep. Leo J. Ryan.

In 1978, at age 28, Speier accompanied Ryan to Guyana to investigate complaints from constituents that their relatives were being mistreated at a “People's Temple” compound run by cult leader Jim Jones. She was seriously wounded by gunfire during an airport attack by cult members in which Ryan and four other members of the traveling party were killed. Authorities subsequently arrived at the “Jonestown” compound to find Jones dead along with hundreds of his followers, most of whom had swallowed a poison-laced soft drink.

Speier made an initial House bid in the wake of that tragedy but lost a special election primary to fill the remainder of Ryan's unexpired term. Republican Bill Royer, who won that 1979 contest, was ousted in 1980 by Lantos, a Hungarian immigrant who had fought in the anti-Nazi resistance during World War II, and his long political domination long foreclosed the House as a option for Speier. But she built a parallel political career, serving as a county supervisor, state assemblywoman and state senator, and running a strong but narrowly unsuccessful bid in 2006 to be the Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor.

That track record left her well-positioned to emerge as the favorite to succeed Lantos after he announced in January that he had esophageal cancer and would not seek re-election. Lantos endorsed Speier for his House seat shortly before he died in February at age 80.

That endorsement came even though the liberal Speier had originally explored a campaign to challenge Lantos from the left. Lantos, who was chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee at the time of his death, was a fervent advocate of human rights around the world, a posture that spurred him to initially give strong support to President Bush's decision to use military force to oust Iraq dictator Saddam Hussein. That Iraq stance alienated many liberal activists from Lantos.

After receiving Lantos' blessing, Speier quickly amassed support from major Democrats in the area, including California's two Democratic senators, Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer ; House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who represents the neighboring 8th District that covers most of San Francisco; Northern California Democratic Reps. Anna G. Eshoo of the 14th District and Mike Thompson of the 1st District; and San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom. The powerful political action committee EMILY's List, which supports Democratic women candidates who favor abortion rights, assisted her campaign.

Speier reported raising a whopping $874,000 through March 19 despite having formed her campaign committee just two months prior. None of her opponents reported more than $25,000 raised through March 19.

Speier positioned herself in the House race as a liberal reformer who hoped to shift priorities in Washington from "partisan bickering" to legislative action. She expressed her support for redeploying troops from Iraq as soon as it is feasible and argued that the economy requires significant repair because of actions taken by the Bush administration and costs tied to the war.

The expansion of health care and financial privacy rights, two issues on which she focused in the legislature, also were prominent in her campaign messages.

In addition, Speier championed a pro-environmental platform that earned her the endorsement of a local chapter of the Sierra Club.

Elect Speier for Congress

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Editorial

For the vacant 12th congressional district seat up for grabs Tuesday, we recommend Jackie Speier, a candidate so well-suited for the post that no Democrats with name recognition in the heavily Democratic district bothered to challenge her.

Speier seems fated to take the post. She served as an aide to Rep. Leo J. Ryan when he was assassinated in 1978 while in Jonestown, Guyana, investigating the People's Temple, and she miraculously survived despite being shot five times. Not one to shirk a challenge, she made an unlikely bid to replace him in Congress the following year.

Though unsuccessful, the effort launched a distinguished political career that helped her pay her dues for this latest bid for Congress. That included six years on the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors and 18 in the state Legislature, where she earned a reputation as an advocate for consumers and women, among other things. In an interview with the Daily News editorial board, Speier reminded us that she isn't afraid to tackle difficult but important jobs, noting she has challenged the powerful state prison guard union.

She narrowly lost a bid to become lieutenant governor in 2006, but that seems to have merely freed her up for this run for Congress. By the time she announced her candidacy, Speier claimed the endorsements of about a third of all elected officials in the district, which stretches from Redwood City to San Francisco. Her five-page list of endorsements includes U.S. Sens. Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein and the late Rep. Tom Lantos, the man she seems poised to replace.

If elected, Speier promises to press for an end to the war in Iraq and creation of a universal health care system, popular positions in the Bay Area.

Were we to quibble, we might cite her tendency to qualify her positions on some issues, a common political practice. She argued the state is getting far from its fair share of federal tax dollars but also indicated she might consider not going after the controversial federal budget earmarks, discretionary expenses that nonetheless help bring those federal dollars back to the state. It's a noncommittal remark she can, and probably should, ignore for now. Better to seek comprehensive reform and work within the flawed system we have in the meantime.

While Speier seems uniquely suited for the congressional seat, we are also impressed by a Democratic rival, health policy expert Michelle McMurry. Like Speier 29 years ago, McMurry is a young political novice launching a long-shot bid who also has served as a congressional aide. She needs a bit more experience in elected office but McMurry is bright and articulate and may have a future in politics if she chooses.

For now, Speier is the candidate with experience and political savvy we need to represent the Peninsula in Congress. We urge voters to select Speier for the 12th congressional district.

Foes' goal: Stop Speier gaining majority

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0700

In Tuesday's special election to replace the late Rep. Tom Lantos, four of the five candidates have a single goal: stop Jackie Speier.

In the unusual open primary, all the candidates for the Peninsula/San Francisco congressional seat will appear on the same ballot and voters can pick anyone, regardless of party.

If someone gets more than half the votes, he or she jets off to Washington on Wednesday to finish the final nine months of Democrat Lantos' term. If no one collects a majority, the top candidates in each party face off again in a June 3 runoff.

Speier, who has represented much of the congressional district as a San Mateo County supervisor, assemblywoman and state senator, is the odds-on favorite to finish on top Tuesday. But her opponents are scrambling to keep her under 50 percent and extend the campaign another eight weeks.

"I'm running against inertia," Speier, 57, said Sunday at a community pancake breakfast in South San Francisco. "If at least 57 percent of those voting Tuesday aren't Democrats, we may have to do this all over again in June, which means the district will go longer without representation."

That's no problem for her opponents.

"It's just fine if the people in the district are not represented for another two months," said Barry Hermanson, the Green Party candidate. "It's more important to have this debate continue."

Speier's opponents know it's a longshot to think they can beat the veteran Democrat, who's far better known, much better financed and running in an overwhelmingly Democratic district.

Local Republican leaders "asked me to take a bullet for the party," said 75-year-old Greg Conlon, an Atherton accountant who lost the state treasurer's race to Democrat Phil Angelides in 2002. "But I think I could steal it with a low (voter) turnout next Tuesday."

Beating Speier is about the only thing many of the candidates agree on.

Michael Moloney, for example, is anything but a typical Republican. The retired businessman ran unsuccessfully against Lantos as a Libertarian in 1998 and as a Republican in 2002 and has far harsher words for President Bush than even the Democratic candidates.

Bush is an international terrorist, far worse than Osama bin Laden, Moloney said in an interview last week. A longtime peace activist, he wants the country to immediately pull its military forces from Iraq, and he believes Congress should impeach Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.

"I'm running because I want to save the country," said Moloney, 67, of Foster City. "If someone doesn't stop Bush and Cheney, they'll bomb Iran back into the Stone Age and start World War III."

Conlon joined the race because local GOP leaders "wanted a respectable candidate to run against Jackie Speier," he said. While he's no fan of the Iraq war, he wants "to leave with honor, not haste."

Leaving Iraq too quickly could open the way for Iran to take control of its neighbor and send the price of gasoline soaring, Conlon added.

"There are economic consequences for leaving Iraq too soon," he said. "Six-dollar-a gallon gasoline would change our economic picture and send unemployment soaring."

Hermanson's single issue is the growing economic problem caused by the military budget, including the cost of the war in Iraq.

"My goal in this campaign is to draw attention to the obscene amounts of money we're spending on the military," the 57-year-old San Francisco resident said. "I want (House Speaker) Nancy Pelosi held accountable for the direction she's taking this country. It's bankrupting the country, morally and financially."

Even if Speier ultimately goes to Congress, the campaign could have an effect on her, Hermanson said. "I'm asking Jackie Speier to do a very difficult thing: to speak out against the leadership of her own party."

Michelle McMurry, 38, is the lone Democrat challenging Speier. A physician and health policy director, her only political experience is a stint as an adviser to Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, a conservative Democrat turned independent.

A former fellow at the Council for Foreign Relations, the San Francisco resident touts her lack of political background as a plus, arguing that she will bring a new perspective to Congress.

On Sunday, Speier promised backers she would go to Washington and work to stop the war in Iraq and fight for the same consumer protection measures she pushed in Sacramento.

"After 44 neighborhood meetings, I feel I know what's on your minds," she said. "But we have to get everyone out to vote."

Whatever happens Tuesday, this is just round one of the fight for Lantos' seat. Even if the special election goes to a runoff, the same candidates still will be on that same June 3 ballot in the separate party primaries for the full, two-year congressional term that will be decided in November.

E-mail John Wildermuth at jwildermuth@sfchronicle.com.

From tragedy, Jackie Speier closes in on election triumph

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Twenty-nine years ago, Jackie Speier fell short in a bid for Congress as a young, underfunded candidate with a harrowing story and five fresh bullet wounds.

On Tuesday, the former state lawmaker is expected to dominate a five-candidate field in a special election to fill the Bay Area's 12th Congressional District seat of the late Rep. Tom Lantos.

If Speier wins more than 50 percent of the vote, she will complete a poignant journey to Congress that began in 1978 as she was clinging to life on an airport tarmac in Guyana.

Speier, then a 28-year-old congressional lawyer, was riddled by gunfire that killed her boss, Rep. Leo Ryan. She overcame the trauma of the Jonestown mass murder-suicide, orchestrated by tyrannical cult leader Jim Jones, that left 900 people dead.

She ran for Congress in memory of Ryan but finished third in a 12-candidate 1979 special election field. Yet she said recently, "It was therapy. I didn't want to be a victim the rest of my life."

Now Speier is running for Congress on her own record -- as a longtime Sacramento lawmaker who championed protections for consumers and victims of violence. Competing in a redrawn district that heavily overlaps Ryan's former 11th District, Speier said she feels "a synergy" to a political life coming "full circle."

Speier, whose story and legislative record have made her one of the Bay Area's best-known political figures, is running against a field of comparable unknowns.

The one other Democratic candidate, physician and health care advocate Michelle McMurry, is founder of a biomedical science and social policy think tank. Green Party candidate Barry Hermanson is a past co-chair of the San Francisco Living Wage Coalition.

In a district where voter registration is 51 percent Democratic to 20 percent Republican, the two GOP hopefuls are former California Public Utilities Commission member Greg Conlon and Mike Maloney, an anti-Iraq war candidate and disciple of Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul.

The winner Tuesday -- or June 3 if Speier is forced into a runoff -- will serve the remainder of Lantos' term. She's also on the ballot June 3 to serve a full two-year term that would begin next year.

Speier drew criticism for openly contemplating a run for Lantos' seat before the 79-year-old House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman announced his retirement in January. But Lantos endorsed her soon afterward. The 27-year congressman died of cancer in February.

Speier said she still looks back on her '79 run for Congress "as a pivotal moment in my life" -- one that "taught me that a lot of people supported me, and I had a lot to contribute."

She went on to get elected to the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors and then to an 18-year career in the state Assembly and Senate.

From the time she traveled to Guyana with Ryan to investigate reports that Jones' Peoples Temple was effectively holding hundreds of followers hostage in the jungle, "she developed an incredible passion for her work," said San Mateo Supervisor Adrienne Tissier, a longtime friend.

"She has carried on the passion that he (Ryan) had for his district -- that people come first," Tissier said. "Jackie is very tenacious."

Speier has faced tragedy more than once. In 1994, her then-husband, physician Steven Sierra, died in a car accident. At the time, Speier was pregnant with her second child, daughter Stephanie.

"She lost her house because her husband had let his life insurance go," Tissier said. "But she was strong and determined. She had children to take care of."

In 2001, Speier married investment consultant Barry Dennis. Her oldest son, Jackson, is now a sophomore at Stanford University. Stephanie is class president at her middle school.

Speier's election will likely mean a presidential superdelegate vote for New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, who previously had been backed by Lantos. "I have endorsed Hillary," Speier said.

She is running for Congress on pledges to draw down the U.S. troop presence in Iraq, pass a national health care plan and protect homeowners from predatory lenders. Meanwhile, she is touting her statehouse career, in which she passed laws to recover delinquent child support, increase penalties for domestic violence and bar lending institutions from selling personal financial data.

Speier ran unsuccessfully for lieutenant governor in 2006 -- an attempt seen as a step toward eventually running for governor. Now, she hopes Tuesday's vote will take her to Congress -- and full circle -- for the duration of her political career.

"I realized the power to change things in the legislative branch. I think this is where I'll be as long as the voters want me," Speier said. "I'm absolutely convinced there was a plan. There was a reason I didn't win (the lieutenant governor's election). This is what I was supposed to do."

Former Lawmaker Favored for Calif. Seat

Sun, 06 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0700

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) -- A former congressional aide may be heading back to Washington, nearly 30 years after she was shot and left for dead on a Guyana airstrip while on a fact-finding trip into the Jim Jones cult.

Democrat Jackie Speier is the favorite to win a special election Tuesday to fill the House seat left vacant by the death of Rep. Tom Lantos, a San Mateo Democrat.

It is her second try for the seat once held by her boss, Rep. Leo Ryan, who was killed by Jones' henchmen in the same 1978 attack that seriously wounded Speier.

Ryan had gone to Guyana to investigate reports that Jones was holding followers against their will at his Jonestown compound in the small South American nation. Four other people died at the air strip with Ryan, and that same night Jones and 912 of his followers died in a mass murder-suicide, most by drinking cyanide-laced grape punch.

Speier's first run for Ryan's seat was a last-minute decision made just months after the deaths. She placed third.

This time, Speier's campaign has been building since last fall.

Lantos, the 79-year-old former chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, had intended to seek a 15th term but in January he announced he had cancer of the esophagus and would not run again. He endorsed Speier before he died in February.

Speier also has the backing of U.S. Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who represents a neighboring San Francisco area district.

As of March 19, Speier had raised more than $873,000 - 40 times as much as her nearest competitor.

Speier is facing fellow Democrat Michelle McMurry, Republicans Greg Conlon and Mike Moloney, and Green Party candidate Barry Hermanson.

All five are on the same ballot. If no candidate gets more than 50 percent of the vote, there will be a June 3 runoff among the top vote-getters in each party. The winner will hold the seat for the rest of the year.

Allan Hoffenblum, publisher of the California Target Book, which analyzes legislative and congressional races, jokes that Tuesday's election will be "the Jackie Speier coronation."

"The worst that could happen to her would be the embarrassment to have a runoff against a Republican before going on to Congress," he said. "That's not likely to happen."

Speier, 57, said she is not taking anything for granted. She has been holding neighborhood meetings and running a phone bank to encourage voters to vote by mail in what is expected to be a low-turnout election.

The 12th District, which Lantos represented for more than 27 years, includes southwestern San Francisco and most of neighboring San Mateo County. Democrats make up more than half the district's voters, and there are more independents than Republicans.

After losing her first congressional race, Speier served six years on the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors, then spent 18 years in the California Legislature, including eight in the state Senate representing generally the same area covered by the congressional seat. She developed a reputation as a consumer advocate and leading critic of the state's troubled prison system.

Her interest in running for Congress was rekindled by a narrow loss in a campaign for the Democratic nomination for lieutenant governor in 2006 and a return to Washington to witness Pelosi's swearing in as speaker last year.

"I finally realized that the power to change things happens in the legislative branch. ... That's where I do my best work; that's where I belong," she said.

Speier said she wants to start pulling American troops out of Iraq immediately and would not vote to continue funding for the increase in troop levels that Bush ordered last year.

"I am no one's puppet," she said.

Top of the Hill

Fri, 04 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0700

If not for term limits, Jackie Speier would still be serving in the California Legislature, where she applied her considerable skills to making life better for consumers and making life hell for recalcitrant bureaucrats and special interests that got in the way of the public good.

Speier left the Senate in 2006, after 18 years as a legislator. Even though she lost the Democratic primary for lieutenant governor to John Garamendi that year, it seemed only a matter of time before opportunity would knock again.

Her time should come Tuesday, when voters on the Peninsula will go to the polls for a special election to succeed Rep. Tom Lantos, who died in February after a 27-year tenure in Congress.

Speier is far and away the most qualified of the five candidates on the ballot. If she wins a majority of the vote, she could be sworn into office as early as Wednesday.

As a state legislator, Speier achieved an impressive succession of victories for consumers, most notably her determined three-year push to overcome the resistance of the banking industry to produce the nation's strongest financial privacy law. In retrospect, one of her bills that did not pass demonstrates her foresight: a 2006 bill that would have strengthened consumer protections against subprime loans.

"I think it speaks volume about the power of the special interests," Speier said. "Even when we see something coming, we don't act."

Speier, as much as anyone in the State Capitol, showed a willingness to take on entrenched interests. Her targets included the powerful prison guards' union and the University of California administration. There is every reason to believe Speier will be every bit as vigorous in challenging the Washington establishment on issues such as the war in Iraq and consumer concerns - including health care.

The rest of the field includes Democrat Michelle McMurry, a pediatrician who has an impressive public-policy resume but no legislative experience; Republican Greg Conlon, a former president of the California Public Utilities Commission whose conservative views make him a longshot in this district; Republican Mike Moloney, a brash libertarian who calls President Bush "an international terrorist"; and the Green Party's Barry Hermanson, who views his role as pushing the inevitable nominee Speier to dramatically reduce defense spending.

Jackie Speier is the clear choice in Tuesday's special election for the 12th Congressional District.

Editorial Page Editor John Diaz provides a behind-the-scenes look at the endorsement process on the "Opinion Shop" blog at sfgate.com.

Speier courts gay vote

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0700

During her nearly two decades as a state legislator, first as an assemblywoman and then as a senator, Jackie Speier proved to be a strong backer of LGBT rights. During San Francisco's "Winter of Love" in 2004, Speier could be found inside City Hall marrying same-sex couples.

Now running for the congressional seat left vacant after the death of Tom Lantos (D-San Mateo), Speier, 57, is counting on the 12th District's LGBT voters as she runs in a special election April 8 to serve out the remainder of Lantos's term through next January. Lantos died in February from esophageal cancer.

"I married somewhere between 18 to 20 couples [that] February. I really established that I am not a person of words but a person of action," said Speier during a meeting with the Bay Area Reporter 's editorial board last week. "I believe in equal rights for all people."

The 12th Congressional District stretches into parts of San Francisco that are heavily concentrated with LGBT voters, including portions of Noe Valley, Diamond Heights, and Twin Peaks. It also covers the city's West Portal, Forest Hills, and inner Sunset neighborhoods, as well as the University of California, San Francisco's Parnassus location and San Francisco State University's sprawling main campus.

Speier has the backing of gay politicians Assemblyman Mark Leno (D-San Francisco); San Francisco Supervisors Tom Ammiano and Bevan Dufty; and San Mateo County Supervisor Rich Gordon. Both the Harvey Milk and the Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic clubs have endorsed her in the race.

Openly gay South San Francisco commissioner Robert Bernardo said he is "totally supportive" of Speier in the race.

"She's been a longtime ally for LGBT people," said Bernardo.

Speier supports repealing the anti-gay Defense on Marriage Act as well as allowing gay members of the military to serve openly. She said the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy was "flawed from the beginning. We should get rid of it."

On the controversial stance congressional Democrats have taken with pushing an Employment Non-Discrimination Act stripped of gender identity protections, Speier hues to the party line. She said she supports passing the gay-only ENDA now while pushing to add transgender protections to the bill later.

"I do support an inclusive version but the question becomes would you not support one for gays and lesbians. I would not throw the baby out with the bath water," said Speier. "I would support a fully inclusive ENDA but also vote on the gay and lesbian only ENDA."

Speier is facing off against four other candidates in next week's open primary: Republicans Mike Moloney, a retired businessman from Foster City, and Atherton businessman and accountant Greg Conlon, who lost his 2002 state treasurer bid against Phil Angelides; Green Party member and former Castro merchant Barry Hermanson; and fellow Democrat Michelle McMurry, a San Francisco physician and health policy analyst.

According to election rules, should any of the five win more than half the votes they will be declared the winner. If no one garners a majority of the votes, then the top two vote getters will face off on the June 3 primary ballot.

Should that happen, they would find themselves on the same ballot with the primary races to compete for the full 2009-2010 term on the November ballot. In those party-based contests, Speier is matched up against not only McMurry, but also businessman Robert Barrows of San Mateo County and San Francisco accountant Frank Henry Wade.

Due to the district's heavy Democratic makeup, Speier is considered the odds-on favorite to replace Lantos, who endorsed her candidacy prior to his death. But Speier said she is not taking anything for granted, especially with Conlon rallying Republicans with the message that the special election gives them a rare opportunity to capture the seat.

Should his strategy be successful, he would then be able to run as the incumbent in the June election.

"I am running like it is a very serious race," said Speier. "I am not taking anything for granted."

Speier said she has raised about $600,000 for the race so far.

She previously ran for the seat during a special election in 1979 to replace her boss Congressman Leo Ryan. Ryan was killed at the airport in Jonestown, Guyana in November 1978 as he was leading a fact-finding mission to investigate the People's Temple. Speier was shot five times and left for dead on the tarmac.

As she lay in an iron lung-like contraption to rid her body of a life-threatening bacterial infection in a Baltimore hospital, Speier learned from a doctor of the assassinations of San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and openly gay Supervisor Harvey Milk.

"I was struggling for my life. I thought the world was coming to an end," recalled Speier, who pulled through and filed to run in the election, in which she finished in third.

She went on to win election to the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors and then to the statehouse. Termed out of the Senate in 2006, she lost her bid for lieutenant governor to John Garamendi in the Democratic primary. Since then she co-authored the book This Is Not the Life I Ordered: 50 Ways to Keep Your Head Above Water When Life Keeps Dragging You Down and joined the law firm of Hanson Bridgett LLP, in San Francisco.

Now she is ready to bring her California values to Washington.

"I think we are in deeply troubling times, not only internationally but nationally," said Speier. "We can't have people in Congress asleep at the switch or paralyzed to flip the switch when there are signs of deep, troubling waters. I have a reputation of being strong and tough on issues. I am willing and ready to take on the strong and tough issues."

Speier for Congress

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Voters in portions of San Francisco and San Mateo counties head to the polls Tuesday, April 8 for a special election to fill the term of the late Congressman Tom Lantos, who died earlier this year. The longtime Democratic lawmaker was a champion of human rights, and leaves some big shoes to fill. But there is a candidate who stands above the rest -- former state Senator Jackie Speier.

Speier, who had planned to run for Lantos's seat after he announced his retirement, will face several lesser-known opponents Tuesday. Should she receive a majority of votes, she would be sworn in immediately and finish the term. She would also be on the ballot in the June 3 primary in the race for a full two-year term, with that contest ultimately being decided in November. The district is nearly 60 percent Democratic.

We met with Speier last week; she is an experienced legislator who effectively served for many years in Sacramento. Her legislative accomplishments include a landmark privacy rights law, prescription discounts for seniors, and clinical trial access for cancer patients.

In terms of support for the LGBT community, Speier is a staunch ally. She supports marriage equality, and in fact told us that she married nearly 20 same-sex couples during San Francisco's "Winter of Love" in 2004. She opposes the federal Defense of Marriage Act and during the same-sex marriage debate in Sacramento a few years ago, told her colleagues that marriage equality "is the civil rights issue of our lifetime."

Speier said that she is supportive of a transgender-inclusive Employment Non-Discrimination Act, though she noted that she would vote for a version of the bill if it only included gays and lesbians, in an effort to provide some protections for the community. If that were the case, she would then push for a bill that included gender identity, she said.

On other issues of concern to the community, Speier is on board with fighting for increased HIV/AIDS funding and advocating for human rights around the world. She has been endorsed by both the Harvey Milk and Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic clubs.

Many readers are familiar with Speier's own life-threatening experience in 1978, after her boss, Congressman Leo Ryan, was assassinated in Jonestown, Guyana. Speier, who had accompanied him, was shot five times and left for dead on the tarmac. Help arrived some 22 hours later. And it was while she was being treated back in the United States just days later that she learned that San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk were gunned down in their City Hall offices.

While the passing of Lantos has left a void in Congress, voters in the 12th District have an opportunity to send another trailblazer to Washington, D.C. We urge them to cast their ballots for Jackie Speier on Tuesday.

5 vying to finish term of late Rep. Lantos

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0700

It was 29 years ago that Jackie Speier, a 28-year-old aide to murdered Peninsula Rep. Leo Ryan, left her sickbed to run in the special election for her boss' seat in Congress.

"I made the decision over a weekend, when I decided to stop being a victim," said Speier, who spent nearly a full day lying critically wounded near the same Jonestown, Guyana, airstrip where Ryan was killed. "I turned in my papers on the last possible day, raised $20,000 in six weeks and finished third."

It's a different story today, with Speier the odds-on favorite to win that same Peninsula-San Francisco congressional seat in the April 8 special election to succeed Democratic Rep. Tom Lantos, who died in February of cancer.

"Success is never final, and defeat is never failure," Speier told a group of small businessmen at a campaign event in San Francisco's Sunset District on Thursday evening.

Speier is a long way from the political novice who lost that 1979 campaign. Since then, she's spent two terms as a San Mateo County supervisor, 10 years as a Peninsula assemblywoman and eight more years as a state senator in a district that nearly mirrors the 12th Congressional District she's running for today.

In 2006, termed out of her state Senate seat, she lost a tight Democratic primary race for lieutenant governor to John Garamendi, who won the job that November.

A twofold campaign

Now she's in an unusual double contest for the seat Lantos held for 27 years. Speier is running in the June 3 Democratic primary for the congressional seat, but first she's in the April 8 scramble to finish the remaining few months of Lantos' term, which expires in January.

Speier and Michelle McMurry of San Francisco, a physician and health policy director, are the two Democrats in next week's open primary. They're joined by Republicans Greg Conlon of Atherton, a businessman and accountant, and Mike Moloney of Foster City, a retired businessman. San Francisco's Barry Hermanson, the Green Party candidate, rounds out the field.

Under the rules of the special election, all five candidates will appear on the same ballot. If anyone collects more than half the votes, he or she wins the congressional seat outright. If no one pulls a majority, the top vote-getters from each party square off in a runoff June 3 - the same day as the primary vote for the two-year term that begins in January.

For Speier's opponents, the goal isn't so much to win as to keep the front-runner from grabbing the 50 percent plus one vote she needs to be instantly elected, Conlon said.

"My goal is to get her into a runoff," said Conlon, a former president of the state Public Utilities Commission and losing GOP candidate for state treasurer in 2002. "But I need to get the Republicans and the decline-to-states out to vote."

That's also the plan for Moloney, an anti-war Republican who lost badly to Lantos in 2002. If he can keep Speier under 50 percent and outpoll Conlon, he'll have another shot in the June runoff.

District votes Democratic

But the Republicans, along with Hermanson of the Green Party, have virtually no chance of winning a general election in an overwhelmingly Democratic district where Lantos typically pulled close to 70 percent of the vote.

McMurry, making her first run for elective office, is challenging Speier to give Democratic voters a choice.

"I believe in the citizen-politician model," she said. "We need a new approach to old problems, one not wedded to party politics."

Speier, however, has the backing of the big three in California Democratic politics: U.S. Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco. She also was the choice of Lantos, who endorsed her shortly before his death.

She has more than $600,000 in the bank for her campaign, according to federal election reports released Friday. No one else in the race has raised close to that amount.

But it's Speier's years of visibility and easygoing manner that serve her best, along with a reputation as a tenacious politician who works long and hard to get things done.

Speier meets supporters

A seat in Congress "will be a chance to do what I do best: look at a problem, prepare legislation and then convince my colleagues to pass it," Speier told about 60 people at the San Francisco event last week.

She called for an end to the war in Iraq and more money for higher education, and warned that the nation "can't be afraid of looking at a single-payer system" when it comes to health care.

As for global warming, she said, "I don't think anything we've proposed so far is enough. We're going to have to live differently. We're going to have to get out of our cars."

Before and after her brief talk, she chatted with supporters, signed some autographs and posed for pictures. She was among friends and longtime supporters, people comfortable calling her "Jackie," not "senator."

"I've known her for years, and she's been an effective advocate for small business," said Scott Hauge, a San Francisco insurance man who hosted the event for Speier. "She's someone who will listen to us."

Speier and her political consultant, Alex Tourk, insist they aren't taking the election for granted, but it's clear they are confident she can avoid the runoff and catch an April 9 flight to Washington to take her seat in Congress.

It's a daunting prospect, Speier said.

"If I win, I'll be in Washington the next day to be sworn in and start voting right away, ready or not," she said.

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Interview: Jackie Speier, Former Red Cross Youth

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Interview: Jackie Speier, Former Red Cross Youth

Last fall, I had the exciting opportunity to interview Jackie Speier, a longtime public servant and current congressional candidate. Ms. Speier is also a Red Cross volunteer -- and she started her career as a youth.

I was inspired by this interview since I share many of the same experiences with Ms. Speier. It is remarkable to see how volunteering for the Red Cross literally changes lives.

How did you get started as a Red Cross youth?

I started out stuffing monkeys at my youth club at Mercy High School in Burlingame. I later became president of the club. Then I was on the regional board for the Bay Area Chapter, and I became president of that, too. I also attended the Bay Area’s Leadership Development Center (LDC) as a delegate and then as a counselor. Attending LDC had a profound effect on me; it is the reason I decided to go into public service and seek public office. The Bay Area Chapter sent me to another camp and I was a delegate and then a counselor there, too. I also took my first airplane trip with the Red Cross; when I was 17 I went to National Convention in Denver.

What skills did you gain? How do you use these skills today?

Leadership development training created confidence in me and showed me that I had leadership skills. That is how it works -- someone takes notice of your innate skills and helps you build on them.

What message do you have for a young person just starting as a Red Cross volunteer?

I would tell him or her to take full advantage of the opportunities the Red Cross has because they are experiences you will use for the rest of your life. Your personal and professional development will be greatly enhanced. Plus, the American Red Cross is the greatest non-profit in the history of the world.

Sandy Tesch, California