If you've been around politics for more than a nanosecond, you've heard Jesse Unruh's oft-quoted line, "Money is the mother's milk of politics." Well, if mid-year fund-raising reports are any guide, state Sen. Pat Wiggins may have been orphaned.
The Santa Rosa Democrat opened a re-election account for 2010, but records filed with the secretary of state show that she raised less money than any other state senator eligible to run for re-election next year, in most cases considerably less money. She also raised less money than all but one of the senators eligible to seek re-election in 2012.
In fact, her $49,014 haul for the first six months of 2009 is less than the $51,500 raised by Assemblywoman Noreen Evans, D-Santa Rosa, for a state Senate committee she has formed for the 2014 election.
The obvious question is whether Wiggins is serious about seeking re-election.
Unfortunately, she's been hard to find and harder to talk to since her outburst in a legislative committee hearing a year ago. Her erratic behavior was the subject on an editorial in The Press Democrat last August. A similar editorial appeared last week in the Napa Valley Register.
Wiggins has declined interview requests, and staffers have blocked reporters seeking to questions her on the Senate floor on in Capitol hallways, so it's hard to know what her intentions really are. I called Wiggins for this report. Her husband - and campaign treasurer - called back and brushed off questions about her fund-raising, while saying she plans to run for another term next year.
Wiggins once was a prodigious fund-raiser, banking $200,000 without
the benefit of incumbency to scare off any challengers in the Democratic
primary in 2006, effectively winning the seat, given the political realities of
If Wiggins is serious about raising money for re-election, she not only is an incumbent but she's a member of the Government Organization Committee, which despite its innocuous name has jurisdiction over alcohol, tobacco and gambling.
Perhaps a better question is whether local Democrats will allow her to run unchallenged once again.
-- Jim Sweeney
At this time, Assemblywoman Noreen Evans, and local labor leader Michael Allen--who also is Senator Wiggins' local rep--are the visible leaders of the local Labor/Demo coalition.
Evans is termed out next year, and Allen is already the annointed candidate to replace her in the Assembly.
Evans is already a candidate to replace Senator Wiggins in 2014: http://www.noreenevans.com/
Now reports suggest that Wiggins may not be able to run after all--and that suggests that Evans may be the Demo candidate for Senator in 2010.
If Evans and Allen really are running the local Labor/Demo coalition, I wonder if they'll be able to hold it together after next November--from Sacramento--in their spare time.