Less than year into retirement, former U.S. Rep. Jackie Speier is looking to return to her first elected job as a candidate for San Mateo County supervisor, setting up a contest with a much younger candidate and renewing questions about aging politicians clinging to office and refusing to yield to the next generation.
“I’d like to get something accomplished,” Speier said in an interview Wednesday, a subtle dig at her “frustrating” years in Congress. “I love this county, I spent 40 years representing it. My experience can help us move through some of these vexing issues that we have.”
Speier’s return to local politics after 14 years in Congress has already tilted the outcome of the March 5 District 1 Supervisor race from a three-way contest to a runoff. The two leading candidates by fundraising, Emily Beach and Gina Papan, both Democrats like Speier, announced they will end their campaigns for the nonpartisan seat and support Speier.
“Grateful to my supporters and proud of the race we ran,” Beach, who had raised more than $168,000 toward her bid, said in a social media post Tuesday. “I’m sorry this wasn’t the time and opportunity we hoped for.”
Papan, who had raised more than $117,000 toward her bid, echoed those sentiments in a social media post Tuesday thanking her supporters, saying she had “chosen to pause my campaign” after Speier “shared her intention to run.”
But Jorge Quezada Flores, a 23-year-old registered Democrat who grew up locally, works in public health outreach and is the son of immigrant parents, said he’ll press on with his campaign, for which he hasn’t yet raised money.
“Obviously we respect her experience and time in office,” said Flores’ campaign spokesman, Miguel Carrion. “We also recognize San Mateo County needs a fresh voice. It’s time for a new generation to step up and serve the public. We feel that not only is it time, but that the community needs much more diversity on the board in the leadership. And we also feel that it’s time for a change, and we believe that Jorge is the person to bring that change.”
The current county board is four White men and a Latina woman.
Speier’s decision at age 73 comes amid a wave of grumbling about a political “gerontology” with older office-holders refusing to retire and shutting out younger voices.
California’s U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, 90, who defeated a younger fellow Democrat, Kevin de León of Los Angeles, for her fifth term in 2018, announced she would end her 30-year congressional career in February only after two younger party rivals, Reps. Katie Porter and Adam Schiff put in to run for her seat. Noting her increasingly frail health and mental lapses, some fellow Democrats have urged Feinstein to step down and let Gov. Gavin Newsom appoint a replacement.
President Joe Biden, 80, former president and 2024 candidate Donald Trump, 77, and the Republican Senate leader, Mitch McConnell, 81, along with several other senators also have faced questions about their age and suitability for office. San Francisco’s Rep. Nancy Pelosi, 83, the former House Speaker, just announced she’ll run for reelection.
“We’re in a time where increasingly there’s a conversation about the age of our political leaders, in the House, in the Senate and now even here at the local level, which is where you tend to cultivate leaders for higher office,” said Melissa Michelson, a political science professor at Menlo College. “By coming back, Jackie Speier is closing the door I think on a young Latino running for the seat.”
Speier said she passed the torch when she chose not to seek re-election, and that “the circumstances in the county demand proven leadership skills to really deal with some thorny issues,” particularly housing affordability.
“I’m all about fixing things,” Speier said. “I have a reputation and record of doing that.”
Michelson said that although Flores has a steep hill to climb to beat a beloved veteran local politician, the race isn’t necessarily a coronation. She noted that in South San Francisco, James H. Coleman, son of a Taiwanese immigrant, won a City Council seat in 2020 at age 21 during his senior year of college, defeating 18-year incumbent Richard Garbarino.
But Speier will be a formidable foe in the race for the local board seat now held by Dave Pine, who has reached his three-term limit and said Wednesday “I enthusiastically endorse her candidacy.” She began her career in politics in the 1970s as an aide to late Rep. Leo Ryan, and accompanied the Democratic congressman on his 1978 trip to Guyana to investigate the People’s Temple cult, where he was gunned down and she was wounded in the Jonestown massacre.
She was elected in 1980 as the youngest member of the San Mateo County board of supervisors where she served until she won a state Assembly seat in 1986. She served in the state Senate from 1998 to 2006 when she was elected to the congressional seat of her former boss, Ryan, becoming a leading voice on women’s issues.
In November 2021, Speier announced she wouldn’t seek reelection. She said at the time her decision was several years in the making and that she and her husband, Barry Dennis, who’d already retired, would like to travel and spend time with family.
“I do think there’s a time when it’s appropriate to pass the torch,” Speier said then. The candidate she endorsed as her successor, Kevin Mullin, won the seat last November over fellow Democratic rival David Canepa, who serves on the county board Speier now seeks to join.
But in announcing her run for supervisor, Speier said that “when I announced that I was not running for re-election to Congress, I made clear that I was not done and not retiring.
“I was simply coming home to be with my family and my constituents,” Speier said. “I believe I have found the path where I can make the greatest contribution to those I have represented for so many years.”
Source: www.mercurynews.com