LOS ANGELES -- While the political junkie world is riveted on the Presidential campaign, there's a little-noticed local race playing out right here in Southern California that will test the new arithmetic of American politics. As a recent L.A. Times editorial put it, "Is Latino power beginning to eclipse the black political structure?"

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In April, U.S. Representative Juanita Millender-McDonald, who represented Southern California's 37th Congressional District, succumbed to cancer. On June 26, a special election will be held to fill her Congressional seat. And if one of the 17 candidates running doesn't get a majority (50 percent plus 1) of the votes cast, there will be a run-off election held (with the top vote getter from each political party on the ballot) in August to choose her successor. But the real race is in the primary in this overwhelmingly Democratic district.

Newly-elected State Senator Jenny Oropeza, a Latina, and Assemblywoman Laura Richardson, an African-American, elected last year to replace Oropeza in the State Assembly are considered the front-runners in the race to replace Millender-McDonald. Both women are Democrats. Valerie McDonald, the late Congresswoman's daughter, rounds out the list of major candidates.

The 37th has been a safe Democratic district for at least the last decade or more; 11 Democrats have filed for the open seat, but only 4 Republicans, and one candidate each from the Green and Libertarian Parties. (Millender-McDonald had no Republican challenger in 2006). The district has also been seen as reliably African-American. But some black political leaders worry that might be changing, putting their clout in Washington at risk.

Blacks make up roughly one-fourth of registered voters in the district and Latinos about 22 percent, but Latinos now account for 43 percent of the district's population (and 38 percent of the voting age population), with blacks at 25 percent.

In the last reapportionment, legislators went through political contortions (and collapsed a Republican Long Beach district) to construct a "Latino seat" and, at the same time, protect three black incumbent Congresswomen, Millender-McDonald, Maxine Waters and Diane Watson, all Democrats. Regardless of who takes the Millender-McDonald seat in the special election, that protection will be harder to sustain the next time Congressional districts are carved, because of changing demographics.

A victory by Oropeza would allow an easy transfer of Latino constituents from Watson's and Waters' districts to shore up Oropeza's base in the 2010 reapportionment. But a victory by Richardson wouldn't guarantee she'd be safe. She'd be just a rookie, fighting against two powerful incumbents to hold on to her district.

Sure, there is an ethnic component to this contest—there generally is to political combat. For some, the battle for the 37th is part of a larger contest between blacks and Latinos over political terrain both now claim.

Indeed, there is concern among black political leadership that, if McDonald remains in the race, she could split the African-American vote, ceding the district to Oropeza. (Millender-McDonald won her Assembly seat by besting two incumbent Assemblymen, both white, in the 1992 Democratic primary.) The California Legislative Black Caucus, and several other local political leaders, have lined up behind Richardson; however—reflecting political bad blood between Waters, who supports Richardson, and Watson, who backs Mc Donald—the Congressional Black Caucus has refused to endorse either candidate.

But it isn't all about race and ethnic power. After all, the highest ranking Latino official in Sacramento, Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez (D-L.A.), has also endorsed Richardson -- as has the L.A. County Federation of Labor, which has become a major engine of Latino political empowerment (Organized labor, it appears, is angry with Oropeza for her votes in favor of tribal gaming compacts it opposes).

It's about personal political ambition, the desire to hold on to office and the impact of term limits on politicians who need to feed those beasts. Both Richardson and Oropeza are just months into their first term in their respective houses, but the lure of possible lifetime tenure in Congress, instead of facing California's tight term limits, can be too great to dismiss.

Where does all this leave the voters in the 37th CD? Like it or not, they have a heavy burden. The results of this election will be read for signs pointing to the path American politics will take in the coming elections. Will the campaign be a precursor of nasty fights between Latino and blacks in changing districts throughout the U.S.? Or will the need for coalition building overcome ethnic divisions?

Turnout in recent local elections has been dismal. (The recent run off for seats on the LAUSD Board drew a measly 6 percent of the voters.) The results of next week's special election will most likely depend on the demographics of the electorate—whose supporters show up, and each candidate will target his or her own narrow base to push to the polls.

Yet, rightly or wrongly, these skewed results will drive the musings of national pundits through the 2008 elections.

And, more importantly, they will mean that whoever takes the 37th will go to Washington as a freshman who will need to reach out to every colleague and all her constituencies to make things work at all.

To contact Sherry, you can email her here.

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