Native Malibu resident, Cynthia Loo, received the most votes in the election for Los Angeles Superior Court judge seat.
By Jonathan Friedman / Assistant Editor
Former Assemblymember Fran Pavley easily cruised to victory last week on Tuesday in the race for the Democratic nomination for the 23rd state Senate District. She received 38,006 votes (65.8 percent) to rival Lloyd Levine’s 19,795. Levine is serving his final term as the representative of the 40th Assembly District.
Pavley, who served as the representative for Malibu’s 41st Assembly District from 2001 to 2007, will face Republican Rick Montaine in the General Election in November. Montaine, a systems security analyst, had an almost equally noncompetitive contest in his primary. He defeated nonprofit executive Leonard M. Lanzi with 12,371 votes (62 percent) to Lanzi’s 7,588.
Libertarian candidate Colin Goldman will also compete for the Senate seat in November. He won his party’s primary by default, since no other candidate ran. Two hundred twenty-four Libertarians cast ballots for Goldman.
The 23rd Senate District, which includes portions of Los Angeles and Ventura counties, is composed of 50 percent registered Democrats and 24 percent registered Republicans. Pavley is not expected to have any difficulty winning in November.
Pavley drew a large amount of votes in Malibu. She received 747 votes (80 percent) to Levine’s 192. Montaine garnered 502 votes (65.3 percent) among the local Republicans, while Lanzi received 174. Seven Malibu Libertarians voted for Goldman.
Also on the local front, Cynthia Loo, who grew up in Malibu and is the daughter of Malibu activist Mona Loo, received the most votes in the election for Los Angeles Superior Court judge of Office No. 82. Loo, who has served as a Superior Court referee for the past eight years, earned 201,299 votes (38.95 percent). But since she did not get a majority of the vote, Loo will have to face Deputy District Attorney Thomas Rubinson in a runoff in November. He received 187,141 votes (36.21 percent). Deputy District Attorney Mark Lee trailed the two leaders with 128,393 votes (24.84 percent).
State Proposition 98, which called for the protection of residences and business properties from being taken by state and local governments for private use and also would have phased out rent control laws, was easily defeated. Just 38.5 percent of California voters supported the measure. In Malibu, it received an almost identical result, with 38.8 percent of the voters favoring it.
The rival Proposition 99, which only protects residences and not businesses against takings and does not affect rent control, easily won with 62.3 percent support statewide. It received 66.2 percent approval in Malibu.