Politics

SAN MATEO (AP) ― Jackie Speier, who as a congressional aide nearly 30 years ago was shot and left for dead on a Guyana airstrip, was leading in early returns Tuesday to win a special election for the House seat once held by her former boss.

A former California state lawmaker, Speier had about 77 percent of the vote after early absentee ballots and 15 percent of precincts had been counted in San Mateo and San Francisco counties. She would win the seat outright and avoid a runoff election if she gets more than 50 percent of the vote.

The district had been represented for the last 27 years by Democratic Rep. Tom Lantos, who died in February.

It is Speier's second try for the seat held by the late Rep. Leo Ryan, who was killed in 1978 while on a fact-finding trip looking into the Jim Jones cult. Speier, also on the trip, was seriously wounded.

She lost a special election to succeed Ryan the following year but did not leave the California political scene. A Democrat, she has since represented much of the area within the congressional district as a San Mateo County supervisor, assemblywoman and state senator.

Speier narrowly lost a campaign for the Democratic nomination for lieutenant governor in 2006.

Lantos, the 79-year-old former chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee who was the only Holocaust survivor to serve in Congress, had intended to seek a 15th term. He announced in January he had cancer of the esophagus and would not run for re-election. He endorsed Speier before he died.

She also has been endorsed by California's leading Democrats in Congress—Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Speier, 57, is the best known candidate in the race and the one with the largest campaign account, having raised 40 times as much money as her nearest competitor.

Nevertheless, her opponents hope to extend the election for another two months. Also on the special election ballot are a fellow Democrat, two Republicans and a member of the Green Party.

Republican candidate Mike Moloney said a predicted a low turnout would make it difficult for Speier to capture the needed votes to win outright.

"If she wins tonight, she is true superstar, a true icon because we all went at it, all the four candidates went at her," he said.

If no candidate gets more than 50 percent of the vote, the winners in each party will have a runoff election June 3. The winner will hold the seat for the rest of the year.

The other candidates are:
• Democrat Michelle McMurry, a doctor, former congressional aide and research team leader at the Aspen Institute, a think tank based in Washington, D.C.

• Republican Greg Conlon a former president of the California
Public Utilities Commission, former member of the California Transportation Commission and a former GOP nominee for state treasurer.

• Moloney, a longtime political activist who wants to impeach
President Bush and a former liquor store owner who ran against Lantos three times.

• Green Party candidate Barry Hermanson, a former owner of a temporary-worker agency who wants to cut military spending.

No matter what happens in the special election, the regular primary election for the seat will be held June 3. If Speier wins outright on Tuesday, she would have to survive the June Democratic primary and the November general election to win the seat's full two-year term.

She also would be seated as a Democratic superdelegate if she wins the seat, giving her a say in the presidential nominating contest between Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton. Speier told The Associated Press she is a Clinton supporter.

The 12th Congressional District includes southwestern San Francisco and most of neighboring San Mateo County. Democrats account for more than half the voters in the district, which has more independents than Republicans.

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On the Net:

Speier: www.jackieforcongress.com/

Conlon: www.gregconlonforcongress.com/

McMurry: www.mcmurry2008.com/

Hermanson: www.BarryHermanson.org/

Moloney: www.MikeMoloney4Congress.com/

(© 2009 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)