U.S. senator
Dianne Feinstein of California, having been tapped as
chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, will not
run for governor of the Golden State in November 2010,
the San Francisco Chronicle reported on Tuesday.
The 75-year-old
legislator considered running for California's top job,
close friends told the Chronicle. But with her
recent promotion -- where she'll shape policy on wiretapping
and the treatment of detainees -- she's abandoned that
idea, leaving open the possibility of the liberal
mayors of Los Angeles and San Francisco staking a
claim for governor, as well as California's current attorney
general, Jerry Brown.
Brown was
California's governor from 1975 to 1983, and served as mayor
of Oakland from 1999 to 2007. The Democrat is seen as
forward-thinking, though he signed the 1977 state law
that limited marriage to heterosexuals. His current
position on same-sex marriage is murky, though he
opposed the original wording of Proposition 8 -- the
voter-approved initiative that constitutionally banned
same-sex marriage in California -- a move
that was seen as supportive toward marriage
equality.
San Francisco
mayor Gavin Newsom has put himself at the forefront of the
marriage-equality fight. He married gay couples on the steps
of San Francisco's City Hall in 2004, though those
marriages were later invalidated. Those ceremonies
paved the way for the lawsuit that overturned
California's same-sex marriage ban, though that California
supreme court decision was invalidated by Prop. 8. Now, the
state supreme court is reviewing the constitutionality
of Prop. 8. Newsom's fierce support of same-sex
marriage could endear him to voters in the Bay Area
and pockets of Southern California, but will
likely hinder him in other parts of the enormous
state.
Los Angeles mayor
Antonio Villaraigosa has also loudly supported marriage
equality, though his name is less associated with same-sex
marriage. Villaraigosa is popular with Latinos, but
has less name recognition than his counterpart in San
Francisco.
Republicans
hoping to succeed Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger include
insurance commissioner Steve Poizner and possibly Meg
Whitman, the wealthy former chief executive of eBay.
(Neal Broverman, The Advocate)
