Democratic Party precinct leaders in Legislative District 2 have picked three names to submit to the Pima County Board of Supervisors to replace state Sen. Linda Lopez, who stepped down earlier this month to commit herself full-time to a new job.
The candidates are state Rep. Andrea Dalessandro, historic preservation champion Demion Clinco and Annabel Nuñez, who works as an associate librarian with the Arizona Health Sciences Library.
The supes are scheduled to make a final decision at their meeting tomorrow morning.
If we had to make a prediction, we’d guess that the supervisors will want to pick a woman to replace Lopez. And given that elevating Dalessandro would mean they’d have to go through the appointment process all over again in a few weeks, we’d say that the odds are in Nuñez’s favor.
When it comes to appointment to the Arizona Legislature, we are reminded of something that Mr. Spock once said on the surface of Vulcan: “After a time, you may find that having is not so pleasing a thing, after all, as wanting. It is not logical, but it is often true.”
This article appears in Jan 16-22, 2014.
Historically, having the State Rep move across the courtyard to the Senate is done often enough to discount the discomfort of going through the process a second time.
Given that the Senate Minority Caucus is down one member because of what appears to be a self-serving decision by Lopez, the smartest thing to do would be to give the ONE of the three with legislative experience the opportunity to move into the Senate right away.
The vacancy of one Democratic member of the House does not present as urgently or acutely as in the Senate.