At its June 2012 meeting, the Santa Barbara County Republican Central Committee refused to endorse Abel Maldonado for U.S. House, 24th district, even though he is the only Republican on the November 2012 ballot. The other person on the ballot is incumbent Democrat Lois Capps. See this story.
Maldonado supporters will attempt to obtain the party’s endorsement at the July meeting, and are also threatening members of the committee with removal for their failure to endorse Maldonado. However, under the legal theory behind top-two, parties don’t have nominees, and therefore there seems to be no legal theory that would punish a party official body for refusing to endorse someone.
Hopefully he will not be re-elected.
This is the guy who authored that disastrous Prop 14.
Yeah, Abel’s idea was that the only endorsement that could or rather should matter much to him is that of the voters, good luck with that. Not.
#1, he has never been in Congress. He has formerly been a California state legislator and a former Lieutenant Governor of California (he was appointed by former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, but when he ran for Lieutenant Governor in 2010 he lost). He is this year making his first run for Congress.
Correction then; hopefully he will not be elected.