The return of a favorite old soap opera
| Saturday, Oct 24 2009 08:09 PM
Last Updated Saturday, Oct 24 2009 08:09 PM
Some of my colleagues, and perhaps some of you, are relishing the thought of a rematch between the Florez and Parra clans. Some of you might miss those days of snarky digs and snide comebacks between Dean Florez and Nicole Parra, Kern County Democrats with more in common than either might admit.
Not me. To me, this sequel feels like the 15th season of "ER."
Florez, who has moved from the assembly to the state senate, and Parra, the former assemblywoman, ought to just schedule a cage match at Rabobank Arena and get it over with. Alas, that's not the rematch we might be seeing.
Advancing in our rear-view mirrors is Florez vs. Parra II: Meet the Parents. Dean's mother Fran Florez plans on taking another shot at the 30th Assembly District seat her son once held. Nicole's father Pete Parra is supposedly sizing up the same seat, which his offspring also once occupied.
You remember the offspring. The Dean vs. Nicole feud goes back at least to 2000, when then-Assemblyman Florez held a public hearing in the town of Lamont to flambé the county over its failure to bolster Lamont's defenses against seemingly annual flooding. He clashed with then-5th District Supervisor Pete Parra over the issue, and when Nicole Parra, then a district representative for former Congressman Cal Dooley, showed up at a subsequent hearing, she tore into him -- only to have Florez criticize her boss Dooley's alleged lack of commitment to the problem. Eight years of taunts, sneers, slow burns and the backing of opposition candidates ensued.
Is more of that coming our way?
It's not so much that I cringe at the thought of two otherwise dignified people resuming an internecine spat on behalf of their children. It's just that I hate to see Danny Gilmore holding the door open for them. Not like this.
Gilmore is the wholly decent and honorable guy who holds the seat now. Gilmore, a Republican from Hanford, defeated Fran Florez a scant year ago, thanks in no small measure to Nicole Parra's counter-partisan endorsement. (That was payback for Deano's encouragement of and support for then-aide Michael J. Rubio, who ousted Pete Parra in 2004.)
Gilmore hasn't said he intends to take a pass in 2010 -- I need to make that clear. But if he does go the one-and-done route, it won't be because he was lazy or incompetent. It'll be because of Sacramento's hyperpartisanship and utter lack of civility.
That the Democratic-controlled Assembly leadership relegated Gilmore to a laughably tiny Sacramento office and denied him a district office in the largest city he represents was bad enough. But some Democrats won't even shake his hand, and the few who've been willing to occasionally treat him like a fellow human being have dared not advertise that fact. The Republicans have been just as guilty over the years: Talk to Assemblywoman Alyson Huber, D-Lodi, who had the audacity to win a seat the Republicans believe they should own.
The ideological siege has reached new extremes, and it's reflected in the Legislature's complete failure to manage the state.
"This has been the most frustrating year of my life," Gilmore told The Californian last week. "That place is far beyond anything I imagined. It is broken."
I know, I know. They've got their feelings hurt out in the provinces. Politics isn't two-hand touch, you rubes. Send somebody up here who knows how to wear a helmet.
If that's how it is, the Florezes and the Parras are probably better qualified. (They may be a little less partisan than other Dems, too, given the nature of the 30th District). But if the state is better served by a few Republicans who are willing to consider emergency tax increases, or Democrats who might entertain the possibility of codified spending restrictions, maybe Sacramento could use a few Gilmore-types.
Of course, Gilmore won't be nearly as entertaining as the Hatfields and McCoys. That is, if you like re-runs.
E-mail Robert Price at rprice@bakersfield.com.
