Many in the California Democratic Party circles may not know this, but in 2008 there is a real possibility of gaining 2/3 majorities in the State Senate and State Assembly. The fact that a two-thirds vote in both houses is required to pass the annual budget and to override gubernatorial vetoes could serve as a compelling reason to vote against the term-limits initiative.
Using my extraordinary math, statistics, and HTML skills, below I included with each list of incumbents are the margins that each district voted in the 2002 Governor's race (2002G: Davis vs. Simon), 2004 Presidential race (2004P: Kerry vs. Bush), 2004 Senate race (2004S: Boxer vs. Jones), and 2006 Senate race (2006S: Feinstein vs. Mountjoy) and the average of these and the registration margins, which I will call the Partisan Factor (PF).
23 Assemblymembers are term-limited in 2008, 12 Republicans and 11 Democrats. Here are the districts which will be open, the term-limited incumbent (for reference) and the registration statistics.
Overall, we should target Assembly Districts 10, 15, 26, 64, 75, 78, and 80 while defending District 30, and target Senate Districts 15 and 19. If we manage to win both Senate seats, we will have 27 Senate seats, enough for a 2/3 majority. If we win the most competitive Assembly districts (10, 15, 26, 78, 80) we will have 53, just one short of 2/3. We would have to win at least one of the lesser competitive districts (64, 75) to reach 2/3 there. We will also have to defend AD-30, which may not be hard if we find a candidate less divisive than Parra.
With 2/3 in both houses, we can finally pass decent budgets without significant bickering and with sufficient funding for things like mental health facilities and public transit including high-speed rail.
