Sen. Dunn to Run for State Controller

Deciding it is better to switch than fight, state Sen. Joe Dunn announced Thursday that he would run for state controller next year, after abandoning brief campaigns for attorney general and state treasurer when better-known candidates jumped into the races.

Dunn, 47, a Democrat from Santa Ana, terms out next year from the legislative seat he has held since 1998.

Controller Steve Westly has announced he will run for governor in 2006.

In a statement, Dunn touted his chairmanship of a Senate investigation into price-gouging by electricity generators after the state’s energy crisis in 2001.

He said he was the only Democrat to vote “no” on “the tax-dollar giveaway to Enron during our electricity crisis.”

“I will use that same determination to ensure that tax dollars are used for education, jobs and transportation, and not for corporate welfare,” he said in the statement.

Democrats John Chiang, chairman of the state Board of Equalization, and Assemblyman Dario Frommer of Glendale have also announced their candidacy.

Republican candidates include state Sen. Abel Maldonado of Santa Maria and former Assemblyman Tony Strickland of Thousand Oaks.

This would be Dunn’s first run for a statewide office.

Last year, he said he would run for attorney general in 2006, only to have former Gov. Jerry Brown, who is now the mayor of Oakland, enter the race. In April, Dunn dropped his bid for state treasurer after Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer, who had considered running for governor, decided to pursue that seat instead.

Dunn’s Senate resume cites his advocacy for children’s hospitals, emergency services, mobile home park residents and low-cost housing.

His district includes Anaheim, Buena Park, Fullerton, Garden Grove, Santa Ana, Stanton and Westminster.

He has investigated allegations of domestic spying by a unit of the California National Guard and wrote a bill to create a state commission to study how to compensate 400,000 Californians of Mexican descent who were forced to move to Mexico between 1929 and 1944.

The relocation was part of a federal program to send 2 million Latinos to Mexico as a way to end illegal immigration, but U.S. citizens and legal residents of Mexican descent were also deported.