Oakland Ex-Mayor in Assembly Runoff

Former Mayor Elihu Harris faces a runoff election March 30 for his old state Assembly seat.

Harris, the top vote-getter Tuesday among Democrats, faces Audie Elizabeth Bock of the Green Party in March. Harris won 48.8% of the votes to Bock’s 8.7%.

Harris beat out fellow Democrats Frank D. Russo, a lawyer who finished with 36.3% of the votes, and Enrique Palacios, an educator who had 6.1%. Harris needed at least a majority to avoid a runoff.

The 16th Assembly District seat became open when incumbent Don Perata was elected to the state Senate in September.

Harris, who was an assemblyman from 1978 to 1990 before serving as mayor of Oakland for two terms, is the best-known candidate.

All three Democrats ran on promises of better schools. Harris said he wants the Legislature to set a goal of having all children read at grade level by the third grade.

The election drew only a fifth of the Oakland-Piedmont-Alameda district’s 189,724 registered voters. That made the island city of Alameda, population 70,000, a key spot, because people there are more likely to vote.