Sen. Baca Wins Race to Finish Brown’s Term

State Sen. Joe Baca (D-Rialto) defeated Republican businessman Elia Pirozzi on Tuesday night in a special election to replace the late Rep. George E. Brown Jr., who had held the seat since 1972.

With almost all of the ballots counted, Baca had 22,766 votes, or 51.7%, and Pirozzi had 19,194 votes, or 43.6%. The remaining votes were split between two minor party candidates. Voter turnout in the single-issue election was 18.2%.

“We have worked really hard and I think we are where we should be,” Baca said in downtown San Bernardino, where about 100 supporters gathered.

Brown, 79, was the longest-serving member of California’s congressional delegation when he died in July of complications after heart surgery. The victor will complete the Democratic veteran’s unexpired term until the November 2000 general elections.

The 42nd Congressional District’s voter registration numbers favored Democrats over Republicans by about 52% to 33%. Both sides had braced themselves for low voter turnout and said the key to victory would be in targeting voters most likely to cast ballots.

Baca, a former community college trustee, was elected to the state Assembly in 1992 and to the state Senate in 1998. He had long coveted Brown’s congressional seat, and earned his runoff spot in Tuesday’s election by defeating Brown’s widow, Marta Macias Brown, in a bruising primary election in September.

Pirozzi, a Rancho Cucamonga attorney who owns a residential real estate mortgage business, faced scant competition in his party’s primary. He lost a race against Brown for the congressional seat last year in his first bid for public office.

Among the issues going into the election was whether Baca would be able to mend fences with Democrat Party activists who had supported Marta Brown in the primary. Republicans, on the other hand, hoped that the Democratic Party remained fractured from the primary election.

Baca, who drew heavily on the support of organized labor, is considered more conservative--particularly on issues such as gun control--than the late Brown, a longtime liberal who in recent elections had narrowly avoided defeat. Baca said his political experience in Sacramento prepared him for promotion to Congress.

Pirozzi, a conservative Republican, labeled Baca a career politician who did little for his constituents while in Sacramento. He promised to better represent the interests of small business owners.