Follow LA Observed on Twitter here
This year's showdown in the Valley between Reps. Howard Berman and Brad Sherman does more than just echo the 1980 fight in Sacramento when Berman tried to unseat fellow Democrat Leo McCarthy as Speaker of the Assembly. As Dan Walters points out in his Sacramento Bee blog, Jerry Brown is governor again and helping Berman like he did in '80. Willie Brown became speaker out of that earlier fight. The scars over that battle have continued as a sore spot between Bay Area Democrats and the L.A. Dems who look to Berman and Rep. Henry Waxman for succor. "McCarthy's friends are busily raising money for [Sherman]...seeing it as payback for what happened 32 years earlier," Walters writes.
Campaign 2012
Berman-Sherman reminds him of earlier speakership fight
More by Kevin Roderick:
Gustavo Arellano, many others join LA Times staffPower out Monday across Malibu
Put Jamal Khashoggi Square outside the Saudi consulate on Sawtelle
Here's who the LA Times has newly hired*
LA Observed Notes: Clippers hire big-time writer, unfunny Emmys, editor memo at the Times and more
Recent Campaign 2012 stories on LA Observed:
Cost of Berman-Sherman campaign: $16.3 millionNow that's close: Measure J falls 0.56 percent short
Santa Monica mayor resigns, heads to Sacramento
Measure J edges closer to (but not over) 2/3
Richard Bloom's lead grows in Westside Assembly race
How Mayor Bloomberg used gun control to unseat SoCal congressman
Gay vote may have tipped election to Obama
Republican Dan Lungren loses seat in Congress