Boldness vs. experience: race for North Bay state 12th Assembly District seat is tight, intriguing

Squaring off in one of the North Bay’s closest and most intriguing races on Nov. 8 are two “very different people with similar ideologies.”

That’s how Santa Rosa Mayor Chris Rogers describes Sara Aminzadeh and Damon Connolly, a pair of Marin County Democrats vying to represent California’s recently redrawn 12th Assembly District, which includes all of Marin and part of Sonoma County.

Aminzadeh is a lawyer, water policy expert and member of the California Coastal Commission. Connolly is a Marin County Supervisor with deep experience in local government.

Aminzadeh is “an exciting candidate, she’s passionate,” said Rogers. “Damon has more experience. That’s the way this race has shaped up.”

While Rogers has endorsed his friend, Connolly, San Rafael Mayor Kate Colin had a tougher time making up her mind.

Double endorsement

She effuses about Connolly’s “deep understanding of San Rafael issues” — they served on the City Council together — and long record of public service. They share a laugh in a photo splashed across the top of the “Endorsements” section of the Damon Connolly for state Assembly website, but Colin’s name also appears on the list of politicians endorsing Aminzadeh.

After initially declining to endorse Aminzadeh, whom she didn’t know well — “she’s newer on the scene,” said the mayor — Colin found herself highly impressed by the candidate’s “ability to reach residents” and “understand the issues in Marin” and the 12th District.

Colin also appreciated Aminzadeh’s “advocacy around reproductive rights,” and was especially struck by her work on climate change, which includes her service on the Coastal Commission as well as previous leadership positions in the U.S. Water Alliance and Pisces Foundation.

The advocacy group Clean Water Action describes Aminzadeh as “a leading expert on water and water equity” who will “bring extensive experience as an advocate, author, and policymaker to the Capitol.”

After meeting with Aminzadeh, recalls Colin, “I did an unusual thing. I added my endorsement.”

Or would that be half-endorsement, since she didn’t rescind her stamp of approval for Connolly?

That’s unclear. What is certain is that this race is tight, or “hot,” as it has been designated by CalMatters. Connolly and Aminzadeh finished first and second in the June primary election: his 37.1% of the vote to her 36.2%. And lately, notes Colin, “Sara has been coming on strong.”

Often described as the more “exciting” candidate, Aminzadeh has attracted an impressive array of supporters from around the state, including California Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis; U.S. Rep. Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael; U.S. Rep. Katie Porter, D-Irvine; former Grateful Dead guitarist and vocalist Bob Weir, and actress and activist Jane Fonda.

Lynda Hopkins, the only Sonoma County Supervisor endorsing Aminzadeh, met the candidate through her work on the Coastal Commission, and has been dazzled by her “brilliant, creative” approaches problems such as rising sea levels.

Hopkins, a mother of three children under 9 years old, said she also respected Aminzadeh’s habit of taking her then-infant son “up and down the state” to attend Coastal Commission meetings.

“She is a working mom,” said Hopkins. “She understands the struggles of working families, on a personal and professional level.”

Endorsement battles

With a few notable exceptions, Connolly has lined up more local support, which isn’t surprising. He’s the more familiar face. A former California Deputy Attorney General who prosecuted the companies that “gouged our state during the energy crisis of 2000-2001,” according to the Marin County website, he got his start in politics as a school board member, then spent seven years on the San Rafael City Council. Elected to Marin’s Board of Supervisors in 2014, he won a second term in 2018.

Later that year, Connolly was arrested after leaving a holiday party and knocking over a stop sign with his car. He later pleaded guilty to driving with a blood alcohol level above .08%, and was required to pay $1,983, and perform 64 hours of community service.

That incident, for which he delivered a public apology at a meeting of the Supervisors, “to the community and my colleagues,” didn’t seem to seriously wound his political career. The next time Connolly faced voters, in the June primary for the Assembly race, he got 42,917 votes to Aminzadeh’s 41,897.

Nor has he lacked for endorsements. Among Sonoma County politicians lining up behind Connolly are four of its five Supervisors, including David Rabbitt, who has worked extensively with his Marin counterpart on the Metropolitan Transportation Commission and the SMART board of directors, of which Rabbitt is chair.

Rabbitt supports Connolly, he said, because experience in local government, the negotiating and coalition-building, “really matters” at the state level. He also points to the “breadth” of Connolly’s experience on numerous issues including transportation, housing and wildfire prevention.

Rogers remembers getting calls from Connolly during the early morning hours of Oct. 9, 2017, as the Tubbs fire ravaged parts of Santa Rosa. “He was reaching out, asking we needed San Rafael to open up areas where we could evacuate people.”

Rogers also points to Connolly’s extensive experience — “as a school board member, city council member, now supervisor.

“He’s shown himself to be thoughtful on policy, and also understands the needs of the local community.”

Connolly isn’t ceding ground to his rival on environmental issues. He lists himself as a “co-founder” of Marin Clean Energy, the groundbreaking Community Choice Aggregation — think of it as a community buyer’s club for electricity — that launched to customers in 2010.

‘A baller’

Prominently placed on Connolly’s campaign website is a video of his congressman, Huffman, crediting the supervisor for helping launch Marin Clean Energy.

What the site doesn’t mention is that Huffman has endorsed Aminzadeh, lauding her as “a proven environmental leader” who has “dedicated her career to protecting clean air, clean water. And she’s good at it. She’s effective.”

“Sara is a baller,” Healdsburg Vice Mayor Ariel Kelley agreed. “She’s the future. She recognizes the urgency of these issues — climate, wildfires, water availability, water quality — and is ready to meet the moment.”

This race, she said, “comes down to what we want for the future. Do we want an initiator, an activator who’s going to write legislation, or someone who’s going to be a safe, reliable vote for other peoples’ policy?”

To Kate Colin, the conflicted mayor of San Rafael, voters have a choice between two “incredible” candidates.

“I can make arguments for both.”

You can reach Staff Writer Austin Murphy at austin.murphy@pressdemocrat.com or on Twitter @ausmurph88.