SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. – In a blow to both credit unions and Democrats, a former executive at Arrowhead Central CU failed in yesterday’s congressional primary to qualify for November’s general election despite unprecedented support from credit unions’ first “Super PAC”.
Democrat Pete Aguilar, the mayor of Redlands and the former head of government affairs at Arrowhead, came in third in the non-partisan race in which the top two candidates qualify for the November contest. With 100% of precincts reporting, Republican Gary Miller, the current incumbent in the state’s 42nd District and Republican State Sen. Bob Dutton, were the top two vote-getters in a redrawn congressional district widely expected to be won by a Democrat.
In the state’s new non-partisan system, candidates from both parties run against each other in the primary and the top two finishers qualify for the general election, even if they are from the same party, as happened in the Aguilar race.
The final vote showed Miller with 26.7%; Dutton with 24.9% and Aguilar with 22.8%.
Aguilar’s defeat came even after the California CU League created a so-called Super PAC, allowed to accept unlimited corporate corporate donations, on his behalf and used it to finance get-out-the-vote initiatives and other campaign activities. The Super PAC, called Restoring Our Community, had raised $325,000 on behalf of Aguilar, $250,000 from an April 27 check from the California league, the rest from the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians, a 200-member tribe that runs a casino in near the city of Redlands.
There was good news for credit unions in other races, particularly the state’s new 30th House district where Democrat Brad Sherman, who has emerged as one of the strongest congressional supporters for credit unions, qualified for the November election along with another long-time incumbent he was forced to run against, Democrat Howard Berman.
