On June 3rd of this year, voters in California's 26th State Senate District (which covers much of West Los Angeles and the South Bay and includes parts of Central Los Angeles) did something rather remarkable.
In a dual upset, they sent two young, articulate, and unapologetic progressive Democrats, Santa Monica - Malibu Unified School District Board Member/UCLA Law Professor Ben Allen and Social Justice Attorney Sandra Fluke, into a runoff against each other. In doing so, they quite possibly created the first ever general election match-up for major office between two Generation Y/Millennial candidates between Allen (born in 1978) and Fluke (born in 1981).
There are few Millennials in office. We only saw the first Democratic Millennials elected to Congress in 2012 (there are six total in Congress) and given the crushing economic burdens and environmental problems we face, we need far more). Generally, what few Millennial politicians who hold public office fall into the following three categories: (1) they come from political families with big names, (2) they come from very wealthy backgrounds, or (3) both. But what makes this runoff all the more remarkable is that both Allen and Fluke do not fall into any of these categories.
On election night as the results, completely unexpected by most political observers, became clear, I had this feeling of joy. I realized that the voters of West and Central Los Angeles had rewritten the script. They decided not only to vote for unapologetic liberals but more fundamentally, they made the decision to hand over the keys of government power to the Millennial Generation.
Of course, with this remarkable result, comes the difficult decision. Which one of these two incredible, talented, intelligent, and promising young progressive leaders do I vote for in the general election?
I've decided on Ben Allen.
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