GOP Rep. Mike Garcia wins northern L.A. County race, giving Republicans control of the House
Mike Garcia, Republican congressman-elect from California’s 11th Congressional District, wins the 12th Congressional District race, giving Republicans control of the House of Representatives for the first time since 1994.
LOS ANGELES – On the final day of the 2012 election, Republican Congressman-elect Mike Garcia won a northern-L.A.-county race, giving Republicans control of the House for the first time in three decades.
Garcia’s victory Tuesday, making him one of the top two vote-getters in the nation’s most liberal district that has been drawn to take in the western San Fernando Valley. Democrats have won the seat in all three of the decades since it was redrawn to capture the wealthy and heavily Democratic south-central San Fernando Valley.
Garcia was easily re-elected Tuesday to the seat that was held by the late Rep. George Miller, D-San Francisco, until his death in May.
Garcia, a 44-year-old L.A. County commissioner-turned-congressman who was previously the mayor of the San Fernando Valley city of Bell, received 2,906 votes to win his primary in late June. His opponent, Democrat Sal Rosales, a former aide to former Gov. Jerry Brown, received 1,740 votes.
Garcia said after winning the election that he believes in President Barack Obama’s policies and his promises that help the middle-class like providing a tax cut for the middle class. He said he would fight for the people that were not getting government assistance.
“When I got to Congress I was like, ‘If I’m not fighting for them then what the heck are they fighting for?’ ” Garcia said.
Rosales is a lawyer for the California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation, a nonprofit that provides free legal assistance to Californians with legal problems.
Garcia, who was born in Mexico and grew up on the north side of Los Angeles, said he was