March 17, 2004
By Cynthia E. Griffin, WAVE Community Newspapers

INGLEWOOD -- Believe it or not, Democratic state Sen. Kevin Murray would like to see a few African-American Republicans sitting across the aisle from him in Sacramento.

"But I don't want black Republicans to take away a seat that could be held by black Democrats," said Murray, the chair of the California Black Legislative Caucus. "There is value to having someone from the black experience on the other side. Look at Colin Powell. He is someone who is respected by black liberals.

"And it's significant that Colin Powell made that statement in support of affirmative action. I don't think there is any problem with having vigorous debate on issues, and as much as I'm a dyed-in-the-wood Democrat, I would hope that I'm not so dogmatic that I believe everything should be done down party lines."

Murray made his comments during a discussion of the 25th District Senate race.

In this majority Democratic enclave, incumbent Ed Vincent is facing Republican challenger and political neophyte James Arlandus Spencer. To get into the November general election, the Inglewood businessman was in the unusual position of having to defeat two other African-American Republicans in the March primary.

Spencer collected 47.2 percent of the approximately 17,000 votes cast while his opponents, Brenda Carole Green and Ernest L. Woods, received 6,969 and 2,990 votes, respectively.

The 25th District has 259,314 voters registered in the Democratic, Republican and Libertarian parties. Only 24.6 percent of those residents are members of the GOP.

Yet, despite being outnumbered almost three to one, Spencer, who is making his first bid for political office, seems intensely confident that he has a chance to make a mark against Vincent in November.

"We've lived under the Democratic rule and what [has it] gotten us?" Spencer said. "We have more of our children in jail. Our schools are dilapidated. Our cities are under attack because our elected officials haven't taken care of us.

"It's time for a change, for accountability. They haven't been accountable. They start out at the school board and they didn't do anything for the school district. Look at our school district, it's decaying," added Spencer, who has lived in Inglewood since 1990 and feels the schools have deteriorated significantly since he first moved into the city.

It's so bad that he is educating his children at a charter school.

And the need to do this is part of what inspired him to run for office, said Spencer, who is a co-owner of Environmental Detectives Inc., a hazardous materials consulting firm.

But the father of four was not always a Republican. In fact, he didn't join the party until about three years ago, and it was another friend as well as a professor he met while taking aviation management classes in the military who convinced the Mississippi native to switch political allegiances.

"A good friend from Bangladesh kept telling me my ideas were Republican," Spencer said. "He said ‘James, stop trying to take care of everybody.' And that's what I was trying to do, take care of everybody.

"The only reason I'm a Republican is because the Republican values are the values I like," said Spencer, who describes those values as taking care of ourselves, as opposed to helping everybody, as he said Democrats espouse.

In order to beat Vincent, Spencer intends to concentrate on what he said are the veteran politician's shortcomings — failing educational systems within the district that also are not teaching youth, nor helping them invest in their own development, and economic development that has not benefited enough of the community.

But that may be a tough line to take, said Frank Gilliam, a UCLA political science professor.
"I think the electorate is sophisticated enough to know that problems which affect the urban community are much bigger than any single politician can be held responsible for," Gilliam pointed out. "Urban schools are failing everyone. And the other critical thing in any community is jobs. Again it's very difficult to hold a single politician responsible for that.

"Our president has been trying to argue that he is not accountable for [the lack of jobs in the economic recovery]. So it's pretty hard to hold a single state senator accountable for jobs."

Gilliam said the issue of accountability would have probably been best raised during the primary to be effective and since it wasn't, bringing it up at this juncture would be a waste of time.

The problem is fundamental: It's the numbers, believes Gilliam. "There aren't that many black Republicans out there, somewhere under double digits, and in Inglewood it's about five percent," he said.

Sen. Murray puts it more bluntly: "Sen. Vincent does a good job for his district. I don't think anyone could beat him at this point. There aren't enough Republicans in the district to matter. There aren't enough people who believe in the Republican agenda, which for the most part doesn't mesh with the needs of African Americans. That's not only in the 25th Senate District but in Los Angeles, the state of California and in the country. So having a black Republican on the ballot is relatively meaningless."