Brownley Wins Assembly Seat

By Jorge Casuso

June 7 -- With a little more than half of the votes counted, School Board member Julia Brownley declared victory in the race for state assembly shortly after midnight Tuesday.

Brownley -- one of five candidates running in the 41st Assembly District, which includes Santa Monica -- thanked her supporters gathered at a local restaurant on Broadway.

"I never thought I'd get to this moment," Brownley said. "This is an incredible moment.

"It's been an incredible journey," she added. "Winning is really, really sweet, and I'm beginning to taste that sweetness of success."

The final tallies, which came in after 2 a.m., showed Brownley the winner with with 11,380 votes, or 35 percent, followed by Calabassas Mayor Barry Groveman with 8,734 votes, or 27 percent.

Jonathan Levey, a school teacher from Santa Monica, finished third, with 6,587 votes, or 20 percent, followed by fellow Santa Monican, Kelly Hayes-Raitt with 4,873 votes, or 15 percent. Santa Monica resident Shawn C. O’Brien finished a distant fifth with 1,057 vote, or 3 percent.

Brownley’s camp was confident early on.

With just a quarter of the votes counted, campaign manager Dennis Zane announced the early tallies showing Brownley up by 7 percent, following Groveman’s numbers with the comment, “Barry, rest in peace.”

Zane again pronounced Groveman dead when 50 percent of the votes had been counted.

Brownley’s camp made little effort to mend bridges burned in the contentious race that saw the five candidates spend a combined total of more than $2 million.

Brownley will face Republican Tony Dolz and Libertarian Conrad Stefan Frankowski in the November general election.

The winner will replace Assembly member Fran Pavley, who was termed out of the seat that runs from Venice to Oxnard.