For the right to represent Long Beach in Congress, HB Mayor Debbie Cook says she’s ready to take on Rohrabacher the invisible

ILLUSTRATION by LUKE MCGARRY

The joggers and dog-walkers from nearby McMansions are doing their daily laps around the golfers at Recreation Park, and Debbie Cook seems to fit right in as she arrives at the Redeye Coffee House in a whispering crimson Prius, orders a non-everything somethingorother, and explains why she ought to represent them—the joggers, walkers and golfers—in Congress. The short version: because Dana Rohrabacher isn’t.

Eastern and coastal Long Beach hasn’t had a vote of its own in the House of Representatives since 2001, when state legislators chopped up the city and parceled 20 percent of it into the 46th District of Orange County Republican Dana Rohrabacher. The electoral surgery was a bipartisan deal to protect incumbents, and it has worked. Rohrabacher doesn’t need to worry about Long Beach to be re-elected—it’s only about 12 percent of his district—leaving him free to pander to his base of conservative wingnuts behind the Orange Curtain. That means spending most of his time cheering for more torture of detainees and denying global warming.

On Nov. 4, voters will get a chance to change that, and Cook—assuming she gets through the June 3 primary—plans to give them a choice. Cook isn’t a perfect fit in Long Beach, either: She’s mayor of Huntington Beach. But Long Beach support is essential to her chances of overcoming Rohrabacher (who has captured 60 percent of the vote in the last three elections) and she makes a good case for deserving it.

“I would do a much better job of representing Long Beach’s interests,” Cook says forcefully, and not only because an espresso machine is screaming behind the counter. “I know Long Beach issues through my work with the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG). I’m more of a regional thinker. I’ve never paid attention to party affiliations. Wasn’t it [legendary New York City Mayor] Fiorello LaGuardia who said there is no Democrat or Republican way of filling potholes? We need help in Congress because this area does not get its fair share of federal dollars. We are a donor region—we pay more in taxes than we receive—and it is a major complaint of local governments.”

Granted, the disenfranchisement of the 46th District under Rohrabacher doesn’t really look all that bad on a sunny morning drive through some of Long Beach’s best-manicured neighborhoods and hippest business districts. Maybe everybody in town ought to be this unrepresented.

Fact is, just about everybody is. The Long Beach corridor that is gerrymandered into Rohrabacher territory consists of most of the city’s shared identity—its long beach, for starters. Also the Port of Long Beach, downtown Long Beach, the Queen Mary and Aquarium of the Pacific, Long Beach State, the Los Cerritos Wetlands and the Long Beach Breakwater.

Blunted by nine terms in congress, Rohrabacher doesn’t give a shit about any of that. He barely makes secret his apathy for Long Beach. Fifth District City Councilmember Gerrie Schipske witnessed that last year when she was part of a Long Beach delegation that traveled to Washington, D.C., to meet with Rohrabacher.

“He told us, ‘Don’t expect me to carry your water,’” recalls Schipske, who went public with the diss on her blog. Rohrabacher denied making the statement, but Schipske is adamant. “He denied he said it, but he said it.”

Cook was reluctant to comment directly on that report, but it doesn’t surprise her.

“That’s the experience we’ve had with Dana, too—whether in local government or just as citizens in his district,” Cook says. “He’s got whatever he believes in, and if you fall outside of that he doesn’t have time for you, doesn’t listen to you, doesn’t know how to collaborate.”

Rohrabacher has consistently rejected pleas from Long Beach to petition the federal government to study the feasibility of reconfiguring the Long Beach Breakwater, even when the City Council voted last July to pay for the study with $100,000 of local money. The study can’t happen without Rohrabacher’s petition.

“What’s the harm in studying the issue,” wonders Cook, whose support for efforts to discern the potentially harmful effects of the Long Beach Breakwater goes back at least 15 years, “if it’s going to help Long Beach and the economy?”

At this early stage of the race, Cook’s fight is merely to become viable—campaign code for raising lots of money.

“It’s unfortunate but true that I won’t be able to get the support and endorsements I need unless I am seen as a viable candidate—and what gets the attention of most organizations is money,” says Cook, who wants to raise $1 million. “Especially in a district where most people think the Republican incumbent is safe. I hate asking the people of Long Beach for money, but that’s what I am doing.”

But if her candidacy is successful and she ultimately becomes the congresswoman from the 46th District, Cook foresees a day when she might not be asking Long Beach for money—when the city might have its own congress-ional district again.

“If I were in Congress, I would encourage redistricting in much more equitable ways,” she says. “People in Long Beach—people everywhere—need to be represented by officials who share their concerns, and that means officials who have to fight hard to keep their seats.”

Tags: 46th district, Congress, dana rohrabacher, Debbie Cook, Huntington Beach, Long Beach