Assembly Seat Won by Green Party
OAKLAND — Green Party candidate Audie Elizabeth Bock pulled off a narrow upset as she won the 16th Assembly District seat over former Oakland Mayor Elihu Harris in a runoff election Tuesday.
With all 153 precincts reporting, Bock had 14,357 votes, or 50.5% of the vote. Harris had 14,065 votes, or 49.4%.
Harris, who held the Assembly seat before he served as mayor for two terms, defeated fellow Democrats Frank D. Russo and Enrique Palacios to face Bock in the runoff.
The 16th Assembly District seat became open when incumbent Don Perata was elected to the state Senate in September.
Bock is a part-time community college teacher.
The election was seen by San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown and some other African American leaders as a crucial battleground in efforts to boost the number of blacks in the Assembly, especially with a veteran like Harris, who served there from 1978 to 1990.
When he left, the 80-member chamber had six other African Americans. Today, it has four, all from the Los Angeles area.
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