A former state insurance commissioner and Clinton administration official, Garamendi had dreamed for decades of becoming governor. But he abandoned that ambition earlier this year to run for an open seat in Congress. He won handily Tuesday, defeating conservative Republican David Harmer by a margin of 53% to 42%.
At 64, he will be one of the House's oldest freshmen, but he doesn't plan to take a back seat.
Rich Pedroncelli, AP
Lt. Gov. John Garamendi and his wife, Patti Garamendi, celebrate his victory on Tuesday.
The contest in the largely suburban district east of San Francisco pitted Garamendi, a progressive Democrat who favors universal health care, against the conservative Harmer, who once called on the government to get out of the business of funding public schools.
"The differences were more clear than in any election I have been in," Garamendi said.
The campaign was largely overshadowed nationally by the upstate New York election in which conservatives drove moderate Republican Dede Scozzafava out of the race but ended up losing to the Democrat, Bill Owens.
Garamendi, who made his support for President Obama's health care program a major part of his campaign, said both Democratic victories represent a triumph for Obama.
"Both congressional elections focused on the national agenda and both were very much about the conservative versus the Obama philosophy," he said. "And in both cases, the progressive policies won."
Garamendi said he was asked by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to fly immediately to Washington. He will be sworn in Thursday by the San Francisco Democrat, whom he has known for 30 years.
He said he hopes the first vote he casts in Congress will be on the House health care bill. That vote could come as early as Friday or Saturday.
Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will name a new lieutenant governor to replace Garamendi. His choice will be subject to confirmation by the Democratic-controlled Legislature.
Tuesday's election in the 10th Congressional District was called to replace seven-term Democratic Rep. Ellen Tauscher, who stepped down earlier this year to take a senior arms control post in the Obama administration. The district went for Obama a year ago by a margin of nearly 2-to-1.
Garamendi, a fixture in California politics, has served as lieutenant governor for nearly three years. He also served two terms as insurance commissioner, 16 years in the Legislature and as deputy secretary of the interior in the Clinton administration.
Democratic strategist Darry Sragow likes to say that if you asked central casting for a governor, you would get Garamendi, a tall, ruggedly handsome former football player who served in the Peace Corps and has a Harvard MBA.
Garamendi entered four campaigns for governor, the first time in 1982 and the last time in 2008. But he never won his party's nomination, in part because he could not raise the many millions of dollars needed to run in the state.
Political reality finally caught up with him when the 10th District seat opened up.
"I feel very comfortable with the change," he said before the election. "I have no illusions. I know I'm not going to be a committee chairman."
Garamendi, who battled insurance companies as insurance commissioner, has long championed single-payer universal health care. As lieutenant governor, he argued for more public spending on universities and helped block offshore oil drilling and the construction of a coastal LNG facility.
After he rashly criticized Schwarzenegger's budget earlier this year, the governor slashed Garamendi's office budget by nearly two-thirds.
Garamendi won the congressional seat despite living outside the East Bay district in tiny Walnut Grove, just across the Sacramento River from the district boundary. To paraphrase Sarah Palin, he can see the district from his house.
There is no law requiring Congress members to live in the district they represent.
Harmer, a 47-year-old lawyer, made a stronger showing than many expected.
A well-spoken conservative who leans Libertarian, Harmer decided to run after he lost his banking job earlier this year when Washington Mutual was swallowed up by JPMorgan Chase.
"I was a casualty of the recession," Harmer said, adding that this election is "a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to put my money where my mouth is."
Well, twice actually, if you count his unsuccessful campaign for Congress in Utah in 1996.
Before moving to Utah in the mid-1990s, he helped draft Proposition 174, a school voucher initiative rejected by California voters in 1993. In 2000, he wrote an article calling on government to "exit the business of running and funding schools."
Campaigning to limit government, Harmer opposed Obama's health care plan and assailed the federal bank bailout and economic stimulus program for driving up the national debt.
At the heart of Garamendi's political career is his marriage to Patti Garamendi, who ran for Congress herself in 1992 and lost. She later served as associate director of the Peace Corps in the Clinton administration. The congressman-elect refers to her in public as "my manager," and her influence on his decisions is legendary in the state Capitol.
As a student at the University of California, Berkeley, in the 1960s, Garamendi was a second-team All-American offensive lineman. Two NFL teams were interested in drafting him but he was already spoken for. He married Patti and they joined the Peace Corps, spending two years in Ethiopia building clinics. It was the inspiration for a life in politics.
"It's been a very good trip," he says. "And it's not over."
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