UPDATED JUNE 21, 2008. Karen Lorraine Jacqueline Speier, Jackie Speier, (D) won the special election to fill the vacancy on April 8, 2008. She was born May 14, 1950. She is Armenian with a Jewish grandmother who fled Nazi Germany.  She won with 76% of the vote and the district is strongly Democratic.

UPDATE: Incumbent Tom Lantos (D) died on February 11, 2008.

ORIGINAL COMMENT: John Kerry polled 72% of the vote in this district in 2004, and Democrat Tom Lantos, who squeaked by in his first campaign, has been elected easily since 1980.

He is the only Holocaust survivor ever to serve in Congress. He was born in 1928 in Budapest, Hungary, and is Jewish.

Jackie Speier has been my legislator (Board of Supervisors, State Assembly, State Senate and now Congress)for 20+ years. She is the type of politician that everyone should have -- not afraid to speak her mind (check out youtube video for her inaugural speech speaking out against the Iraq war), and she has been a tireless advocate for the consumer and common person -- not big business -- and she's been quite effective at it.