Openly Lesbian San Diego Candidate Chosen by 43,780 Voters “We’re Thrilled to be the Democratic Nominee” She Says

SAN DIEGO -- Lesbian Democratic Congressional candidate Christine Kehoe snagged 40.67 percent of the vote to incumbent Republican Rep. Brian Bilbray's 53.03 percent in California's June 2 open primary election.

Kehoe received 43,780 votes; Bilbray, 57,091. The two will face off again in the November general election. 

Kehoe was elected to the San Diego City Council as an open lesbian in 1993 and re-elected in 1996 with 78.9 percent of the vote. She is prevented from continuing on the City Council past the year 2000 by term-limit laws. 

"We're thrilled to be the Democratic nominee here in San Diego," Kehoe told [name of this publication] on the floor of Election Central Tuesday night. "I'm very proud and I'd love to have all the gay community's support. Send me good vibes, work hard in your own communities, and you can help me out by donating money or even coming in here and doing some precincts for us. Our phone number is (619) 275-1998.

"We've always been focused on November," Kehoe said. "This was an all-volunteer primary. We didn't spend any money on mail, we didn't spend any money on phoning, and we have really focussed all our resources on November. The bottom line is, we've not yet begun to fight. ... Fundraising has been strong, we've been very focussed on it; in fact, we outraised the incumbent in the last reporting period, so that won't change. We're still going to be aggressive.

"There will be a bigger pool of voters in November," Kehoe added. "And when the voters look at Brian's record and see what he has not done, I think it's going to be a problem for them. He's voted against Social Security time after time, he's voted against Medicare, school-lunch programs, Head Start, a woman's right to choose. ... We need to look at what he's done for San Diego besides voting against education, student loans, besides voting against the budget for the Environmental Protection Agency, besides voting against the National Endowment for the Arts. ... It's a matter of getting the word out and comparing our two records. I think I've been more consistent in the time I've been in office versus the 20 years he's been flip-flopping.

"We have a lot of broad-based support: Labor, Emily's List, the National Jewish Democratic Conference, the California Banker's Association," Kehoe said. "We're excited and thrilled. This is going to be a race that the whole country will be watching. It's one of the most competitive congressional races in the U.S. We believe this district wants a pro-choice, pro-education, pro- environment member of Congress instead of a right-winger – and that's where we're going to go."

There has never been an open lesbian in Congress and the four  gay men who have served -- Barney Frank, Steve Gunderson, Jim  Kolbe and Gerry Studds -- were not out-of-the-closet when  first elected. For now, Kehoe already can lay claim to being the first out lesbian to receive a major party's Congressional nomination.
 

Rex Wockner's weekly international news reports dating back to May 1994 can be searched at http://www.wockner.com. The reports in their original form are archived at http://www.qrd.org/qrd/www/world/wockner.html, which also archives Wockner's Quote Unquote column and some of his longer gay-press articles.