Audie Bock
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Audie Elizabeth Bock (born October 15, 1946) is an American politician who served in the California State Assembly from 1999 to 2000. She was elected in 1999 as a Green Party member during a special election for Oakland's 16th Assembly District, but switched to the Democratic Party after the 2000 election.
Bock was elected to the Assembly in a 1999 special election after the mid-term resignation of U.S. Congressman Ron Dellums. Dellums' resignation caused a number of special elections that resulted in the ascension of State Senator Barbara Lee to Dellums' Congressional seat (she had been Dellums' former chief of staff), and the rise of State Assemblyman Don Perata to Lee's Senate seat. The special election was the last in a series of five special elections in twelve months known as the special election musical chairs.
Bock won the 1999 election by a combination of circumstances. Although she received less than 9% of the vote in the February 2 special election for Perata's assembly seat, no candidate received 50 percent of the vote; this caused a runoff among the top-vote getter from each political party. Bock was helped by a lackluster campaign and a scandal involving her Democratic opponent, former Assemblyman and former Oakland mayor Elihu Harris, who had received nearly 49% of the vote in the first election. Harris sent targeted mailers to households in selected precincts, mostly African American, urging voters to vote for him and receive a fried chicken meal if they presented a voting stub at selected supermarkets. There was voter backlash because of the perception of vote buying (although paying people for voting was and is still legal in California) and that the tactic had a subtext of racism [1].
In the 2000 election, Bock left the Green Party and ran as an Independent because of her inability to work with the Greens and a controversy about her acceptance of $500 campaign contributions from Chevron and Tosco (the Green Party rejects the acceptance of corporate donations). Officially, Bock claimed that it was a "tactical move" to avoid having to run in the March 2000 primary, though she could have expected to be unopposed, which at the time was an blanket primary and as such could show the actual percentage supporting her instead of the candidates from the other political parties. Shortly after losing the November 2000 election to Wilma Chan, Bock re-registered as a Democrat.
After September 11, 2001, Bock announced her run against Barbara Lee in the 2002 primary as a Democrat, arguing that Lee's vote against the war in Afghanistan was unpatriotic. She later withdrew from the race before the filing deadline.
In 2003, Bock ran for Governor of California in the 2003 California recall. On a right-wing website, she urged Democrats to vote to recall Gray Davis. Bock received 3,358 votes.
[edit] Non-political career
Aside from her involvement in politics, Bock is a film scholar and has had small roles in various movies. She is a single mother of one daughter.
In 1978, she published what was considered for a long time to be one of the best resources on Japanese cinema, Japanese film directors (ISBN 0-87011-304-6). She also translated Akira Kurosawa's partial autobiography, Something Like An Autobiography (ISBN 0-394-71439-3), which was published in 1983 by Vintage International.
[edit] External links
| Political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Don Perata |
California State Assemblymember 16th district 1999-2000 |
Succeeded by Wilma Chan |
