Democratic Rep. Alan Lowenthal, a longtime elected official in the Long Beach area, announced Thursday that he would not seek a sixth term in California’s 47th Congressional District. The current incarnation of Lowenthal’s constituency, which includes most of Long Beach as well as nearby communities in Los Angeles and Orange counties, is solidly blue turf at 62-35 Biden, though the state’s independent redistricting commission is still completing the new map. Lowenthal, who worked at a psychology professor at California State University-Long Beach, first got seriously involved in politics after the city earned ugly national headlines in 1989 when a police officer was filmed brutally arresting Don Jackson, a Black activist and police sergeant from a nearby community; Jackson had been working with The Today Show to expose racism in the community, and the show’s producers had hidden the cameras that captured him being pushed into a glass window. Read more