Tuesday’s contest to succeed the retiring Sharon Runner in a newly redrawn 21st Senate District is really just a prelude. With only two candidates, the race will be decided in November when the two square off.

Palmdale Republican Steve Knight – son of late Sen. Pete Knight and an assemblyman in his own right – finished first with 68.6 percent of the vote in the heavily conservative district. The remaining 31.4 percent went to Democrat Star Moffatt.

Statewide voters liked the idea of changing California term limits to a total of 12 years in the Legislature. Proposition 28 passed with 61.4 percent of the vote.

But voters rejected a $1 “sin tax” on cigarettes. Proposition 29 took an early lead but fell behind late in the evening. It failed by a narrow 49.2-50.8 margin.

Los Angeles County voters were comfortable with a hotel occupancy or “bed” tax and the extension of a landfill tax or “tipping fees.” The hotel tax passed with a 60.41 vote and the landfill tax continuation won favor with 62.74 percent of the voters.

(See separate stories for Congress, Assembly, Supervisor, District Attorney and Sulphur Springs School Bond Measure CK.)

One of the unusually hot contests this year was the quest for control of the Republican Central Committee seats in the 38th Assembly District, with battle lines drawn between supporters and opponents of Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon. Critics of the current Central Committee leadership (whose members are close to McKeon) say they’d been shut out of decision making processes through parliamentary maneuvers.

The leaders of the McKeon faction – Bob and Lynn Haueter – narrowly lost. The top seven in each party’s election are seated.

Also of note to people who follow such things is the last-place finish of Stephen S. Winker, a onetime Democrat who recently re-registered as a Republican and won a seat last November on the Saugus School Board.

Party Central Committees, 38th AD (FINAL)

Republican:

Democrat: