The Ventura County Democratic Central Committee has elected former congressional candidate Jill Martinez as its new chairwoman, replacing Oxnard attorney Joe O'Neill, who resigned in order to accommodate a new position teaching constutional law.

The move comes as the party faces a potentially unsettling primary season next year. Already an intense primary campaign is unfolding in the 35th Assembly District, where Susan Jordan and Das Williams each raised about $125,000 in the first half of the year in preparation for a spirited campaign to replace termed-out Assemblyman Pedro Nava.

The seeds for another potential primary fight in the 37th Assembly District -- in which incumbent Republican Audra Strickland will also be termed out -- were also planted at this week's central committee meeting.

Newbury Park schoolteacher Ferial Masry, the three-time party standard-bearer in the Assembly district elections, returned from an extended trip abroad and announced she intends to be a candidate for a fourth time in 2010. Another candidate, Pleasant Valley School District trustee Warren Harwood, has already declared his candidacy. And a third potential candidate, UCLA Prof. Ernest Morrell of Westlake Village, has also expressed interest in running, say party sources.

Fresh off winning a Senate campaign in which an eye-popping $11 million was raised and spent, Sen. Tony Strickland of Moorpark hasn't cooled off his fundraising machine.

Reports filed with the secretary of state show that in the first six months of his new four-year term, Strickland raised $262,096, or about $1,500 day. He also continued to spend freely, paying out $158,735, much of it in contributions to other Republican candidates.

He took in 215 separate contributions, 152 of which were for $1,000 or more. Most of the checks were from businesses and business groups, many in the healthcare, insurance and financial services industry. Although criticized during the campaign for accepting contributions from the tobacco industry, Strickland hasn't changed his policy. He received a combined $6,400 from two cigarette-makers.

Although his wife, Assemblywoman Audra Strickland, has a committee to raise money for an office that will actually be contested in 2010, she was far less active on the fundraising front. Her committee for secretary of state raised slightly more than $50,000 and ended June with $39,000 in the bank.

The two Stricklands combined paid longtime family friend and legislative staff employee Joel Angeles $12,000 in political consulting fees. Angeles is preparing for a trial on battery charges stemming from an incident last summer outside a Westlake Village fundraiser for Sen. Strickland.

Ventura County's other freshman senator, Fran Pavley, D-Agoura Hills, was relatively inactive in raising campaign money during her first six months on the job. She took in $34,000, paid out $51,000, transfered $70,000 from her old committee, and ended the period with $53,000 in the bank.

There is a possibility that Pavley and Strickland could be pitted against each other in 2012, depending on how new Senate district maps are drawn by an independent commission following the 2010 census.

One other bit of fundraising news: Democratic Assemblyman Pedro Nava of Santa Barbara, among a crowded field of candidates seeking the party nomination for attorney general in 2010, raised $227,000. The combined cash balances of his two active political committees is slightly more than $250,000. He has his work cut out; even a modest campaign for statewide office could cost $2 million or more.

Here on my desk, printed from the machine in the back of the Assembly chamber at 2:57 p.m. on July 24, is a roll call vote that the California Assembly wants to pretend doesn't exist. It is the vote on AB 23, the measure that would have paved the way for the first offshore oil drilling project in state waters in 40 years.

After the bill failed, the Assembly leadership had the vote expunged from the official record. What that means in practice is that it will make it impossible in the future for political campaigns to cite an official record of the vote in order to attack an opponent over his or her vote for or against offshore oil.

But the record hardly disappears because the Assembly says it should. You could go here, for instance, to watch a clip of the floor debate on the bill.

And, for the unofficial record, here's the roll call:

AYES (28) -- Adams, Anderson, Arambula, B. Berryhill, T. Berryhill, Blakeslee, Calderon, Conway, Cook, DeVore, Duvall, Emmerson, Fuller, Gaines, Garrick, Gilmore, Hagman, Jeffries, Knight, Logue, Miller, Nestande, Niello, Nielsen, Silva, Smyth, Tran, Villines.

NOES (43) -- Ammiano, Beall, Blumenfield, Brownley, Buchanan, Caballero, Carter, Chesbro, Coto, De la Torre, DeLeon, Eng, Evans, Feuer, Fong, Fuentes, Furutani, Gagliani, Hayashi, Hill, Huber, Huffman, Jones, Krekorian, Lieu, Lowenthal, Ma, Mendoza, Monning, Nava, J. Perez, V.M. Perez, Portantino, Ruskin, Salas, Saldana, Skinner, Strickland, Swanson, Torlakson, Torres, Torrico, Yamada.

NOT VOTING (8) -- Block, Davis, Fletcher, Hall, Harkey, Hernandez, Solorio, Madame Speaker (Bass).