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 Lesbian Calif. Senator Has Leukemia
by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff
Posted: May 24, 2007 - 11:00 am ET
(San Francisco, California) State Sen. Carole
Migden (D-San Francisco) has disclosed she is suffering from leukemia.
Migden made the disclosure to the San Francisco
Chronicle in an interview over a bizarre incident on a highway that sent one
person to hospital and is under investigation by the Highway Patrol.
Migden was the subject of a number of 911 calls
as she reportedly drove her state-issued SUV erratically long Interstate 80 last
week. The vehicle bounced off the concrete median at least once, nearly ran
several motorists off the road and then slammed into the back of another car
sending the driver to hospital.
"I don't have a recollection of what
happened. I can only conclude I had a medical event I can't explain. It's not
an excuse; it may be an explanation," Migden told the Chronicle.
She said she had been diagnosed with leukemia in 1997
but was told by her doctors in February that she was cancer-free. Still,
she said, she still takes six
chemotherapy pills a day.
Asked by the paper why she had not mentioned the
illness before, she told that Chronicle, "I didn't want to be pitied."
Migden, 58, was one of the first gays elected to
the legislature, after having served on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.
She has a reputation for being short tempered and
for exhibiting headline grabbing behavior.
In one incident, in 2005, Migden walked onto the Assembly floor
during a vote on a bill she was backing and pushed the
voting button of a Republican lawmaker while he was away from his desk.
Last year following a homophobic remark about
gay pride by a GOP Assembly member she walked onto the floor and flipped up
the microphone of a Democrat, indicating she expected him to respond to the
slur.
In March, Assemblymember Mark Leno announced he
will challenge Migden in the June 2008 Democratic primary. It pits two of
California's most powerful and popular gay politicians against one another in a
race likely to divide the LGBT community.
Under term limits Leno will be unable to run for
his assembly seat in 2008. Migden is eligible to stay in office until 2012,
unless she is defeated.
Both are members of the LGBT Caucus at the
Capitol. In the past both have worked together in passing gay rights
legislation.
©365Gay.com 2007
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