‘I’m not that kooky’: Josh Newman trades bear suit for sport coat as new senator

Josh Newman’s office shows all the signs of a lawmaker in transition on his first day at the Capitol: Bare walls. Stacked boxes. A stream of well-wishers.

The bear suit in the corner, however, is unusual.

The interim staff helping Newman move put it there as both a joke and a testament to the Fullerton Democrat’s underdog victory just a week ago in the traditionally Republican 29th Senate District. After first appearing in a YouTube ad in which a buoyant grizzly bear waves a campaign sign on a street corner, the costume now sits stuffed with newspapers on a chair in the reception area, like a lobbyist awaiting his meeting about a very important bill.

“I’m not sure that will stay here,” Newman said. The staff have been informed by the sergeant-at-arms that no one is allowed to wear it in the building.

Besides, Newman is hoping to distance himself a bit from the unconventional tactics that he worries may have given Sacramento the wrong idea about him and how he beat a sitting Republican assemblywoman, Ling Ling Chang of Diamond Bar, for this seat encompassing parts of Orange, Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties.

He’s worn the bear suit “exactly three times,” he said, primarily to test that it wasn’t too hot for the campaign staff that sported it at events across the district. “I’m not that kooky.”

The bigger question now facing Newman, and his caucus, is what becomes of the two-thirds supermajority that Senate Democrats clinched last Monday when his race was finally called after weeks of counting. The margin was fewer than 2,500 votes. Read more >>>