After 10 congressional terms and 19 years in Washington, D.C., Rep. Anna Eshoo says she’s not done yet.
Speaking affectionately about her constituents, Eshoo, D-Palo Alto, announced Monday she will seek re-election next year as her congressional district shifts its borders for the second time during her tenure.
When the 18th District emerges in June 2012, Eshoo will maintain her presence in Santa Clara, San Mateo and Santa Cruz counties, gaining about 200,000 new constituents in Los Gatos, Campbell and some parts of San Jose.
She already has plans to visit each community.
“I think it’s my responsibility that I go out to them … and that they come to know me,” she said Monday afternoon. “At the end of the day, politics is personal.”
Eshoo will also lose cities from her 14th District — her current jurisdiction — such as East Palo Alto, Belmont, Sunnyvale and sections of Menlo Park and Redwood City.
Despite the changes, she said economic development remains a key priority that is relevant to all the communities she represents. And she expects Silicon Valley to continue leading the rest of the nation in science and innovation, noting that more than half of her congressional colleagues have visited her district at some point to seek inspiration.
Though she lost her first bid for Congress in 1988, Eshoo has won each term handily since then. The Menlo Park resident has yet to see any opponents surface for the 18th District election.
As the top Democrat in the House’s communication and technology subcommittee, she is throwing much of her effort into a bill that seeks to establish a wireless broadband network throughout the country for emergency response personnel. Citing the lack of communication resources available to firefighters and police officers after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Eshoo said she hopes to see her subcommittee clear the bill by the 10-year anniversary.
In the early days of her 10-year political career on the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors, she never dreamed of working in Washington, D.C., Eshoo said.
“If someone told me years ago (that I would be a congresswoman), I think I would have laughed them out of the room,” Eshoo said. “There weren’t very many role models. The women of my era, we didn’t have long-term plans for something like this.”
At 68 years old, Eshoo said there is no grand plan for her political future beyond this next term.
“I haven’t set out the time frame,” she said. “A time will come when I make a decision, but I’m not ready for that yet, and I hope my constituents aren’t ready for that yet.”
Email Kristen Marschall at kmarschall@dailynewsgroup.com.
