Sharon Runner announces candidacy for her husband’s former Senate seat

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Former state Assemblywoman Sharon Runner, a Republican from Lancaster, announced Wednesday that she is a candidate for the state Senate seat vacated this week by her husband.

Sen. George Runner was elected in November to the state tax board and stepped down from the Legislature on Tuesday.

Sharon Runner, 56, said she resigned Wednesday from her post as a member of the state Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board so she could run for the Senate in a special election scheduled for Feb. 15.

She touted her legislative experience, noting that, with the state facing a budget shortfall, she formerly served on the Assembly Budget Committee.

‘I am running,’ she said. ‘I am ready to go. I don’t have to learn anything new. I can hit the ground running, so I think it’s just an opportune time for me to step in there and fill the shoes of the former senator.’

One person who had been seen as a potential contender, Assemblyman Steve Knight (R-Palmdale), said Wednesday that he has decided to stay in the seat he was just reelected to and is endorsing Runner in the Senate race.

‘Sharon showed what she can do in the Assembly,’’ said Knight, whose district significantly overlaps the Senate district.

Sharon Runner served in the Assembly from 2002 to 2008, having been elected to a seat previously held by her husband.

In 2008, she was diagnosed with limited scleroderma, which had impaired her breathing to the point that she was placed on a list to receive a lung transplant.

But Runner said that treatment, including medication, worked well and that her condition would not hurt her ability to serve again in the Legislature.

‘My lungs have gotten better. I’m not on the transplant list anymore,’ she said.

-- Patrick McGreevy