Ellen Tauscher (D., Calif.) resigned her seat in the U.S. House of Representatives to join the U.S. State Department. A “blanket primary” for her seat will be held September 1. If one candidate gets a majority, then the general election will be cancelled; if not, the top two candidates will run in an election held on Nov. 3.

There are a lot of Democrats, including Lt. Gov. John Garamendi, and a few lesser-known Republicans running in a district that leans pretty heavily Democratic.

This point in an e-mail from candidate Adriel Hampton amused me: “I’m fighting hard for a new kind of politics, but I feel like a bit of a slacker. Here’s Lt. Gov. John Garamendi with campaign accounts open for Governor, Lt. Governor, and Congress, Senator [Mark] DeSaulnier running for two seats, and Assemblywoman Joan Buchanan doing the same.”

UPDATE: One of the names on the Republican side is David Harmer, an attorney and businessman who is the son of former California state senator and lieutenant governor John Harmer. A guy plugged in with his operation notes that he’s teamed up with some of the people who led Proposition 8 last year, and the thinking is that he would only need about 34,000 votes in that area to win a special election. Of course, since the district leans Democrat, holding it past 2010 would be a bit more of a challenge . . .