Sheila James Kuehl, a member of Harvard's Board of Overseers, won the Democratic primary in her California state senate district by a 2-to-1 margin Tuesday night.

The 23rd Senate District includes Beverly Hills, West Hollywood and part of Los Angeles. It is strongly Democratic, and Kuehl is widely expected to beat Republican Daniel B. Rego in November. If she wins, Kuehl will become the first openly gay state senator in California.

Kuehl, a three-term member of the state assembly who was endorsed by Gov. Gray Davis, was challenged in the primary by Wally Knox, another state assembly representative.

"It was very hard fought," said Kuehl of the primary campaign, where she spent $1.2 million. "But it was a lopsided win."

David J. Bender, a long-time friend of Kuehl's who talked with her throughout the campaign, said her strong ties to leaders in state government helped her campaign.

"[Kuehl] made it clear she was very much a part of the Democratic leadership," said Bender, who is also a contributing editor at George magazine. "She would come in with a lot of clout with the governor and that's important for any legislator."

In the assembly, Kuehl worked on health care reform, water pollution and child support, among other issues.

Last fall, she negotiated a health maintenance organization reform package with the governor. She then sponsored a measure in the assembly giving patients the right to sue their HMOs under certain circumstances.

In the senate, though, she said she plans to focus on school finance.

"That's a thorny issue," she said. "No one can understand how the schools have so much money and seem to not have enough money."

Kuehl, who was first elected to the state assembly in 1996, was the first openly gay member of the legislature.

"It's not exactly lovely," she said. "It makes you sort of a focal point."

Her primary victory came the same day that Californians voted 3-to-2 in favor of Proposition 22, a measure banning recognition of gay marriages performed in other states. Currently no state licenses gay marriages.

"They chose the most extreme part of their own agenda," she said of the supporters of Proposition 22. "And phrased it in a way that it sounded very reasonable to people."

But she said that she will pursue other issues important to the gay community, like equal benefits for partners.

"They just didn't want us to marry," she said. "So now we're just going to legislate everything else."

The Harvard Connection

Kuehl's Harvard connections go back more than two decades.

She graduated from Harvard Law School in 1978--the year she organized an event called "Celebration 25," commemorating the 25th anniversary of 13 female students becoming the first women to graduate from the law school.

The Celebration event has been held every five years since, except in 1983, and the last event attracted about 500 law school alumni. Kuehl will chair "Celebration 50" in 2003.

Members of Harvard's Gay and Lesbian Caucus actively campaigned for Kuehl's election to the Board of Overseers, and Robert W. Mack '71, former co-chair of the caucus, said the group "alerted its members" to Kuehl's candidacy this year.

After graduating from the law school, Kuehl was a law professor at Loyola, the University of California-Los Angeles and the University of Southern California.

She founded the California Women's Law Center in 1989, which allowed her to appear before legislative committees to urge stronger laws on domestic abuse, sparking her governmental interest.

"You quickly learn if you sit there and watch any committee hearings, 'I can do that,'" she said.

Kuehl has missed several meetings of the Board of Overseers recently because of the campaign but said she plans to continue her work on the board's committee on the social sciences.

Under California's term limits laws, Kuehl could not have run again for state assembly. The state senator she expects to replace in the fall, Tom Hayden, has also reached his term limit.

The official results of the primary were: Kuehl, 92,298 votes (64 percent); Wally Knox, 53,045 votes (36 percent). Rego received all 32,015 votes in the Republican primary.