It's official: Jimmy Panetta, son of Leon, is running for Congress.

After 20 years in Congress, Rep. Sam Farr, D-Carmel, announced Thursday he was retiring and would not seek re-election in 2016. That started the Democratic party machine buzzing, with a vast pool of potential candidates considering whether and when to get into the race. 

Jimmy Panetta is the first of the dems to officially put his name in the ring. He plans to announce his candidacy Tuesday morning in Monterey. 

Panetta is on the gang team as a deputy district attorney at the Monterey County District Attorney's office, and serves on a number of influential local boards.

He's a member of the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary advisory council; the Community Foundation for Monterey County board (disclosure: CMFC is a partner with the Weekly in the current Monterey County Gives! philanthropic campaign); the National Steinbeck Center board of trustees; and the board of the UC Santa Cruz Foundation.

He's the vice chair of the Central Coast Veterans Cemetery Foundation, and was instrumental in fundraising to keep the Fort Ord cemetery viable. 

Panetta is a retired naval intelligence officer, who was deployed to Afghanistan in 2007-08.

Despite the impressive resume, Panetta has just one elected office to his name: He's the current vice chair of the Monterey County Central Democratic Committee. 

When he was sworn in to the Central Committee in 2012, he delivered remarks that sounded a little like a stump speech for higher office: “My dad would always ask, ‘Why did you leave your family, friends and property to come to the unknown?’ I eventually knew the answer by heart: ‘To give you guys a better life,’” Panetta said. 


Following his father, Leon Panetta's, retirement celebration in 2013, Jimmy told the Weekly he was already considering running for Congress.

"Based on who I am and where I am from, and my devotion to public service, it’s clear that’s something I would seriously consider," the younger Panetta said at the time. "But only when the time is right." 

With Farr retiring, the time is right—for him and a potentially large number of Democrats eager for an opportunity to fill a seat that was occupied for two decades by Farr, who never lost an election in his entire career. 

Other Democrats who are considering a run to represent the 20th district in Washington: State Sen. Bill Monning; Assemblyman Luis Alejo; Carmel Mayor Jason Burnett. Others rumored to mulling a run: Assemblyman Mark Stone and Anna Caballero, secretary of the California Business, Consumer Services and Housing Agency and a former Salinas mayor and assemblywoman. 

Farr said last week he would hold off on endorsing a successor for now, and may hold off on weighing in on the primary race entirely. "I'm certainly going to support my party's nominee," he said. 

Whoever it is will likely face off with Casey Lucius, the only Republican whose announced her candidacy for 2016. Lucius is a Pacific Grove city councilwoman, and recently stepped down from her position at the Naval Postgraduate School to focus on her campaign for Congress. 

She served as a professor of national security decision-making at the Naval War College at NPS, after attending school there herself to study national security affairs in the early 2000s. (She's subsequently also resigned from the U.S. Navy.)

As Democrats start announcing this week, Lucius is booked up meeting with supporters (and prospective supporters) in Salinas, Castroville and Santa Cruz. 

For Lucius, Farr's retirement will force her to adjust her campaign messaging. 

"When I decided to run back in June, I thought my opponent would be Congressman Farr. I still thought I had a good shot because I thought people were ready for change and ready for someone new," she says. 

"I think people are eager for new blood and new perspectives."

Now, her opponent can also promise change. But she can stick to her campaign promise that she's not a long-time politician, and that she wants to deliver foreign policy expertise to Washington.  

"[Voters] don’t want an entrenched politician who’s been around a long time," Lucius says. "People are eager for new people. That message still holds."