Congressional candidate Peter Hankwitz (he's the Republican running against Rep. Brad Sherman) has a bad memory or an over-active hype gland. In a post at The Hill Blog, Hankwitz argues that the San Fernando Valley doesn't get its fair share of services: "In 2002, this bipartisan issue became so acute that the Valley residents actually voted overwhelmingly to secede from the City of Los Angeles." Actually they supported secession by the barest of margins. Secession received 50.77% of the vote within the Valley, and only received a majority west of the San Diego Freeway. It lost in the home of the secession movement, Sherman Oaks, and just about everywhere east of the 405. In fact, when you look at it Valley voters didn't seem all that excited by the whole idea: the voter percentage turnout was less than for the state of California as a whole.