James W. Mandeville

CA Blue Book (2000)

Date	Party	Office	Votes	Result
11-02-1852	Democratic	AD-09	0	Win
10-08-1853	Democratic	AD-09	0	Win
09-06-1854	Democratic	SD-07	0	Win
09-05-1855	Democratic	SD-07	0	Win
11-04-1856	Democratic	SD-07	0	Win
09-02-1857	Democratic	Controller	57048	Win
09-04-1867	Democratic	SD-12	0	Win
11-03-1868	Democratic	SD-12	0	Win
09-07-1875	Democratic	Controller	57064	Win

Candidate Biography:

Born: 1824 in Coventry, New York
Died (in office): February 4, 1876

1854: Speaker pro Tem, California State Assembly
1856: Candidate for Senate President Pro Tem (Lost; 14 to 16)
1857: Resigned from the State Senate on July 24.
1858: Declined to serve the Controller term to which he had been elected.
1858-1859: US Surveyor General for the District of California
1860s-1870s: CA State Commissioner of Immigration
1870: Resigned from the State Senate on April 15.

• At the beginning of the 1854 session, Mandeville commented that it was unnecessary to elect a permanent Speaker pro Tem, and that the election could be made later (if the Speaker became absent). Three days later, he was elected to the position himself. 
• DECLINED TO ASSUME OFFICE: Although Mandeville was elected Controller twice, he served for a combined total of only sixy-two days in that office. Mandeville never assumed the office of Controller after his 1857 election, having already been appointed US Surveyor General for California. When he was eventually 're-elected' two decades later, he served only about two months before he died in office.  
• Mandeville was the only person to resign from the State Senate twice. The only person to resign from the Assembly twice was Jose M. Covarrubias. 
• PLACENAME: The editor of this website strongly suspects that Mandeville Island in San Joaquin County was named for this individual.

Source: History of Political Conventions in California, 1849-1892 by Winfield J. Davis (1893)
Source: Directory of the California Legislature. Twenty-First Session, 1875-6 by William Halley (1876)
Source: Anthropographic Chart of the 17th Session of the Legislature... (Sacramento; Russell & Winterburn's, 1867)