Incoming Assembly Speaker Karen Bass said today that keeping a South Valley seat in Democratic hands is her top priority this fall.

"We are going to be out there in full force behind Fran Florez," Bass said in a meeting this morning with the Fresno Bee/Sacramento Bee Capitol Bureau. "I don't expect for it to be anything short of the battles that Nicole [Parra] faced, so we will be prepared for this."

Bass, D-Los Angeles, will take over as speaker on Tuesday.

Florez, mother of state Sen. Dean Florez, is taking on Republican Danny Gilmore for the seat now held by Parra, a Democrat. Parra terms out at the end of the year. She made waves recently by touting the credentials of Gilmore, whom she narrowly defeated two years ago to capture a third term.

The Parra and Florez families have been feuding for years. In a February interview with the Bee, Parra said she will not endorse Florez, "not just because I don't like Sen. Florez," but because Gilmore "brings a fresh perspective to the district."

She made similar comments on Fresno's KMJ, AM 580, fueling speculation that she might do the unthinkable: endorse a Republican as her successor.

Well, Bass put those rumors to rest today.

"She's not going to endorse Danny Gilmore, nor is she going to campaign [for him]," Bass said.

Republicans have long targeted the South Valley district, which covers Kings County and parts of Fresno, Tulare and Kern counties.

UPDATE: An earlier version of this blog item noted that Gilmore got a boost from a contribution from a group of Indian tribes. While that's true, I realized later that Florez got a donation from the same group. Gilmore got $1,000 on May 8 from the California Nations Indian Gaming Association Sovereignty Protection Fund. On the same day Florez got the same amount from the same group -- only it was keyed under an old name for the group, which threw me off.

A spokesman for the group said they like both candidates.

Bottom line is that tribes, a power player in Sacramento, are playing a role in this race and will likely play a bigger one in the months to come.

Tribes, like all contributors, are limited to how much they can directly donate to a candidate. But the South Valley Assembly race has a history of drawing so-called "independent expenditures" -- spending that is free of limits as long as interest groups don't coordinate with the candidate.

In 2006, a group of tribes spent more than $500,000 on Parra's behalf on television ads, mailers and surveys.