Parker has uphill climb against Runner in 17th District Senate race

The Palmdale Holiday Inn banquet room at Darren W. Parker’s recent 51st birthday party was jammed with supporters who had gathered on the chilly high desert evening to celebrate their candidate and wish him luck. By most accounts, he’ll need it.

Parker, a Democrat in a sprawling district that consistently votes Republican, is competing against former GOP legislator Sharon Runner, half of a popular political couple with deep ties to the area, in a special election next week to fill her husband’s former state Senate seat.

The Lancaster businessman and retired communications union official, who heads the Antelope Valley Human Relations Commission, hopes he can rally — with help from labor, Democrats and independents — to pull off an upset. However, he is short of time and money in a district that covers chunks of Ventura, Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties and a nine-voter sliver of Kern County.

“I plan to personally call all nine of those voters,” Parker quipped during a pitch to local leaders of the California Teachers Assn. shortly before his birthday party.

“I believe this is an opportunity for us,” Parker told the teachers union leaders, adding that the narrow edge Republicans have over Democrats could make victory possible if he and his backers mobilize the voters. GOP registration was 39.6% to Democrats’ 37.2% just before November’s election, with nearly 18% unaffiliated, according to the secretary of State.

This is Parker’s first bid for public office. He said he decided to run after others declined to take on Runner, who he says is part of the political establishment that helped get California into its financial crisis.

“I’m tired of elected officials who go to Sacramento and are more concerned with their next election opportunity” than with solving the state’s problems, he said.

But even Parker’s supporters acknowledge that his is a long-odds battle against the more experienced Runner, 56. Her backers say she is a better fit for the 17th state Senate District’s conservative politics.

Parker grew up in Compton and South Los Angeles and attended El Camino College and Cal State Northridge before going to work for AT&T. He and his wife were lured to the Antelope Valley 25 years ago by its clean air, relatively low crime and affordable homes.

His work with the human relations commission to battle hate crimes helped him build relationships with political leaders in both parties, including such Republicans as Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca and county Supervisor Mike Antonovich. Both, however, have endorsed Runner; Bishop Henry Hearns, a Republican, former mayor of Lancaster and a leader in Parker’s church, has thrown his support to the Democrat.

Parker said he agrees with Gov. Jerry Brown’s push to ask voters to extend some temporary tax hikes for five more years to help get the state back in the black. He sees the economy and jobs, as well as education, as the top issues facing the district and state.

Several prominent Democrats have endorsed Parker, among them Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez, Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris and state Controller John Chiang. He said union members are helping him with phone banks and fundraising.

The Senate seat that Parker and Runner are contesting became vacant after George Runner was elected to the state Board of Equalization last fall. Once Sharon Runner voiced interest in succeeding her husband — as she did when term limits forced him from the Assembly in 2002 — no other Republicans filed to run.

A slew of area political leaders promptly endorsed her, including Republican Reps. Kevin McCarthy and Buck McKeon, most GOP Assembly members and the mayors of Apple Valley, Hesperia, Lancaster, Santa Clarita and Victorville.

Runner, who lives in Lancaster, was born in Los Angeles and grew up in the Antelope Valley. She and her husband founded Desert Christian Schools in 1977, and she has volunteered with many local organizations.

When her husband was elected to the state Senate in 2004, they became the first husband and wife to serve in the Legislature simultaneously. In her final Assembly race, in 2006, she easily defeated her Democratic opponent, 61.6% to 38.4%.

In her six years in the Assembly, Runner was a consistent anti-tax, pro-law enforcement voice. She served as vice chair of the Appropriations Committee and a member of the Budget Committee and helped overhaul the state’s workers’ compensation system, including reducing rates to employers.

And she and her husband co-wrote a ballot initiative known as Jessica’s Law, overwhelmingly approved by voters in 2006, that cracked down on sex offenders. (Enforcement of a key provision limiting where convicted sex offenders can live was blocked by a judge last year.)

After a longstanding autoimmune condition worsened in 2008, Runner was in line for a lung transplant. But she said recently that medications have largely resolved her breathing problems, and she has been campaigning vigorously throughout the district. The state Republican Party has sent out mailers on her behalf, and singer-songwriter Paul Anka is scheduled to headline a fundraiser for her on Tuesday.

Runner says the state must get rid of job-quashing regulations before burdening seniors and the poor with tax extensions. “Getting people back to work in California is the main issue,” she said. “We are not going to solve this budget problem” until then.

She asserted that her experience in state government is sorely needed.

“Now is not a time to switch gears,” Runner said. “I already know many of the [senators and their staffs]. I can hit the ground running.”

jean.merl@latimes.com