GOP Veteran Seeks to Unseat Feinstein

Taking on a test that other Republicans have shunned, retired state Sen. Richard Mountjoy said Tuesday that he was entering the race for the GOP nomination to challenge U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

A longtime leader of the state Republican Party’s conservative wing, Mountjoy had been weighing a Senate run for weeks but said for the first time Tuesday that his decision was “definite.”

“I’m in the race,” he said in an interview. “No turning back.”

The former Monrovia lawmaker described his candidacy as an effort to advance the conservative cause in Congress.

Although Democrat Feinstein has been widely seen as moderate since her 1992 election, Mountjoy said she had “totally taken the positions of the left.”

The latest evidence, he said, was her Senate Judiciary Committee vote Tuesday against President Bush’s nomination of Samuel A. Alito Jr. to the U.S. Supreme Court. All eight committee Democrats voted against Alito, while all 10 Republicans backed him.

With his announcement, Mountjoy becomes the first seasoned Republican to enter the Senate race -- little more than four months before the primary.

The reasons others have stayed out are many: Feinstein is California’s most popular elected official, according to polls, and she has raised at least $6.9 million to seek a fourth term. She is well-known to most voters, the state has tilted strongly toward Democrats for more than a decade, and the national political climate has soured for Republicans in recent months.

“I bet the house on Feinstein,” said Thad Kousser, an assistant political science professor at UC San Diego who cited those factors and others.

Feinstein campaign strategist Kam Kuwata said Mountjoy had long positioned himself as a politician “to the right of the right wing of the Republican Party.”

“Dianne Feinstein is in the mainstream, and has always been in the mainstream, and calls them as she sees them on the merits of each case,” Kuwata said.

Mountjoy’s preparations for the Senate race have set off jitters among some Republican strategists who fear that his conservative stands on abortion, immigration and other issues could harm the party’s image. In the interview, Mountjoy said he opposed legal abortion, even in cases of incest or rape.

“In the case of incest, there’s always adoption,” he said. In cases of rape, he added: “I believe that man is a creation of God, and I don’t think you kill God’s creation.”

He also questioned whether there were ever cases in which abortion was needed to protect the life of a mother.

On immigration -- a touchy subject for a party trying to reach out to Latinos -- Mountjoy took exception to Bush’s proposal to allow temporary guest workers from abroad.

“I don’t think you give special benefits or a special place in line to those who have flaunted the laws of the state,” he said.

Still, Mountjoy said he stood fully behind Bush on national security matters. “He is exactly on target in Iraq,” he said.

The absence of any other Republican to take on Feinstein has led to a behind-the-scenes push by some party strategists to recruit another candidate.

Several have joined GOP state lawmakers in trying to coax Pierre-Richard Prosper, now a candidate for state attorney general, to switch to the U.S. Senate primary. Prosper is a former Los Angeles prosecutor and Bush administration ambassador-at-large for war crimes issues. Already in the attorney general’s race is state Sen. Chuck Poochigian (R-Fresno).

Mountjoy, 74, ran once for statewide office: In 1998, he finished third in the GOP primary for lieutenant governor. A former Monrovia mayor and councilman, he served in the Assembly from 1978 to 1995 and in the state Senate from 1995 to 2000.

Mountjoy was a coauthor of Proposition 187, the 1994 ballot measure that sought to curb public services for illegal immigrants. In the 1996 presidential race, he was California chairman of the Pat Buchanan campaign. He is also a former leader of the California Republican Assembly, a conservative advocacy group.