Richardson Seeks New Political Base : State Senator Mobilizing Fundamentalist Church Groups

Maverick Republican Sen. H. L. Richardson, who built a powerful political organization on the strength of California’s gun owners, has begun to mobilize a new conservative constituency--fundamentalist church groups.

In small gatherings of church leaders up and down the state, the Glendora legislator is giving what he calls a “two-hour course in practical politics” that includes pointers on how to influence lawmakers and warnings to prepare for “coming battles against anti-Christian legislation.”

His goal, he says, is to channel the political power of the state’s estimated 500,000 fundamentalists into certain “moral issues,” particularly the anti-abortion movement and efforts to block a recently revived gay rights bill.

“We’ve always had special-interest groups in California,” Richardson said in an interview. “There is the union movement, teacher organizations, state employee groups.” But fundamentalists, while representing “one of the largest sleeping giants in the state,” remain largely disorganized and without political power in California, he added.

Richardson’s church-speaking schedule has become so heavy that he says he had to videotape his lectures in order to reach several audiences at the same time. Yet his staff has carefully downplayed the effort, and church leaders have been asked to keep his appearances a closely guarded secret.

The quiet campaign surfaced publicly during last year’s presidential campaign when Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) suggested during a New York fund-raising speech that Richardson was trying to build a “strange alliance between the gun owners of America and a so-called Christian coalition.”

Others, including state Assemblyman Art Agnos (D-San Francisco), who tangled with Richardson over the gay rights issue, believe the conservative senator is merely developing a new fund-raising base in the face of declining interest in his gun lobby and other political action committees.

“He needs a new source (of money),” Agnos said. “He thinks this Christian coalition is the wave of the immediate future.” Richardson denies he has a fund-raising motive.

Dean of the Senate

A rotund and affable man with a biting tongue, Richardson, 57, now the dean of the Senate, came to the Legislature with a reputation for right-wing rhetoric that won him few supporters.

But he soon found that by using sophisticated direct-mail techniques he could marshal the financial and political forces of single-issue groups, like the gun owners, to shape the outcome of important elections and gain influence with his colleagues.

That was clearly demonstrated in 1982 when his Gun Owners of California Political Action Committee spent nearly $1 million in its successful drive to kill Proposition 15, a ballot measure to regulate gun ownership. Another of his organizations, the Law and Order Campaign Committee, came close to unseating state Chief Justice Rose Elizabeth Bird in 1978 and underwrote an expensive campaign that restored the death penalty in California.

His political machine also ousted the Senate’s moderate leadership in favor of a conservative group and helped elect conservative Assemblyman Pat Nolan (R-Glendale), now the Assembly’s minority leader.

Power Diminishing

But Richardson, in a sense, became the victim of his own success. With gun control all but a dead issue in California and a law-and-order Administration in power, his traditional constituencies seem to have lost interest.

At the apex of its power in 1982, the gun lobby was collecting more than $700,000 in a single year. By last year, that had dwindled to about $200,000. Several months ago, the gun lobby moved out of its lavish offices in the Senator Hotel office building for what Richardson says were “economic reasons.” It has been much the same story for the Law and Order Campaign Committee, which aides concede has been relegated to “minor work” but is likely to be reactivated for another swipe at Bird in 1986.

Richardson said there are no plans to use the fundamentalist organizing campaign to raise money, but he acknowledged that interested coalition members could spin off their own political action committee.

“Child molestation (and other moral issues) are not the kind of things that will motivate people to contribute,” Richardson said. “The thing that really gets people to get active is something that has a financial interest to them, like the gun issue. It’s not only the right to own a firearm, but at the same time it’s an economic issue because we’re talking about a $375 Smith and Wesson.”

Richardson said he hopes, instead, to create a network of ministers who can be counted on to flood the Capitol and lawmakers’ offices with letters and personal visits at a moment’s notice. “If 30 ministers from your district show up, by gracious, you’re going to pay attention because there is not a politician up here who doesn’t translate that into numbers (of votes),” he said.

Richardson first attempted to organize church groups in 1977 but found little interest. “It laid the biggest egg in the world,” he quipped.

First Attempt Unsuccessful

He said he decided to try again last year after witnessing the outpouring of fundamentalist opposition to the passage of Agnos’ landmark bill that was designed to protect gays from on-the-job discrimination. Ultimately, Gov. George Deukmejian vetoed the bill, and church lobbying is generally credited with swaying his opinion.

The first test of Richardson’s new coalition is likely to come soon as Agnos’ new bill--identical to last year’s--begins making its way through committee hearings. “I think he is going to have all kinds of trouble with the bill,” Richardson said.

Agnos charged that Richardson’s fundamentalist campaign is stooping to “prejudice and hatred.” But he conceded that the bill’s chances have been greatly diminished.

Richardson’s efforts seem to be well received so far within the fundamentalist community. But last week, the first evidence of a backlash surfaced when his call for secrecy at an upcoming meeting in Covina was publicly denounced by one church member.

“I agree that Christians have a right to form a political action committee,” said Norma Coleman, a Sunday school teacher at Covina Assembly of God Church. “But we also have the obligation to be very open and very aboveboard.”

More Trouble Ahead

An aide to Richardson characterized the incident as “much ado about nothing.” Richardson said he asked that the meeting be kept quiet merely to encourage frank discussion and that “having the press around makes (church members) nervous.”

Leaders of other church groups who are acquainted with Richardson’s campaign predict that there is likely to be more serious trouble ahead.

Dwight Burchett, political action chairman of the conservative National Assn. of Evangelicals, said that while the 8,000-member churches of his organization generally agree with Richardson’s stance, trying to get a consensus on a particular issue may be difficult.

“Sometimes you will have a coalition that all feels strongly about these issues,” Burchett said. “But I think also there is a differing of opinion within the church structure that probably makes it to the public seem like less of a coalition or a cooperative effort.”

Glen Holman of the California Church Council, which represents mainline and more liberal Protestant denominations, said some see Richardson as riding the coattails of other New Right fundamentalists like the Moral Majority’s Jerry Falwell. There also is doubt, he added, about whether the effort can overcome church members’ historical ambivalence toward politics.

“In the long run they will find their churches are not much more interested in getting involved in politics than our churches are,” Holman said. “People are still kind of hung up on the idea that religion and politics don’t mix and that separation of church and state means that they stay out of politics.”