First Hurdle for Nestande in State Race: Name Recognition

Scheduled to declare his candidacy today for the 1986 GOP nomination for lieutenant governor, Orange County Supervisor Bruce Nestande is expected to stress his ties to President Ronald Reagan and Gov. George Deukmejian and to criticize Chief Justice Rose Elizabeth Bird of the California Supreme Court.

Sources close to Nestande say his formal announcement at a 5 p.m. reception at the Hotel Meridien in Newport Beach will also borrow from Reagan’s own rhetoric extolling his “new American revolution” against government’s “intrusions” into people’s lives.

Campaign consultants say it is the kind of speech that will surprise no one. Polls show that Deukmejian and Reagan are still very popular and that Bird’s reconfirmation effort is in trouble.

In the coming weeks, Nestande will try for all the exposure possible because he is virtually unknown to rank-and-file voters outside Orange County.

With conservative state Sen. H.L. Richardson (R-Glendora) also considering the nomination and at least a remote possibility that former Lt. Gov. Mike Curb may attempt a comeback, Nestande will have his hands full.

Also, some candidates now seeking the GOP’s U.S. Senate nomination are expected to switch eventually to the lieutenant governor’s race.

“Bruce can take Richardson, but I’m not so sure about Curb,” said Stu Spencer, a veteran political strategist and adviser to Reagan.

Spencer and state Sen. Ken Maddy (R-Fresno), among others, say that a Richardson-Nestande battle could unfold as a replay of the bitter, intraparty feuding of the late 1970s that saw Nestande, then a state assemblyman, tangle with party hard liners over caucus leadership posts and over Nestande’s tendency to side with Democrats on some issues.

Anti-Smoking Crusader in Dogged Battle for Ban

County supervisors may have been surprised last week when chamber of commerce officials suddenly abandoned a plan to draft anti-smoking rules that companies would enforce in the workplace. But not Jules Kerker.

Kerker, a self-employed Westminster insurance salesman, is one of the county’s most militant advocates of non-smokers’ rights.

“The chamber’s actions are another example of how business will not protect non-smokers unless forced to do so,” Kerker said.

What’s more, Kerker sees the latest development as another in a long series of “foul-ups, delays and incompetence” that he says has plagued enforcement of county smoking regulations since they first took effect in 1975.

In a 3-2 vote two weeks ago, the Board of Supervisors delayed mandatory regulations based on what they believed was a serious offer by the chamber to help write a self-regulatory ordinance for private workplaces.

A member of Californians for Nonsmokers Rights, Kerker is viewed by some as an overly aggressive fanatic, while praised by others as a tireless advocate.

In 1981, six years after the county banned smoking in county buildings except in designated areas, Kerker made a citizen’s arrest of a security guard who was allegedly violating the regulation at John Wayne Airport. Last year, he made a citizen’s arrest of Municipal Judge Marvin Weeks in the clerk’s office at the Westminster courthouse. Both cases were dismissed on technicalities.

At one point, Kerker discovered that the sheriff’s airport detail did not even know about the smoking ordinance. Later, he persuaded county officials to post warning signs at John Wayne.

But he says he became convinced that businesses would not do much for non-smokers when he attended a Westminster Chamber of Commerce breakfast last year.

“It was awful,” Kerker said. “They put me and my wife at our own little table off to one side after we asked for some consideration, and that didn’t do any good. The smoke was still unbearable.”

“Jules is not a flake,” says Paul Carey, aide to Board of Supervisors Chairman Thomas F. Riley. “He is a serious individual who feels very strongly about smoke, and we listen to what he has to say.”

Kerker, along with letter writers from among Riley’s own constituents, helped persuade Riley to vote in favor of mandatory no-smoking rules for private workplaces, according to Carey.

But Kerker is not satisfied. Armed with thick files of county records and correspondence from county officials, he and some sources close to Riley argue that many county officials, as well as chamber of commerce directors, have been on both sides of the issue.

Indeed, copies of Kerker’s correspondence with county officials show that, until a few months ago, the attitude of many county officials wavered between indifference and outright hostility toward strict enforcement of the county’s existing ordinance, let alone any stronger measures.

For example, Supervisors Harriett Wieder and Bruce Nestande wrote letters to Kerker in 1983 in which they claim there was no problem because they had not heard any complaints.

After Riley announced last October that he wanted to tighten up the county’s rules, Nestande started talking about mandatory rules for private workplaces and Wieder agreed that something needed to be done.

But two weeks ago both supervisors voted for what they believed was a chamber of commerce effort at self-regulation among private employers.

“Anybody can go out there and talk about doing something,” Nestande said. “I did it. Riley did not. How am I to blame for that?”

Today, the Board of Supervisors is scheduled to discuss amendments that would extend the ban on smoking in public areas of county buildings to work areas not frequented by the public, except where posted otherwise.

Paradoxically, the discussion comes after the county argued for two years in employee grievance arbitration hearings that county workers were not entitled to smoke-free workplaces.

After thousands of dollars was spent in legal and administrative expenses, an arbitrator ruled against the county on the issue.

Kerker and other advocates of non-smokers’ rights believe a countywide ban on smoking in public and private workplaces is the only way to go.

“When you look at how this issue has evolved over the years like I have, you conclude that there has been one foul-up after another,” Kerker says. “But where’s the public outrage?”

Blacks’ Bid for Attention From GOP May Not Work

Oscar Wright, Gov. George Deukmejian’s outspoken director of small business, told a group of Orange County black political activists last week that they should not register as Republicans in hope simply of getting more attention from the GOP than they have been getting from Democrats lately.

“There’s a quid pro quo . . . Nobody does anything for altruistic reasons. We must give something to the Republican Party in order to get something back from it,” said Wright, who is black.

“Moreover, we should not all be Republicans . . . I say that in every household where there is more than one person registered, at least one person should be a Democrat so that you can get mail from both parties and can see what’s being said by both sides about issues that affect you,” Wright added.

Wright spoke to about 100 people at a county Republican breakfast that was part of the GOP’s “outreach” program, aimed at attracting ethnic and racial minorities. The bacon-and-eggs affair was sponsored by the Black Republican Council of Orange County. However, few Democrats were present. Sponsors had hoped to attract more Democrats who might be persuaded to switch parties.