Assemblyman Wyman to Run for Controller

SACRAMENTO — Fourth-term Assemblyman Phillip D. Wyman of Tehachapi said Monday he will not run for reelection and instead will seek the Republican nomination for state controller in the June primary next year.

Since 1975, the post has been held by Democrat Kenneth Cory, whose aides said he is raising campaign funds “and is running even though there has been no formal announcement.”

Wyman, 40, won election to the Legislature in the 1978 class of GOP “Proposition 13 Babies,” the group of fiercely conservative Republicans who swept into the Assembly as strong supporters of the property tax-cutting ballot initiative.

He considered seeking the seat of retiring state Sen. Walter W. Stiern (D-Bakersfield) but said he decided against it to avoid a “costly and divisive” Republican primary battle with Assemblyman Don Rogers of Bakersfield, who earlier announced his candidacy for Stiern’s seat.

Wyman, who described himself as the first Republican to announce for Cory’s post, said he decided to run because Republicans believe that “Cory, of all Democrat statewide incumbents, has the greatest possibility of being defeated.”

An attorney, Wyman said he now has a campaign fund now of $60,000 and expects the general election campaign to cost millions of dollars to wage.