Politicians Scurry to Beat Deadline for Primary Filing

Three Democrats and a Republican, driven to major career decisions on only hours notice, filed as last-day candidates for the unexpectedly vacant office of state controller, a political drama enlivening Friday’s filing deadline for the June 3 primary election ballot.

State Sen. John Garamendi (D-Walnut Grove), Assemblyman Alister McAlister (D-Fremont) and Sen. William Campbell (R-Hacienda Heights) joined Assemblyman Gray Davis (D-Los Angeles) in the hasty stampede to succeed incumbent Democratic Controller Ken Cory. Just 36 hours before the filing deadline, Cory confirmed that he would not seek reelection.

At least a half a dozen other political notables spent gut-churning hours seeking support and testing their possibilities before bowing out.

Signing Checks

The office of controller, which will pay its occupant $72,500 next year for signing the government’s checks and keeping its books, is prized as one of a handful of statewide elective positions from which politicians can gain visibility and launch campaigns for governor and U.S. senator. All other such statewide constitutional offices are held down by seemingly formidable incumbents.

The sudden opening in the controller’s race stirred the political pot so vigorously because of the growing numbers of frustrated politicians in California who had seen scant opportunity to fulfill their ambitions.

“The political system is constipated,” groused Assemblyman Davis only Monday.

In addition to the newcomers in the race, two Republicans had previously announced for controller, Dan Stanford, former state Fair Political Practices Commission chairman, and Sonoma Assemblyman Don A. Sebastiani.

For many other offices, locally and around the state, the 1986 California primary ballot foretells a familiar election year.

Here are some of the notable developments from the close of filing:

- Demonstrating further the eagerness of some politicians to move somewhere with their careers, the obsure five-member state Board of Equalization, with responsibility for overseeing tax assessments, attracted an unusually high-horsepower field. Among the candidates filing for a vacant seat covering Central and South Los Angeles were county Assessor Alexander H. Pope, state Sen. Paul B. Carpenter (D-Cypress) and former state legislator Nate Holden, an aide to Los Angeles County Supervisor Kenneth Hahn.

- On the other hand, two of the state’s most venerable Democratic politicians, Treasurer Jesse M. Unruh and Secretary of State March Fong Eu, both filed for fourth terms. No other person has held statewide constitutional office for four terms in California since Frank M. Jordan ran up seven consecutive election victories as secretary of state from 1943 to 1970.

- Republicans, infused with the hope of maintaining their majority in the U.S. Senate, fielded a go-for-broke crowd of candidates anxious to run against incumbent Democrat Alan Cranston.

The race has been under way hot and heavy for a year, and the names of many of the candidates are familiar: Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich; Rep. Bobbi Fiedler of Northridge; state Sen. Ed Davis, Valencia; economist Arthur B. Laffer; television personality Bruce Herschensohn; Assemblyman Robert W. Naylor, Menlo Park; Rep. Ed Zschau, Los Altos, and government professor Bill Allen. Three-term Democratic incumbent Cranston filed for another term.

- Baseball Commissioner and Los Angeles Olympic organizer Peter V. Ueberroth did not jump into politics this time. In fact, none of the several celebrities mentioned as possible candidates for one office or the other in the June 3 election filed. Clint Eastwood, however, remained a candidate in Carmel’s April 8 mayoral election. In the San Fernando Valley, Tony Hope, son of entertainer Bob Hope, filed to succeed Fiedler in Congress.

- Gov. George Deukmejian, the Republican, and Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, the Democrat, filed for a grudge match replay of their 1982 election battle for governor. Former Lt. Gov. Mike Curb filed for a comeback attempt against incumbent Democrat Leo T. McCarthy.

- Democratic Atty. Gen. John Van de Kamp filed for reelection and apparently attracted no widely known opponent of either party, at least according to an unofficial survey of filings in major counties conducted by the secretary of state. Bill Honig submitted papers for a second term as state superintendent of public instruction.

- In Los Angeles County, incumbent Supervisors Ed Edelman and Pete Schabarum filed for reelection. So did Sheriff Sherman Block.

The only other countywide office at stake is for assessor. Candidates include former state Assemblyman Jim Keysor and Deputy Assessor John J. Lynch. A complication in the assessor’s contest is a county proposition also on the June 3 ballot to make the job appointed rather than elected. If it passes, the election of assessor would be invalidated.

- The filing deadline set the terms of one of the most potentially explosive congressional match-ups in the country. Orange County Assemblyman Richard Robinson of Garden Grove hopes to win a Democratic primary battle against Superior Court Judge Dave Carter for the right to challenge incumbent Rep. Robert K. Dornan of Garden Grove. Robinson and Dornan are among California’s most combative partisans.

The rules for filing contain an exception to Friday’s deadline. For instance, legislative districts in which an incumbent does not file for reelection are reopened for other would-be candidates until the close of business Wednesday, the same with the county assessor’s office.

Among the newly declared candidates for state controller, Campbell held his news conference Friday only 10 days after leaving Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where he had surgery to remove his gallbladder.

Because of the short notice, Campbell made no pretense at offering a ringing campaign rationale.

“There will be plenty of time to get into the issues,” he said.

‘Work to Do’

Garamendi, who unsuccessfully sought the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in 1982, let the clock run to the last minutes before filing his papers in Sacramento. He claimed that in 18 hours of steady calling he received commitments for $700,000 in contributions. Garamendi said he has slept “very little” since the seat opened up, but cheerfully said, “There’s work to do.”

Neither Garamendi nor Campbell are up for reelection to the Senate this year and will remain legislators if they lose in the controller’s race.

For his part, Assemblyman Davis ducked questions of what role his erstwhile boss, former Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr., may play in his campaign. Davis was chief of staff during most of Brown’s tenure. It was an often experimental era, which Republicans and many conservative Democrats find a convenient target of criticism.

Times staff writers Jerry Gillam, Keith Love, Kevin Roderick, Richard Simon and Ted Vollmer contributed to this article.