Even Motherhood Stirs Row in Assembly Race

Traditionally, political candidates rush to embrace motherhood as the safest issue going.

But in the 54th Assembly District campaign in southeastern Los Angeles County, candidate Edward K. Waters is finding that the hands that rocked his political cradle are under attack.

First, as the son of outspoken Assemblywoman Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles), Waters, 30, is finding himself a prime target for the eight other candidates scrambling for the Democratic nomination in the June 3 primary election to succeed Assemblyman Frank Vicencia (D-Bellflower), who is retiring after 12 years.

In addition, Waters has been singled out for criticism because Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco) has endorsed his candidacy and pledged financial and strategic support to the campaign, which hopes to make the Waters family the first mother-son combination in California legislative history.

Brown termed Waters “the best candidate . . . separate and distinct from his good breeding.” He joked that Waters was not hurt by the fact that “his mother’s name is Maxine.”

The lure of the open seat has prompted other big-name Democrats to support rival candidates with money and advice, turning the contest into one of the most bruising legislative primaries in the state. Some of the candidates already are well-known in the district, and some of the others have enough campaign money to assure that they will be recognized by the time votes are cast.

Richard Ross, who is on leave as Brown’s chief of staff to advise Waters and to manage other campaigns, said he was not distressed at the prospect of Democrats’ fighting each other.

“The point is it’s a competitive world. . . . People have a right to run,” said Ross, who predicted that the election will be close and that any candidate who can get 21% of the vote will capture the nomination. Ross said Waters has budgeted $300,000 for the primary campaign.

As the campaign kicks into high gear, the roles of Assemblywoman Waters and of Brown, her political mentor, have become an issue, along with the question of whether any of the black candidates--including Waters--will be able to defeat a well-financed white Republican in November. Additionally, five of the candidates have come under attack on questions of residency.

On issues of state policy, the emphasis so far has been on crime, with the candidates trying to outdo each other to show who can be toughest on crime and criminals. For most, that has meant enthusiastic support for capital punish ment and opposition to the reelection of California Chief Justice Rose Elizabeth Bird.

Democrats hold a more than 2 to 1 registration edge in the ethnically and economically diverse district. In his 1984 race, incumbent Vicencia was reelected with 67% of the vote from the district, which includes affluent areas such as Lakewood Country Club Estates, the largely blue-collar cities of Bellflower, Compton, Lakewood and Paramount, and parts of suburban eastern Long Beach.

The district, once a predominantly white suburban area, has changed over the last two decades. The 1980 census showed that 28% of the district’s residents were black and 20% Latino.

Waters’ opponents regard him as an unqualified political novice who has benefited politically from his mother’s help and from her position as a chief lieutenant to Speaker Brown.

Leading the attack has been Bellflower School Board member Larry Ward, who at the first candidates’ forum last month noted that Assemblywoman Waters was in the audience and, turning to her, suggested that her son would be a “puppet” of Speaker Brown. Afterward, she responded that Ward was expressing “sour grapes” because he and other candidates had “begged” for Brown’s help and had been turned down.

Compton officials, led by Mayor Walter Tucker, have blasted Brown and Assemblywoman Waters for creating “a potential schism” in the party by supporting Edward Waters instead of someone with longtime ties to the district.

Waters, who moved from Los Angeles and registered to vote in Compton in February, was until recently a citizen complaints investigator with a federally financed agency that helps relocate people displaced by the Century Freeway. He denied that his mother pushed him into the race and played down her influence on his campaign.

“Sometimes people yell ‘nepotism’ and they don’t understand what the word means,” Waters said. “They just say the word.”

One of his chief opponents is Willard H. Murray, 55, an aide to Rep. Mervyn M. Dymally (D-Compton).

Informal Endorsements

Murray, who is black, is best known in area Democratic circles for the central role he plays every election year in the mass political mailings sent to many of Los Angeles County’s black voters. The mailers, in effect, constitute an informal endorsement process sanctioned by many black Democratic leaders, and the inclusion or omission of a candidate’s name on the mailers can do a lot to help or hurt his or her chances of winning.

In his direct mail activity, Murray cooperates closely with the high-powered political campaign firm of Michael Berman and Carl D’Agostino. He also is allied with the West Los Angeles political organization of Reps. Howard L. Berman, brother of Michael Berman, and Henry A. Waxman.

Both congressmen have endorsed Murray, and Murray said he expects to tap Berman and Waxman’s formidable Westside fund-raising resources for $50,000 to $75,000.

Murray, who lost a 1975 special election to Assemblywoman Teresa P. Hughes (D-Los Angeles) in another Los Angeles-area Assembly district in his only other run for elective office, moved to Compton earlier this year. Dymally, who is helping his assistant raise money, wryly observed that Murray has been active in Democratic politics for 25 years and believes that he has “squatter’s rights” to the 54th District seat.

Has Most Money

Another black candidate mounting a major effort is former Compton Mayor Doris A. Davis, 50, who has been endorsed by most Compton city officials and has reported about $100,000 in loans and campaign pledges--the most of any candidate, according to the most recent contribution reports, filed in March.

The fourth black in the race is Thomas Cochee, 54, a former Compton police chief, who lost a bid for the state Senate in 1978.

Also actively campaigning is another former Dymally aide, Kent A. Spieller, 34, a white who is now a Bellflower lawyer and Democratic fund raiser. He has obtained $74,000 in contributions, including $5,000 from Assemblyman Richard E. Floyd (D-Hawthorne).

Among the other white candidates are school trustee Ward, 43, who is counting on his local ties and volunteers to overcome large outlays of money by other candidates; Dan Branstine, 31, a former Lakewood city councilman who previously ran unsuccessfully for the Assembly and state Senate; Ray O’Neal, 48, an aerospace engineer who last month was defeated in his bid for reelection to the Bellflower City Council, and Marty Israel, who describes himself as a consumer advocate.

With Vicencia’s departure, Speaker Brown figures that a black can win the seat--although campaign consultants in the district estimate that only 20% of the voters are black.

Many ‘Rednecks’

Some Democratic legislators, both black and white, privately complain that the district contains many “redneck” white voters who are unlikely to vote for any black candidate. As a result, they predict that a black will lose the Nov. 4 general election to Paul E. Zeltner, 60, a Lakewood city councilman and a retired sheriff’s captain. He is the only Republican on the primary election ballot.

Brown, a black, dismisses his colleagues’ reservations and insists that whoever wins the Democratic nomination will defeat Zeltner. Brown said it would be an “insult” to the district’s voters to suggest that they would not elect a black.

But Bruce Cain, a Caltech political science professor who helped draw the existing reapportionment lines for Assembly districts, has made detailed studies of Los Angeles County voting patterns and found a strong tendency for people to vote along racial lines. In a recent interview, Cain said that for a black to win in a district such as the 54th--especially in the general election--the candidate would need to run a “law-and-order” campaign as a way of keeping white Democrats from voting for Zeltner, who is white.

In anticipation of facing Zeltner, the Democratic candidates all claim that they would be the toughest on criminals and would be the best advocate of anti-crime legislation. Edward Waters, for instance, portrays himself as a hard-line law-and-order candidate who supports the death penalty, in contrast to his mother’s liberal image and opposition to the death penalty.

Says He’s Pragmatic

Zeltner, meanwhile, describes himself as a pragmatic politician rather than a conservative ideologue, and says that he will not be deterred by the Democratic registration bulge because voters in the district “vote people and issues and not party.”

The Ward and O’Neal campaigns are trying to tag five of the Democratic candidates as “carpetbaggers” who have moved into the district in order to run in the primary. All five--Waters, Murray, Spieller, Davis and Cochee--dismiss the label as either unwarranted or inconsequential.

In January, Vicencia surprised his colleagues by announcing that he would retire to spend more time with his family and at his insurance agency. The announcement came several months after the state Fair Political Practices Commission cleared Vicencia of any intentional wrongdoing in failing to report income he received from eight of his insurance agency’s clients, including a poker parlor controlled by Anaheim fireworks magnate W. Patrick Moriarty, who pleaded guilty to political corruption charges and is scheduled to enter prison on Monday.

The commission said that in failing to properly report the income, Vicencia, who since has endorsed Waters, was the victim of bad advice.