Local Elections : GOP Gains Edge in Voters, Gears Up Campaign to Oust Killea

With Republicans now outnumbering Democrats in her district, San Diego Assemblywoman Lucy Killea’s bid for a third term in the Legislature could be the toughest fight of her political career.

But if the former city councilwoman and her backers are running scared, they are masking their fear well. Democrats say they are confident that Killea--who has long been popular with independents and Republicans, as well as voters in her own party--will overcome both the voter edge and GOP challenger Earl Cantos Jr.

“I am absolutely certain Lucy is going to win,” said San Diego County Democratic Party chairman Tom Lavaut, who lives in the district.

But Republican strategists feel they have an excellent chance of handing a first-ever election defeat to Killea, a likable, 63-year-old former Central Intelligence Agency researcher first elected to the Legislature in 1982.

GOP candidate Cantos is a handsome 29-year-old lawyer and former legislative aide whom one high-level GOP strategist describes as “the perfect yuppie” for “a yuppie district.”

Handpicked by state Republican strategists, Cantos left his job as a minority consultant to the Assembly Public Safety Committee in Sacramento last year to move back to San Diego and begin planning his race against Killea.

Although he is making his first run for elective office, he comes from a well-known San Diego family. His father is retired Municipal Court Judge Earl Cantos Sr., and his mother, Irene Cantos, sang with a local opera company before she went into the real estate business.

Fearing that Cantos was using those relationships to gain recognition for himself, Killea facetiously began including a notation in press releases and biographical material that her father, too, was a District Court judge (equivalent to Superior Court) in San Antonio, Tex.

“I’ve never campaigned in my life on my father’s qualifications,” Killea said this week, chuckling while admitting that the reference to her father’s judicial career was neither accident nor coincidence. If Cantos can claim judicial parentage, so can she, said Killea.

“He only served one term . . . but my father was a judge, too,” she said.

The two candidates, both unopposed in their respective primaries June 3, are running in the 78th District, which includes most of the Miramar Naval Air Station and all or parts of Normal Heights, Kensington, Hillcrest, Mission Valley, Clairemont, Loma Portal, Old Town, University Heights and Pacific Beach. Its boundaries come within a few blocks of the ocean and hugs the coast from Ocean Beach to Pacific Beach.

In past years, Democrats have enjoyed a small edge in voter registration and Killea, who has been popular with independents and even Republicans throughout her political career, has won comfortably. Two years ago, Killea outpolled Republican Patrick Boarman by more than 2 to 1.

But an aggressive registration campaign by the Republicans has turned the tables. As of last month, Republicans had 43.06% of the district’s 177,000 registered voters while Democrats claimed 42.93%.

“We’ve passed them and it’s a Republican district now. We are going to try and increase the margin” before the November election, Cantos said.

There may have never been any doubt, but the registration shift virtually assured that Cantos will have substantial help in terms of campaign funds, expertise and resources from the state party organization.

“The numbers,” as political professionals call them, had made Killea “a target” even before Republicans took the lead, or even before Cantos was picked as the party’s man to defeat her. Political lieutenants of Assembly GOP Leader Pat Nolan of Glendale, studying computer readouts and voter trends, noted last year that there was a higher concentration of Republicans in Killea’s district than in any other legislative district where a Democrat holds office.

Cantos said, too, that surveys show the district is becoming younger (median age 31.5 years) and “more conservative.”

“The district has changed and moved away from her philosophical position,” he said.

Although Cantos has not yet decided the issues he will use in the campaign, he and Killea “vary greatly on issues” and he will point out those differences, he said.

Meanwhile, Killea, who likes to run her own campaigns, concedes she may have to hire professional consultants this year for the first time.

The race has also generated interest because of the lingering rumor that Assemblyman Larry Stirling (R-San Diego) recruited Cantos, his former aide, to run against Killea, and that she retaliated by talking her friend, La Mesa attorney Bill Smelko, into running against Stirling.

Both legislators, who were reputedly close friends when both served on the San Diego City Council, deny the story. But the charge lingers, and neither has been convinced by the other’s denial.

Although both insist that no hard feelings persist, associates say the relationship between the lawmakers has been strained since Stirling began calling attention last year to problems at the county-run Hillcrest mental health hospital. Privately, Killea resented Stirling’s crusade regarding a facility in her district, and Stirling was irked that Killea seemed to side with county officials who accused him of grandstanding to get headlines.

Killea says she will run against Cantos on her record, particularly her legislation aimed at increasing international trade with Pacific Rim nations and her role in extending the San Diego “workfare” experiment while enacting statewide welfare reforms.

She said her biggest legislative disappointment this session was the battle she lost over development curbs on Famosa Slough wetlands along West Point Loma Boulevard near Ocean Beach. Over Killea’s objections, the Legislature stripped away Coastal Commission jurisdiction over the wetlands, clearing the way for a waterfront condominium project.

“I don’t always agree with the Coastal Commission, but I felt they had an important role to play in this instance,” said Killea, who had engineered the narrow defeat of a similar measure on the last day of the legislative session in 1984.

With an infectious smile and a decidedly low-key demeanor even during rare flashes of anger, Killea is one of the most likable members of the Legislature. “She’s like everybody’s grandmother,” said one legislator who asked not to be identified.

But Killea is hardly part of the in-crowd in Sacramento. She rarely eats or drinks at the Capitol-area restaurants frequented by powerful legislators and state officials. And she has never been assigned to the budget-writing Ways and Means Committee that Democratic Assembly Speaker Willie Brown considers a training ground for legislative leaders.

Detractors say Killea seems timid and confused, even bumbling at times. But if her style and manner lack assertiveness, Killea’s record of winning legislative battles and passing bills is enviable--even for someone who avoids partisan controversies. Fourteen of the 31 bills she introduced last year became law, and several of those that did not were withdrawn or stalled at her behest.

Some legislators and lobbyists blamed Killea for letting the first bill on developing Famosa Slough, which is in her district, come very near to final passage in 1984 without being noticed. But rarely are bills defeated on the Assembly floor after passing several committees in both houses with only a handful of negative votes. That one was.

Her bill extending the San Diego County “workfare” program was bottled up in an Assembly committee for 12 weeks, while liberals tugged at her from one direction and conservatives from another. But after finally winning the panel’s nod, Killea rushed the bill through both houses of the Legislature in less than two days. Gov. George Deukmejian signed it on a Saturday--the day before the three-year-old program would have legally terminated. Killea said the months-long debate resulted in a better bill, which also helped set the framework for statewide welfare reform enacted later.

A few weeks after last year’s devastating brush fire in Normal Heights, Killea introduced two bills to expand the state’s fleet of air tankers without ever asking the Deukmejian Administration or the California Department of Forestry if they wanted--or needed--the new airplanes. Longtime legislative observers said the lack of protocol would doom those bills, and Republican legislators warned that Deukmejian would never go along with the cost.

But the governor signed Killea’s bill to buy three new air tankers, for $1.5 million. Since then, Killea has intentionally stalled her second air tanker bill, which would have expanded the fleet again next year, because legislators who favor the purchase of some expensive, experimental Canadian-built tankers forced amendments to purchase them into Killea’s bill.

Killea was appointed to the City Council in 1978 to replace Jess Haro, who had been jailed for customs fraud. Although Republicans controlled the council at the time, members chose Killea for the vacancy after eight ballots. Stirling and then-Mayor Pete Wilson had favored her all along. Both men have endorsed Cantos this time.