McClintock Feels Secure in Heavily GOP 36th District

It looked like a bruising primary race.

State Assemblyman Tom McClintock (R-Thousand Oaks) was campaigning for Congress, and the prospect of an open seat in his heavily Republican 36th Assembly District had piqued the political ambitions of several high-powered Republicans in Ventura County.

McClintock’s chief of staff, Marlee Means, and former Ventura Councilwoman Patricia Longo had already launched their campaigns. Likewise, Camarillo Mayor Sandi Bush and former Assemblyman Charles R. Imbrecht verged on announcing that they, too, would run.

Then the race-that-would-have-been fizzled. On March 4, McClintock announced that he would remain in the 36th Assembly District, citing an opponent’s potential for raising funds. The four would-be contenders abandoned their plans.

Only Paul J. Hamel, a former New Hampshire legislator and newcomer to the state and Republican Party, remains in the June 3 primary contest.

The wholesale scattering of election hopes demonstrated the conservative McClintock’s virtual lock on his district, both Republican and Democratic observers say.

“Running against Tom McClintock is suicide. His seat will probably be secure as long as he wants to be an assemblyman,” said John V. Paventi, chairman of the Ventura County Republican Central Committee.

The distinctly V-shaped district cuts along the Pacific coast from Ventura to Port Hueneme, then swerves northeast to the largely affluent cities of Camarillo, Thousand Oaks and Moorpark. Drawn by a partisan-minded state Legislature in 1982, the district’s carefully chosen boundaries exclude the Democratic strongholds of Oxnard and Santa Paula, making the 36th “safe” for Republicans.

District Republicans outnumber Democrats 5 to 4, yielding wide victory margins for recent conservative candidates, including President Reagan in 1980 and 1984 and Gov. George Deukmejian in 1982.

The primary offers a far less predictable Democratic contest between two Thousand Oaks men, Frank Nekimken and Paul Golis, and a lone candidate for the anti-bureaucracy Libertarian Party, H. Bruce Driscoll, a 43-year-old Thousand Oaks dentist.

As a UCLA political science student, Thousand Oaks newspaper columnist and protege of state Sen. Ed Davis (R-Valencia), McClintock’s political career got off to a fast start.

First Victory in 1982

His first primary victory came in a 1982 scrap with Oxnard’s then-Mayor Tsujio Kato. He went on to defeat Democrat Harriet Henson, then mayor of Ventura. In 1984, he went unopposed in the GOP primary and sailed past Democrat Tom Jolicoeur with 71% of the vote.

At 29, McClintock’s boyish looks emphasize the fact that he remains the youngest California legislator. A flair for parliamentary maneuvers helped earn him a spot as one of two Republican whips for Assembly Minority Leader Pat Nolan (R-Glendale).

The Thousand Oaks Republican’s political climb was stalled, if only for a time, when he withdrew in March from the race for the 21st Congressional District seat, which is being vacated by Rep. Bobbi Fiedler (R-Northridge).

Somberly telling reporters that he is not a quitter, McClintock left the race after concluding that opponent Tony Hope, son of entertainer Bob Hope, possessed national fund-raising abilities that would permit an advertising blitz over Los Angeles area airwaves.

‘Not Willing to Bet Career’

“I very much would like to go to Congress, but I was not willing to bet my political career on it,” McClintock explained recently.

McClintock’s tightly wound conservative image has been softened somewhat by a pragmatic willingness to push district projects, such as land acquisition in the Santa Monica Mountains and widening the Ventura Freeway.

Still, he has amassed a record of introducing hard-line conservative measures, most of which have met swift defeat at the hands of the Democrat-controlled Assembly.

In April, an Assembly committee killed a bill he had introduced to ban strikes by public employees, such as teachers, police and firefighters. “It’s extremely dangerous to allow a narrow interest group to bring civil government to a standstill,” he said.

A proposal to repeal the supplemental property tax, levied from reassessments that take place when property changes hands, was defeated later in April in another committee’s party-line vote.

And Democrats last week halted his bid to prevent California Lottery funds from being included in union bargaining for teachers’ salaries.

He opposes state-funded abortions and gay rights legislation, and helped establish Californians to Defeat Rose Bird, a group working against the confirmation of the liberal chief justice of the state Supreme Court.

Assailing the court’s record of overturning death sentences, McClintock said, “They’ve usurped legislative responsibility. Our court is now the laughingstock of the nation.”

He supports Proposition 51, the so-called “deep pockets” initiative that would limit damage awards for pain and suffering against wealthy defendants, such as cities, which may be only minimally at fault for an accident.

He has advocated controversial legal reforms that would curb damage awards and lawyers’ contingency fees and place California attorneys, for the first time, under the authority of a state board that would discipline incompetent and unethical practitioners.

Assailed on Tenure Issue

Teachers, in particular, have singled out McClintock for his criticism of tenure for protecting what he calls “incompetent” instructors.

Unlike most coastal lawmakers--Republicans as well as Democrats--McClintock has made a point of calling for “environmentally responsible” offshore oil drilling.

He gave strong support to the pending move of an Air National Guard unit from Van Nuys to the Naval Air Station at Point Mugu, angering some Camarillo residents who worry about additional noise and pollution.

Now, with a campaign chest of $28,000, most of it left over from his congressional bid, he’s running a decidedly laid-back campaign against Hamel.

No campaign forums are planned.

Hamel, 49, is an unemployed industrial materials handler who was elected to the New Hampshire House of Representatives in 1982 as a Democrat.

He moved to Ventura last year and filed election papers as a Republican.

“I have run a different kind of campaign and have spent four months doing more listening than talking,” said Hamel, who is spending his own money on the race and concedes that “defeating an incumbent is not easy.”

Would Target State Regulations

As assemblyman, Hamel said he would target excessive state regulations that are “choking all of us.”

He criticizes the use of government assistance by “welfare freeloaders” and backs the Deukmejian Administration’s workfare plan, which requires welfare recipients to actively seek work in exchange for unemployment benefits.

Like McClintock, he opposes Rose Bird’s confirmation, because he wants to see “a tougher line taken on punishment of convicted felons.”

He differs with McClintock, however, by opposing a ban on public employee strikes and removing state lottery proceeds from teachers’ collective bargaining.

Hamel also opposes the Air National Guard move to Point Mugu.

Meanwhile, the Democratic primary race offers an apparent conservative-liberal clash between two Thousand Oaks residents. Both have long histories of involvement in civic and political groups.

Nekimken Wins Endorsements

The more liberal of the two, Frank Nekimken, has won the endorsements of several area Democrats, including state Sen. Gary K. Hart of Santa Barbara, Assemblyman Jack O’Connell of Carpinteria and Ventura County Supervisor Susan Lacey. He predicts support from labor, and plans to spend between $3,000 and $5,000 on the primary.

Nekimken, 71, is a retired youth counselor who taught model airplane flying in Chicago. He moved to the Conejo Valley 10 years ago and became president of the local chapter of the Golden State Mobile Homeowners League.

He now serves as one of 11 commissioners for the Ventura County Area Housing Authority, which administers federal housing grants. He is a housing counselor for low-income Thousand Oaks residents and past chairman of the Ventura County Advisory Council on Aging, a group that consults with the county Board of Supervisors.

Opposing him is Paul Golis, 67 , a retired attorney, developer and author. Golis said he is not raising campaign funds.

In 1955, Golis founded Rohnert Park, a planned city of 30,000 situated on a vacant seed farm 50 miles north of San Francisco. He became active in the Democratic Party during the days of President Harry S. Truman, ran for Congress in 1952 and was defeated in a primary.

Composer and Writer

He has authored two musical comedies, a play, newspaper articles and two published books, including “A Day in the Life of Jay Peter Sweetly,” a satire that depicts a businessman stifled by government bureaucracy.

Nekimken claims that his Democratic opponent lacks experience in local affairs, while Golis counters that his experience as “a student of government” exceeds Nekimken’s.

Both Democrats acknowledge that the primary winner faces a possibly unbeatable McClintock, but insist that their backgrounds are well-suited to the Statehouse.

“He’s a smart young fella,” Nekimken said of McClintock. “But by and large, I’ve covered more bases than he has.”

The two Democrats agree on many key issues, such as the ouster of Rose Bird, permitting unannounced drug testing in the workplace, increasing land purchases in the Santa Monica Mountains for recreation facilities and placing a prison in downtown Los Angeles rather than in the Santa Clarita Valley--a plan urged by Democratic Mayor Tom Bradley.

They also support building a four-year state university in Ventura County, needed, they say, because local students now have to travel to campuses in Santa Barbara and Northridge.

Would Permit Teacher Strikes

Nekimken favors permitting teacher strikes and said the state should increase education spending to hire instructors, thereby ending California’s reign as the state with the highest average class size.

Golis proposed a sharp increase in funding for community colleges, which he said took the brunt of cuts following 1978’s Proposition 13.

But the two split on state policy on offshore oil drilling, an industry employing an estimated 16,000 Ventura County residents but evoking emotional opposition by many coastal residents.

Citing the threat of ocean oil spills and the drop in fuel prices, Nekimken terms further exploration unnecessary and favors state action to block drilling.

Golis, for his part, said safety standards are adequate to protect the environment, and the state should encourage oil exploration to promote energy self-sufficiency and collect tax proceeds.

Separated on Social Issues

But the philosophical contrast between the Democratic contenders cuts deepest in social issues.

While calling himself a moderate, Nekimken follows a traditional liberal platform: He favors freedom of choice in abortion with state financial help for low-income women, as well as the equal rights amendment and proposals to outlaw discrimination against gays in hiring and insurance.

Golis, however, refers to the “Christian ethic” as a cornerstone of his campaign and blames Democratic election defeats nationally on the party’s embrace of gay and women’s rights movements.

“The party’s gotten all tied up with exotic issues. All these things have boomeranged,” he contended.

Golis further questions the state’s no-fault divorce law and opposes abortion except in cases of medical danger or rape, saying, “I just think abortion should be a traumatic experience.”

Likewise, while saying he personally rejects unequal treatment of gays and women, he doesn’t support legislation to forbid discrimination.