GOP Candidates Say Southland Assemblymen Are Backing Foes

Four Republican candidates for Northern California Assembly seats Thursday accused Assembly conservatives from Southern California of conducting a “naked power grab” in the four candidates’ primary races.

The candidates from Sonoma, Butte, San Mateo and Santa Clara counties made the accusation against the Assembly’s so-called “cave man” conservative wing of the Republican caucus.

Caucus members, including John R. Lewis of Orange and Gil Ferguson of Newport Beach, were charged with trying to win primary victories in Northern California for candidates who would be loyal to conservative minority leader Pat Nolan of Glendale.

“For a group of Southern California power brokers to involve themselves directly in four open Northern California seats, and to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars . . . and then say they are doing it for the good of the party, is a travesty beyond comprehension,” charged Ray Narbaitz, 3rd Assembly District candidate, at a Capitol news conference. Narbaitz is running for the seat being vacated by Assemblyman Wally Herger (R-Rio Oso) who is running for Congress.

Narbaitz and candidates Bev Hansen of Sonoma County, John Ward, a San Mateo County supervisor, and Charles Quackenbush of Los Altos accused Nolan and five of his conservative caucus loyalists--all from Southern Califor nia--of wasting Republican money in the primary and of putting conservative caucus goals ahead of party loyalty.

The four candidates waved identical blue campaign mailers and potholders endorsing their opponents--expensive campaign propaganda that they charged was paid for with Republican caucus money. All four candidates who advertised on the potholders, Narbaitz said, “admit huge late infusions of money from Southern California legislators.”

“That money was solicited statewide by good Republicans who thought it was going to be used in the fall against Democrats,” said Quackenbush, adding, “It’s a crying shame.” Quackenbush is seeking to replace Assemblyman Robert W. Naylor (R-Menlo Park), who is running for U.S. Senate.

Hansen, a businesswoman seeking the 8th District seat being vacated by Assemblyman Don Sebastiani (R-Sonoma), said three of her Republican opponents in the primary are also “upset” about the conservative Assembly Republican’s support of Santa Rosan Martin McClure, 25, a political newcomer.

Although some conservative assemblymen are individually backing candidates in contested primary races, Lewis, the Assembly Republican Caucus’ elections chairman, said the complaints raised by the Northern Californians are unfounded. Lewis said no Republican Caucus money nor any campaign funds from any committee controlled by Nolan is being spent in the four races about which the candidates complained.

But he said the caucus has taken the unusual, though not unprecedented, action of contributing money and officially endorsing candidates in four other contested primary races where caucus members feel “the difference was so compelling” that the primaries’ outcome will affect the party’s chances of winning in November. Two of those party-endorsed candidates--Richard Longshore in the central Orange County 72nd District and Tom DuBose in the southern San Diego County 80th District--are running in Southern California.

Ward, a liberal Republican from a district where Democrats frequently elect Republicans, said he met with Nolan and Lewis and was given political “litmus tests,” which he failed. The “tests” posed by the conservative lawmakers concerned Ward’s opinions on abortion and handgun control.

Nolan’s most conservative Southern Californian colleagues, part of the so-called “cave man” faction of the Republican caucus, include Assemblymen Frank Hill of Whittier, Gerald N. Felando of San Pedro and Dennis Brown of Long Beach, in addition to Lewis and Ferguson.