Congressional Seat Could Be Open and Shut for GOP

The oddly-shaped 21st Congressional District remains what political map makers in 1981 envisioned--a conservative bastion and one of the safest districts in the country for the Republican Party.

The GOP candidate in the November election, Elton Gallegly, fits the district’s mold precisely. The conservative mayor of Simi Valley, a city of 93,000, takes his cues from President Reagan.

His principal challenger, Vice Mayor Gilbert R. Saldana of Avalon, on Santa Catalina Island, is a moderate Democrat who calls Gallegly “an ultraconservative and a Reagan rubber-stamper.”

Libertarian Party candidate Daniel Wiener, 38, an electronics engineer from Simi Valley, rounds out the field.

Telling Numbers

In the 21st District, even the most hopeful Democrat cannot brush aside the tough numbers. Republicans outnumber Democrats by 37,000 voters, a 4-3 margin.

From Port Hueneme on the coast, the district covers the affluent, burgeoning suburbs of eastern Ventura County and the northern San Fernando Valley, with three arms shooting northwest--to Ojai, north to the Santa Clarita Valley and east to Sunland-Tujunga. Tacked onto the district is Santa Catalina Island, 55 miles across the Pacific Ocean from Port Hueneme.

All the candidates are relatively unknown outside their hometowns.

They are vying for an open congressional seat--a rare commodity this year in California--triggered by a decision by incumbent Rep. Bobbi Fiedler (R-Northridge) to run for the GOP Senate nomination, a race she lost to Rep. Ed Zschau (R-Los Altos).

Gallegly, 42, became the front-runner after his primary victory over Tony Hope, an attorney and son of entertainer Bob Hope. He edged out Hope in the Los Angeles County portions of the district and racked up a 2-1 margin on his home turf of Ventura County.

Hope, a former Washington lobbyist, returned to the San Fernando Valley to run. He received endorsements from former President Gerald R. Ford and other Washington notables, and campaigned on his expertise in budget issues developed as a member of Reagan’s Grace Commission, which was formed to find waste and fraud in government.

But Gallegly turned Hope’s glamour factor against him. The scrappy mayor relished recalling his modest upbringing in southeast Los Angeles, studying real estate at night and starting a successful real estate firm in Simi Valley.

‘Member of the Community’

“I really am a member of the community. You’ll see me at Pep Boys going in to get an oil filter or something,” he said during a recent interview.

The GOP’s so-called 11th Commandment--”Thou shalt not speak ill of a fellow Republican”--was violated when Gallegly provided documents to reporters showing that Hope had not voted for 10 years. Gallegly went on to paint Hope as a carpetbagger.

Retaliating, Hope revealed that Gallegly canceled his Republican affiliation from 1974 to 1976, immediately after the Watergate scandal. Hope’s radio ads berated Gallegly for accepting contributions from developers--totaling about one-third of all his campaign contributions--even as the mayor was voting on building projects by the same companies in at least two instances.

Gallegly was also criticized for improperly registering to vote in Simi Valley for four years in the 1970s--his home was just outside city limits--by using his Simi Valley business address.

The Gallegly-Saldana contest, by comparison, has remained a quiet affair. Still, the break in GOP decorum has given hope to Saldana, who insists that Democrats have a chance to attract disgruntled Hope supporters.

“There’s a lot of animosity out there between Gallegly and Hope supporters,” said Saldana, 27, a real estate salesman who also manages a 12-room hotel on Catalina.

Exploit Hard Feelings

Democratic strategists will attempt to exploit any lingering hard feelings by targeting mailings to supporters of Hope and Tom La Porte, a Thousand Oaks stockbroker who ran third in the GOP primary, said Jim Dantona, Saldana’s campaign consultant.

“This race, from the onset, was a long shot, but when there’s no incumbent running, strange things can happen,” said Dantona, a North Hollywood-based consultant.

Despite the Democrats’ hopeful talk, Gallegly and Hope say their rift is patched up. “We were swinging at each other pretty hard, but now he’s my fellow party member, not my opponent,” Hope said last week.

“I like Saldana, but as far as I can see, there isn’t any race. I expect Elton to get 65% of the vote without breathing hard,” Hope said.

Other Republicans, apart from the Gallegly camp, also rate the race as a shoo-in.

“Gallegly would have to be convicted of an ax murder three days before the election to make it a competitive race,” joked Assemblyman Tom McClintock (R-Thousand Oaks), who left the 21st District primary after concluding that Hope would win by tapping his Washington connections for big money.

Isolated Base

Saldana is also handicapped by the isolation of his political base--a town of 2,000 residents on an island 22 miles off the coast.

Gallegly insists that he is not taking the competition for granted and intends to make the rounds at chamber of commerce meetings, parades and fund-raising parties.

But Gallegly’s Sacramento-based campaign consultant, Ben Key, maintains that a private poll taken of district voters in August revealed a 3-1 preference for Gallegly over Saldana among those expressing an opinion.

Dantona, Saldana’s adviser, counters with a poll of his own, contending that 40% of Simi Valley Republicans queried rated Gallegly’s job as mayor poor or very poor.

Gallegly’s fund-raising has dwarfed Saldana’s.

For the primary, contributors gave $250,000, and Gallegly lent his own campaign $107,000. Gallegly estimates that his campaign has raised $172,000 since the June 3 primary, including $60,000 from a $250-a-plate dinner on Aug. 1 at the Marriott Hotel in Woodland Hills.

Gallegly said he plans to spend $200,000 on the general election, chiefly on direct mailings.

Meanwhile, Saldana supporters gave $37,000 for the primary effort, and Saldana boosted the total through a $10,000 personal loan.

He estimated that $27,000 has been contributed since the primary, and said his goal is to raise $200,000 before the election.

The young councilman said he will remind voters of Gallegly’s reliance on contributions from the building industry, saying: “I do not see how my opponent can represent those concerns in an objective way if he’s tied so closely to developers.”

Saldana also said the donations clash with strong slow-growth sentiments in much of the district.

Gallegly responded that the contributions represent no conflict of interest and that developers have no special claim on his time. Rather, he said, their donations “reflect my philosophical support for development.”

Student Official

Saldana, a smooth public speaker, received national attention in 1980 after becoming one of the nation’s youngest city council members at the age of 21 while he was a sophomore studying political science at California State University, Long Beach.

He became mayor of Avalon in 1982, winning congratulations from Reagan for being one of the youngest mayors to preside over an American city.

In the Democratic primary, Saldana attracted most of the available political endorsements, including those of the Democratic Party of the San Fernando Valley, numerous labor unions and former Gov. Edmund G. (Pat) Brown. He beat out five challengers, including perennial candidate George H. Margolis.

A Latino whose grandfather arrived at Catalina in 1915, Saldana has been endorsed by several Latino political organizations, including the Mexican American Political Assn., the National Assn. of Elected Latino Officials and the Hispanic Political Caucus, a group of members of Congress.

“I know I’ll get strong support from Hispanics, but I’m not making any specific push for their vote,” he said.

Not to let Saldana’s claim on the Latino vote go unchallenged, Gallegly formed Hispanics for Gallegly, a group aimed at soliciting support from the district’s 12% Latino population.

Gallegly finds his core supporters in those who back Reagan, saying, “Philosophically, that’s a comfortable place to be.”

Asked during a recent interview to name any significant policy differences with Reagan, Gallegly recalled just one--the President’s push to sell portable Stinger anti-aircraft missiles to Saudi Arabia. Gallegly opposed the plan because he said the missiles could wind up in the hands of Mideast terrorists or be used against Israel.

Gallegly favors a balanced-budget amendment and supports Reagan’s efforts on tax reform. He backs Reagan’s call for the Strategic Defense Initiative, known as “Star Wars,” and opposes a nuclear-test ban.

On the sensitive issue of immigration reform, Gallegly opposes bills that would grant amnesty to illegal aliens who have lived in the United States in recent years. He supports sanctions against employers who knowingly hire illegal aliens, but says businesses should be held responsible only for checking Social Security cards.

He favors establishing a guest-worker program in the agriculture and restaurant industries for foreign nationals.

“We’ve got to get control of our borders,” Gallegly said. “Illegal aliens are putting a tremendous demand on public services and taking jobs away from Americans.”

Favors Hodel Plan

On other issues, he favors a five-year plan by Interior Secretary Donald P. Hodel to open large portions of California’s coastline to oil exploration and favors Reagan’s “quiet diplomacy” to prod the South African government to end its system of racial discrimination, apartheid. He opposes the proposed equal rights amendment and federally funded abortions.

Like Gallegly, Saldana portrays himself as a fiscal conservative who would seek out waste and fraud in government. But he opposes a balanced-budget amendment.

He calls Star Wars “unproven and dangerous” and backs a ban on nuclear-weapons testing.

On immigration, Saldana supports amnesty for illegal aliens who entered the United States before Jan. 1, 1982. “I’m not saying what they did was right. But they’re here and raising families,” he said. Saldana rules out sanctions against their employers and also rejects proposals for a guest-worker program as “bringing back slavery” by giving employers power to revoke an alien employee’s legal status by dismissal.

Saldana and Gallegly both favor economic aid to Mexico to create jobs and reduce incentives for workers to move across the border.

Opposes Coastal Drilling

But Saldana opposes coastal oil drilling and backs economic sanctions against South Africa. He favors passage of an equal rights amendment and a woman’s choice on abortion, although he said he is undecided on continuing federally funded abortions for low-income women.

Gallegly said he would like to see the Metro Rail project abandoned because he believes Los Angeles area commuters will “never get out of their cars.” Instead, he favors spending transportation money on widening freeways.

Saldana said he favors the controversial Metro Rail project but would prefer to see an above-ground light-rail system rather than a subway.

On using federal money to buy parkland in the Santa Monica Mountains--a position that has attracted wide bipartisan support in communities along the northern edge of the mountain range--Gallegly said, “I support open space but not with an open checkbook.”

Saldana called expanding the mountain preserve “vitally important.”

21st Congressional District at a Glance

Party Registration:

Total: 288,456

Republican:

150,130 (52.0%)

Democrat: 113,145 (39.2%)

Other: 4,656 (1.6%)

Declined to state: 20,525 (7.1%)

Communities: Santa Catalina Island, Port Hueneme, Ojai, Fillmore, Camarillo, Somis, Thousand Oaks, Moorpark, Simi Valley, Westlake Village, Agoura, Agoura Hills, Calabasas, Chatsworth, western and northern Northridge, western Granada Hills, Sylmar, Newhall, Valencia, Saugus, Canyon Country, Castaic, Lake View Terrace, Sunland and Tujunga.

Incumbent: Republican Bobbi Fiedler of Northridge decided not to seek reelection but instead ran unsuccessfully for the U. S. Senate. This is the only congressional race in Los Angeles County without an incumbent.

Candidates: Elton Gallegly, Republican, 42, mayor of Simi Valley and owner of a real estate firm.

Gilbert R. Saldana, Democrat, 27, vice mayor of Avalon, on Santa Catalina Island, and real estate salesman.

Daniel Wiener, Libertarian, 38, Simi Valley, electronics engineer.

Outlook: A feisty campaigner, Gallegly has outspent Saldana and secured a string of local endorsements. Democrats hope to capitalize on hard feelings left by Gallegly’s bruising primary victory over Tony Hope, son of entertainer Bob Hope.

Notes: The district’s voters are split about evenly between Ventura County and Los Angeles County.