California Elections : Rolling Again, Democrat Eu Hardly Notices Her Hopeful GOP Opponent

Secretary of State March Fong Eu, who eight years ago became the biggest vote-getter for statewide office in California history, seems to be coasting again in her bid for a fourth term.

In good shape politically because of a controversy-free administration and her high name identification--built originally on a successful 1974 fight to ban pay toilets from public buildings--Eu spends more time lecturing on the civic duty of voting than she does in stumping for reelection.

Her Republican challenger, Orange County Supervisor Bruce Nestande, candidly admits that the success of his underdog campaign depends largely on how far down the ticket the coattails of Gov. George Deukmejian can stretch Nov. 4.

“If Deukmejian does like (Ronald) Reagan did in 1966, we’ve got a very good chance of going in with the team,” Nestande said, referring to the GOP’s near-sweep of statewide offices two decades ago when Reagan was first elected governor. “If the race gets close, then our chances diminish dramatically. . . . In this kind of race, you are at the mercy of the top of the ticket.”

For her part, Democrat Eu happily tells questioners that recent opinion polls--both private and published--show her far ahead of her opponent. For example, a mid-August survey by the independent California Poll gave her a 58% to 17% lead among registered voters.

Nestande’s general election effort so far has been so low in profile that it raises questions about whether he actually intends to wage a hard-driving campaign.

But the GOP nominee said in an interview that he soon expects to raise “upwards of perhaps $400,000 to $500,000” in a series of fund-raisers and that he and his campaign staff will “do our thing” in the final two or three weeks before Election Day.

But Nestande, whose last campaign finance report showed him with contributions of $214,506, expenditures of $376,539 and only $1,983 in the bank as of June 30, ruled out stretch-drive television commercials as too costly. He said he probably will concentrate on “selective” radio and newspaper advertising.

Nestande’s fund-raising abilities are handicapped by an Orange County ordinance that restricts county supervisors from receiving more than $1,622 from a single contributor if the donor has business before the board. Thus, even though he is running for state office, Nestande is hobbled by the Orange County “Tin Cup” law while Eu is not.

“There’s no question that our fund raising has been reduced to a third of what it otherwise would be if I were not handicapped by Tin Cup,” said Nestande, who nevertheless proposes making Tin Cup the law statewide.

Eu’s report showed her going into the general election with $373,837 in the bank. “At this point, all indications are that it is going to be really quiet for us this fall as it relates to the campaign,” said Yvonne Ryzak, Eu’s campaign consultant.

Issues Hardly Abound

Indeed, issues hardly abound. Nestande calls her a “nice person, but for 12 years she’s done nothing. . . . Jerry Brown when he was secretary of state did something. He made things happen. I feel I am part of that mold, to be a very pro-active type person.”

What he would do, said Nestande, a former state assemblyman, would be to lead a fight for reform of political campaign financing. He does not, however, favor public financing of campaigns.

He would also push for creation of an independent commission to handle reapportionment of legislative and congressional districts, a task traditionally left to the Legislature.

He said he would seek to work with legislators on these issues but, if that failed, he would lead ballot initiative movements.

Eu, who traditionally refuses to mention her opponent by name, counters that under her administration statewide elections have been fraud-free and her computerized counting of election returns is a national model, and that she, as head of the California World Trade Commission, is busy finding new markets for California exports.

In California, the secretary of state is, among other things, the chief elections officer, custodian of the state archives, regulator of notaries public and registrar of corporate names and officers.

Nestande, 48, a former Marine who got his start in the Capitol as the operator of then-Gov. Reagan’s mail room, was elected to the Assembly in 1974 and to the Orange County Board of Supervisors in 1980. In Sacramento, he was considered a political moderate and lost his position as the No. 2 Assembly GOP leader when he was overthrown by a conservative faction.

This year, Nestande first started running for lieutenant governor but jumped into the secretary of state’s race when Republican Mike Curb decided to try to get his old job back.

Nestande, virtually from the outset of this year’s campaign, found himself involved in controversy, an ingredient of politics that he philosophically brushes aside as merely “part of the political arena.”

Contributions Returned

In 1983, Nestande returned $18,000 in campaign contributions to fireworks manufacturer and political wheeler-dealer W. Patrick Moriarty. The funds had been laundered to hide their true source. Moriarty is in federal prison after pleading guilty to charges of making illegal campaign contributions, paying bribes to city officials and making kickbacks to a banker.

But recent newspaper stories have reported that Nestande, as chairman of the supervisors in 1982, wrote letters to a bank assuring final board approval of a long-dormant proposed housing development. A developer whom Nestande knew was seeking a $2.4-million loan from the bank at the time for the project.

Nestande maintains that he merely wrote “routine” letters for the developer as he would have for any other constituent who sought what he termed readily available “public information.”

Likewise, Nestande immersed himself in controversy last spring when it was disclosed that he was temporarily homeless because a house purchase had fallen through and he was using rent-free expensive homes provided by developers in his district.

More recently, Nestande found himself in another political glue pot.

Brokerage Firm’s Contribution

Nestande and an executive of the New York brokerage firm of Smith Barney Harris Upham & Co. confirmed that three months before the supervisors awarded a lucrative bond underwriting contract to the firm, the Smith Barney official promised Nestande contributions for his secretary of state campaign. Nestande reported receiving $13,000 in June from the firm and its corporate officers.

Under state law, contacts between a public official and a campaign contributor are not illegal unless the donation is given in exchange for a direct action on a specified issue. Both Nestande and Smith Barney executives insist that no such exchange was involved.

Eu, 64, meantime, professes to have no interest in her opponent’s controversies, insisting that during the election season she is at her busiest and does not have time to keep close track of her opponent.

Nevertheless, one recent night while making the nonpartisan keynote speech at a Chamber of Commerce fund-raiser in her tiny Stanislaus County hometown of Oakdale, she reminded the locals that she had been born in the back room of the Hop Lee hand laundry.

“That means I’m a very, very clean politician,” she cracked.

In 1974, she became the first person of Asian ancestry to win election to a statewide office in California, defeating her opponent by 1.2 million votes. In her next two elections, she also demolished her opposition and firmly established herself as the biggest vote-getter for statewide office in California history.

Previously, she served four terms in the Assembly. She often went against the Legislature’s tradition of extemporaneous oratory by relying on a staff-prepared typewritten statement to explain the contents of her bills. Members of her staff say she now relies much less heavily on materials prepared in advance.

Ban on Pay Toilets

As an assemblywoman, perhaps her most important legislation--and certainly her most well-known--was a 1974 bill that banned pay toilets in public buildings. In a highly effective argument, she deplored pay toilets as discriminatory against women. The highly publicized measure served as her springboard to higher office--a thirst still unquenched, her friends maintain.

For years, Eu has flirted with the idea of running for governor or the U.S. Senate, and she still coyly refuses to rule out a campaign for the Senate. Her advisers note that if she wins reelection, she could run for the Senate in 1988 and, if she lost, would still have two years left in her term as secretary of state.

Asked about a possible Senate bid in two years, Eu said through an aide that she “will consider the future after this election. She is not closing any doors, but is concentrating on this election.”