MONTOYA : 26th District’s Incumbent Is a Senator in Search of an Opponent

As he seeks reelection on Nov. 4, the West San Gabriel Valley’s pugnacious state Sen. Joseph B. Montoya (D-Whittier) is like a veteran prizefighter in search of a challenger.

Montoya is prepared for a fight. In the 18 months ending June 30, he received more than $417,000 in campaign contributions--the sixth-highest amount for any Senate candidate, according to the state Fair Political Practices Commission.

Yet Montoya has no opponent. In fact, the secretary of state’s office reported that he is the only Democratic lawmaker on the Nov. 4 ballot without a challenger.

To show voters that he is not taking them for granted, Montoya is dotting his 26th District with billboards and scheduling to run newspaper ads. And he reported funneling more than $20,000 of his campaign bankroll to other Democratic Senate candidates this summer.

‘Hard to Shadowbox’

Still, Montoya, 47, seems frustrated without a campaign adversary. It is, he said, “hard to shadowbox.”

In contrast, Montoya captured the seat in 1978 after a free-swinging primary contest in which he unseated Sen. Alfred H. Song (D-Monterey Park) to represent the heavily Latino and overwhelmingly Democratic district.

In his two terms in the Senate, the Latino legislator has emerged as a sharp-tongued critic of other Democrats, a champion of conservative causes, a top Senate fund-raiser and chairman of the powerful Senate Business and Professions Committee--which controls legislation overseeing licensing of doctors, contractors and other

professionals.

During the last year, Montoya gained the spotlight when he tussled with powerful Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco) over abortion legislation and battled the state’s political watchdog agency.

Sen. Art Torres (D-Los Angeles) said he would rather have Montoya “on my side than against me because he’s very tenacious.”

Montoya’s friends suggest he is a tough, principled lawmaker who would give them the shirt off his back. But his detractors complain that Montoya is stubborn and has turned his back on the underprivileged in favor of a conservative social agenda.

With Democratic registration hovering around 62%, Montoya’s heavily blue-collar district is regarded as a safe Democratic seat. It includes Alhambra, Baldwin Park, El Monte, Industry, Irwindale, Montebello, Monterey Park, North Whittier, Pico Rivera, Rosemead, San Gabriel, South El Monte, Valinda and La Puente--where Montoya got his political start in 1968 as a city councilman.

Year-Round Office

To keep his name before voters, Montoya said he maintains a year-round campaign office in La Puente to perform such functions as sending out birthday greetings to the district’s elderly residents.

State Sen. John Seymour (R-Anaheim), chairman of the Republican Senate caucus, said that it would have been a waste of GOP campaign funds to field even a token candidate against Montoya. Seymour said Montoya is not easy for Republicans to attack because he “is hard on crime. He is on the conservative side of the abortion issue” and “fiscally he’s fairly conservative.”

Even though Republicans have declined to oppose him on Nov. 4, Montoya has no shortage of critics, some of them in his own party.

For example, some legislators say that Montoya’s displays of Democratic loyalty are infrequent. “I think in his heart of hearts he wishes he was a Republican,” said a Democratic colleague who asked not to be named.

Ties to Roberti

Montoya is close to state Senate President Pro Tem David A. Roberti (D-Los Angeles), partly because both are vocally opposed to abortion. Montoya recently sided with Roberti in the ongoing fight against building a state prison near East Los Angeles, where many of Montoya’s Latino constituents have their roots.

Nonetheless, Montoya admits that he sometimes differs with party leadership. “David Roberti is a good friend,” Montoya said, “and sometimes he has to beg and plead for a vote. I just don’t go along because a party leader says so. I’m not in the Communist Party.”

Montoya acknowledged that he feels close to Republicans on fiscal issues and some social causes, but says the GOP too often ignores the needs of the elderly and Latinos.

He vigorously defends his political record. “The bottom line is that with many of these liberals, if you do not sing their tune, you are not acceptable. I’m not a women’s libber, I’m not an extreme environmentalist. Balance in my political being has worked well for me. They are out of tune.”

Prediction of Vulnerability

One critic who thinks Montoya is vulnerable to a challenger is Catherine P. Hensel, who retired last year from the Montebello City Council. Hensel said she paid Facts Consolidated, a Los Angeles research firm, $10,000 to conduct a poll in February to help her decide whether to run against Montoya in the Democratic primary.

Hensel said she considered entering the contest because she believes that Montoya has become indebted to special interests who contribute to his campaigns and because records of the most recent legislative session show he failed to vote more than one-third of the time.

Jewel Alderton, vice president and director of research for Facts Consolidated, predicted that Montoya would have been vulnerable to a well-financed Democratic challenger because even though district residents know Montoya’s name, relatively few have a clear impression of him.

Hensel backed away from the race after she and her advisers estimated it could cost between $500,000 and $1 million to beat Montoya. Hensel said she “didn’t think it was worth $1 million” to make the attempt.

Alderton said that the telephone survey was conducted last February among 608 voters in the district. Alderton said the margin of error rate in a poll of this kind is 4% in either direction.

Hometown Support

Alderton said Montoya’s name recognition was high, with 89% of those questioned saying his name sounded familiar. But, according to the poll, only 18% could identify Montoya as their state senator.

Alderton said Montoya drew much of his support from around his home base in La Puente but noted that even his supporters could not say why they liked him. Instead, supporters said they did not have any reason to vote against Montoya, which prompted Alderton to speculate that his support was “very soft” and “not a committed constituency.”

Said Alderton: “If we had done this study for him, I’m sure he would be scared to death.”

Montoya scoffed at the poll results. He said that surveys in other districts would also reveal that few voters know the identity of their state senator.

He also discounted Hensel’s criticism of his voting habits. He acknowledged that he often does not vote on bills but regards that as a plus, not a negative.

He Votes 63% of the Time

In the most recent two-year legislative session, Montoya voted 63% of the time in committee and on the Senate floor, according to Legi-Tech, a computerized information service. Only two other members of the 40-person upper chamber voted less often.

One Senate colleague, who asked not to be identified, said that when Roberti directs senators to stay on the floor Montoya “finds a way out.”

Montoya said that he is present for legislative business but often does not cast votes, especially in the last weeks of the session when scores of bills are passed with little or no debate.

“If anything,” Montoya declared, “I’m getting more recalcitrant about voting” on many bills “that don’t amount to a hill of beans.” For instance, he said, in the Senate Water Committee many bills address obscure water marketing orders “feathering someone’s nest or helping some water district so, unless pressed, I won’t vote.”

Jerry Zanelli, a major capital lobbyist who was a UCLA classmate of Montoya’s, said that even in college Montoya was “very ambitious” and “very opinionated” but, above all else, “fiercely independent.”

Montoya was born in Rocky Ford, Colo., and moved to California when he was 15. As a teen-ager, he picked crops during the summers to earn money. Later, he entered the Air Force and earned a bachelor’s degree in political science at UCLA. He is married and has four children.

In 1968, he won a seat on the La Puente City Council. In 1972, he moved up to the Assembly. Six years later, he unseated Song, who was then the target of an FBI investigation.

Securely Democratic

Reapportionment in the early 1980s assured that the 26th state Senate District seat would remain in the Democratic column. In Montoya’s first Senate reelection bid in 1982, he trounced Montebello school board member Eleanor Chow by more than 2 to 1.

For now, Montoya says he is content to stay in the Senate but that if Pete Schabarum left the Board of Supervisors he would be interested in “the challenge” of running for the seat.

La Puente Councilman Louis Guzman, who lost to Montoya in the 1968 council race but later worked for him as a deputy, said his one-time rival is a “very straightforward individual. He’s the kind of guy who’ll give you the shirt off his back if he likes you.” But, he added, Montoya is “not the kind of guy who forgives or forgets” political disputes very quickly.

One of Montoya’s stormiest political relationships dates back to his early days in Sacramento. As a freshman, Montoya became close to then-Assembly Speaker Robert Moretti (D-Van Nuys). When Moretti stepped down in 1974 and picked Willie Brown to replace him as Speaker, Montoya recalls that he split with Moretti and supported then-Assemblyman Leo T. McCarthy (D-San Francisco) for the Assembly’s top spot.

Persuaded Two Others

Montoya said that Brown has never forgotten that Montoya helped persuade two assemblymen to support McCarthy and deny Brown the speakership. Brown, who became Speaker six years later, declined through his press office to comment for this article.

Through the years their disagreements have periodically erupted in public. Last year, they had an angry dispute over the handling of a bill aimed at curbing the ability of Marina del Rey residents to form a city. They clashed again this year over an abortion-related issue.

Montoya authored a measure to require minors to obtain parental consent or a court order before receiving an abortion. The bill passed the Senate but in February stalled in the Assembly Judiciary Committee. In May, Assemblyman Phil Wyman (R-Tehachapi) attempted to extract the bill from the committee and bring it to the floor for a vote. The rare withdrawal maneuver--considered a serious challenge to the Speaker’s authority--has not succeeded in more than 25 years.

Montoya contended that Brown had reneged on an agreement to let the bill go to the full Assembly and in an interview blasted the Speaker. “The problem is the Speaker has reached a stage of being a pathological liar that cannot tell the difference between lying and telling the truth.”

‘Blackmail’ Accusation

Brown assailed Montoya as “a liar” and described the bid to revive the bill as “blackmail.”

Critics of Montoya’s bill say that in other states where similar proposals have become law they failed to reduce teen-age pregnancies.

Montoya said that there are less costly birth control alternatives than abortions, especially publicly financed abortions.

“I mean I’ve never been against, you know, the Pill. You want to pass out the Pill as part of a poverty program, go ahead and do that,” Montoya said.

Anti-abortion groups welcomed Montoya’s legislation and his office has become a gathering spot for them in the Capitol.

“I think I’m controversial because I’m a pro-life vote,” said Montoya. “I think even (liberals) understand that it’s not a position that is lightly held and I’m prepared to defend it anywhere I go.”

Bill to Limit FPPC

Another Montoya measure that triggered a dispute also received a friendly reception from conservatives.

Montoya’s bill was aimed at limiting the power of the state Fair Political Practices Commission, the state’s political watchdog, to investigate and discipline suspected political wrongdoers. One of the most controversial features of the legislation would have required commission investigators to give advance warning to individuals under investigation.

In July, Montoya argued that the bill was needed to curb what he said are the commission’s “Gestapo” tactics in investigating public officials for possible election-law violations. The measure failed to win passage on a 10-20 vote that crossed party lines.

Montoya’s bill found a sympathetic supporter in conservative state Sen. John Doolittle (R-Citrus Heights), who has been accused by the FPPC of violating campaign contribution disclosure laws. “The man is not afraid to speak out,” Doolittle said of Montoya. “Most of the people here are intimidated to speak out against the FPPC.”

Contrasting Viewpoint

Walter Zelman, lobbyist for the self-styled public interest group Common Cause, voiced a sharply contrasting view, saying Montoya’s proposal “would have immobilized the FPPC and stripped it of its enforcement powers. That was one of the worst bills of the year from our point of view.”

Zelman also criticized Montoya’s stand on consumer issues. Zelman said that Democrats usually are receptive to the kind of consumer issues his group supports, but Montoya’s positions run against the grain. “Montoya has been a disappointment to the consumer-interest community,” Zelman said.

Another critic, who formerly worked for the state but asked not to be identified, said that in 14 years in the capital Montoya has gone from being a “wide-eyed assemblyman who made pro-consumer speeches” to a “pretty pro-utility and anti-consumer” lawmaker.

Pro-Business Stance

Montoya describes himself as a pro-business legislator but rejects the contention that he is anti-consumer. “The private sector means creation of jobs, but that doesn’t mean you give up consumer protection or safety or that you give up on consumerism,” he said.

A former legislative staff member, who also sought anonymity, said that on most issues, except for abortion, Montoya is most concerned about whether his stand on an issue will fuel extra campaign contributions.

Montoya bristled at the suggestion of a direct connection between contributions and his actions. “I don’t put the arm on people,” he said.

But Montoya acknowledged he has a “sense of uneasiness” if he gets a $1,000 contribution and later the donor calls “to say he’s concerned” about an issue. He said he thinks that the contributor may believe there is “an unstated” relationship between the gift and his votes.

Speeches Mean Income

He also brushes aside criticism involving money he and other legislators earn for making speeches. In 1985, Montoya reported receiving nearly $12,000 from such groups as the California Motorcycle Dealers Assn. for speaking appearances. The money goes directly to Montoya, not his campaign committee.

In a 1985 interview, Montoya said he made the speeches because he is “not a lawyer, and I don’t have an insurance company on the side. All I do is legislative stuff, and I find it (honorariums) an attractive supplemental income which I would not turn down in any circumstance.”

Likewise, Montoya is not apologetic about overseas travel, which he sees as an important part of his job. Last year he inspected high-speed trains in Europe as a guest of companies that hope to sell the equipment in the United States. Now, he would like to return to Europe to inspect equipment for the high-tech incinerators planned in the San Gabriel Valley.

Tour of Waste-Burning Plants

In fact, he planned to spend two weeks in Europe this month touring waste-to-energy plants as a guest of a private foundation. But after the Senate became embroiled in the prison fight he canceled the trip.

After his trips, Montoya said, he is “comfortable coming back to my district and telling people ‘Hey, look, I was doing serious work’.” But he quickly added that his constituents “aren’t fools” and realize that at night “you’re going to go out and have a good time.”

Montoya said he expects his constituents will have the same understanding of committee hearings he has scheduled in Palm Springs and Carmel in November and December. When they were announced, a legislative staffer privately questioned the use of taxpayer funds for hearings in the resort areas.

But Montoya views the cities as proper places to hold hearings because he expects that legislation will grow out of the discussions. He said that after the Palm Springs hearings he would “take a dip in the pool and have a good meal.” He said that it would be an “insult” to “the public to tell them otherwise.”