Newly Formed Political Action Group Labeled a ‘Sham’

The head of an Orange County deputy sheriffs’ group and other law enforcement officials charged Tuesday that a 2-week-old organization calling itself the Police and Sheriffs of California was set up as a campaign ploy to confuse voters.

With less than two weeks remaining before the Nov. 4 election, the organization’s endorsements have been featured in campaign mail attacking Democratic state Assembly candidates in Orange, Los Angeles and Sonoma counties.

On Monday, voters in Orange County’s 72nd Assembly District received a mailer from Republican Richard E. Longshore’s campaign that featured an endorsement from the new group, which was organized Oct. 6, according to documents filed with the secretary of state’s office in Sacramento. The organization has only 19 law enforcement officers as members statewide, according to its leaders--a Santa Monica policeman and a Westminster attorney, both of whom have ties to present or past Republican legislators.

The Longshore mailer contains a slashing attack on Santa Ana Mayor Daniel E. Griset, Longshore’s Democratic opponent. Griset has been endorsed by all the police associations in the district and the 30,000-member Police Officers Research Assn. of California.

Other mail bearing the endorsement of the Police and Sheriffs of California surfaced this week in two races in Los Angeles County and one in Northern California. Those are contests between Republican Beverly Hansen and Democrat Mary Jadiker for the seat held by retiring Assemblyman Don A. Sebastiani (R-Sonoma), between Republican Roger Fiola and Assemblyman Richard E. Floyd (D-Hawthorne), and between Republican Henry J. VeLasco and Assemblywoman Sally Tanner (D-El Monte).

“It’s a sham,” Jerry Pierson of the Assn. of Orange County Deputy Sheriffs said of the Professional Police and Sheriffs of California. “They’re trying to make people think that they represent thousands of law enforcement officials throughout the state, and they don’t.”

The mail attacking the Democrats reproduced an endorsement letter signed by Bruce Cline, as president of the Professional Police and Sheriffs. Cline, a Santa Monica policeman, is the son of former state Assemblyman Robert Cline (R-Northridge), a staunch conservative who gave up his seat in 1980 to run unsuccessfully for the state Senate.

Bruce Cline acknowledged that his group was formed two weeks ago specifically to influence the Nov. 4 election, but he said it also plans to be active in 1988 races.

In Sacramento, Len Delaney, police research association president, said: “It appears to me that they are a right-wing, conservative group. . . . Until now, we’ve never heard of them.”

In Orange County, an attorney named Shawn Steel called a Times reporter and said he represents the group. Steel said he is a Longshore supporter and longtime acquaintance of Assemblyman John R. Lewis (R-Orange), who manages Assembly races on behalf of Assembly GOP leader Pat Nolan (R-Glendale).

Steel said he had discussed the need for an organization to counter “labor-oriented” police organizations with Lewis and several other Republican Party activists at a number of GOP social functions in recent years.

Lewis, asked if he or the Assembly GOP political action committee had arranged the mailings, said he did not think so but could be wrong. “I don’t know anything,” he said.