Local Issues, Congressional Races Enter the Countdown : Incumbents Face Soft Opposition in Race for Congress

Republican nominee John Almquist, who is seeking the congressional seat held by Rep. Matthew G. Martinez (D-Monterey Park), is not a conventional Republican candidate.

He assails “country-club Republicans,” complains that President Reagan has not done enough about the imbalance in international trade and says Gov. George Deukmejian is insensitive to the plight of poor Latinos.

“A lot of Republican policies are good for people who have already made it, but may not be so good for people who are on the outside,” Almquist said.

Willing to Oppose Reagan

If elected to Congress, he added, he will resist cuts in educational and social programs even if that puts him in opposition to his party and President Reagan.

“A congressman has to be an advocate for the local community,” he said. “We have people who can’t pay for their rent and food. We have the elderly being thrown out of their trailer parks and apartments.”

Almquist is seeking election in the 30th Congressional District, which is 54% Latino and heavily Democratic, although the number of Democrats has slipped from 63% of the registered voters in 1982 to under 60% today.

Republicans poured more than $1 million into the race four years ago when reapportionment created the district and spent $160,000 in a losing effort two years ago when attorney Richard Gomez fell 10,000 votes short.

This time, Almquist said, he is getting no financial help from the national party. He said he has raised about $20,000 locally for his campaign.

Martinez has derided the Almquist effort, noting that Almquist “just recently moved into the district.” Almquist lived in La Canada Flintridge before moving into the district after the primary election in June.

In addition, Martinez said, “The young man can’t make up his mind what he’s going to be.”

Almquist, 28, listed himself as a businessman on the June ballot and a tax consultant on the November ballot. Actually, Almquist said, he obtained a law degree and a diploma in tax law from the University of San Diego in 1984 and has worked as a law clerk but has not passed the state bar exam. Currently, he is devoting full time to his campaign.

The Martinez-Almquist race, which also includes Libertarian candidate Kim J. Goldsworthy, is one of five congressional races in the San Gabriel Valley. In each case, incumbents have the advantage in political party registration and are heavily favored to win.

Almquist won the Republican nomination with an upset victory over Mike Radlovic, a 26-year-old real estate broker who had the support of party leaders.

Almquist attributed his victory to good fortune (his name appeared by chance on slate cards mailed to voters to promote candidates for other offices) and on hard work (he campaigned door-to-door).

Walking the District

For the general election, Almquist is walking residential areas in every city in the district, which stretches from Cudahy and Vernon northeast through Monterey Park, Alhambra and El Monte to Azusa.

His strategy is to demonstrate his compassion. “It is tragic,” he said, that some people think that being a Republican is “to be only an advocate for the white upper-middle class.”

Almquist has allied himself with local causes, such as opposition to a prison in East Los Angeles. In deciding to put a prison in an area that already has four correctional institutions and suffers from a lack of jobs and educational opportunities, Almquist said Deukmejian shows that “he doesn’t realize what it is to be poor and Hispanic.”

But while Almquist sees shortcomings in his own party’s approach to the problems of the poor, he said the Democratic Party’s promises to the poor have turned out to be empty.

Broken Promises

“The Democratic promises haven’t come true,” he said. “People don’t have jobs. Their kids aren’t going to college.”

Almquist’s program for improving life in the district includes upgrading California State University, Los Angeles by making it a campus of the University of California and creating “enterprise zones” by offering tax credits to businesses that will locate in job-depressed areas.

Martinez scoffed at the enterprise-zone suggestion, which has been promoted nationally by Rep. Jack Kemp (R-N.Y), saying that offering tax incentives might lure plants to an area but would just shift the unemployment problem.

“You don’t create jobs that way,” he said. “You move them from one area to another.”

Martinez said the Reagan Administration has failed to deal with unemployment.

Ignoring Home Front

“It’s a sad thing that this Administration doesn’t look at this domestic problem, it is so concerned with international relations,” he said.

Martinez, 57, said he is running an all-out campaign with mailers, signs, phone calls and precinct-walking, even though his Republican opponent is not getting the kind of financial help that was available to past Republican nominees.

Martinez has raised $110,000 and spent $82,000 on political activities from last year through Sept. 30, according to the Federal Election Commission.

Goldsworthy, the Libertarian candidate, said he has been reaching voters with talks to service clubs and other groups. As a Libertarian, his message, he said, is that “it is time for a less active government role.”

‘Not in the Know’

Goldsworthy, 30, is a graduate of Cal State Los Angeles with a double major in philosophy and psychology and works as a computer programmer. He is a regional chairman of the Libertarian Pary and a member of Mensa, the society whose members have high IQs.

Goldsworthy, who said he has raised and spent about $3,000, said he is running as the candidate who is best qualified and informed. He said Martinez is not well regarded in either Washington or the district. “His reputation is that he is not in the know,” Goldsworthy said.

Martinez ran an upholstery business and served on the Monterey Park City Council before being elected to the state Assembly in 1980 with strong financial help from the political organization of representatives Henry Waxman and Howard Berman of Los Angeles.

He is completing his second term in Congress and is chairman of the Education and Labor Committee’s subcommittee on employment opportunities. Martinez said he has fought to save job training programs, increase opportunities for adults to learn English in order to reduce the illiteracy rate, and improve funding for national forests.

Almquist grew up in the San Gabriel Valley and graduated from USC. He spent a semester at the Princeton Theological Seminary before going to law school. He lives in South San Gabriel.

22ND CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT

Democrat John G. Simmons faces an uphill fight, as was shown last month when he tried unsuccessfully to get seven-term GOP incumbent Carlos J. Moorhead to take part in a debate at a forum sponsored by the conservative Republican.

“Go to the Westside!” shouted a man, angry that the liberal Democratic candidate’s views seemingly were more in tune with Santa Monica than the 22nd District, which includes Arcadia, Monrovia, San Marino, Sierra Madre, South Pasadena, Temple City, Glendale, La Canada Flintridge and parts of Pasadena.

Despite a fairly hostile reaction from the mainly elderly and Republican crowd in Glendale, Simmons stayed through the meeting and, afterwards, engaged in some lively arguments with potential voters.

“I’m not ashamed of being a Democrat,” he later said. “I’ll never throw in the towel.”

Heavy Odds

But, Simmons concedes, the odds of winning the Nov. 4 election are heavily against him. About 56% of the registered voters in the district are Republicans, compared to 35% who are Democrats.

That breakdown is so discouraging that in 1984 the Democrats were unable to find a candidate willing to run against Moorhead, who wound up with 85% of the vote against a Libertarian.

Also running in the 22nd District are Jona Joy Bergland, a Libertarian, and Joel Lorimer, who is the candidate of the Peace and Freedom Party. Neither has raised more than $500.

Bergland, 28, is a computer service technician and member of Air Force Reserve. A Glendale resident, she is the daughter of David Bergland, the Libertarian Party candidate for president in 1984.

Less Government

She said she has done no campaigning but wants to make sure there is a Libertarian on the ballot. If elected, she promises voters, to “work to get the government off their backs and give them control over their own lives.”

Lorimer, 38, is a gardener and lives outside the district in the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles. He said he has done some door-to-door pamphleteering and calls for general disarmament and the closing of American military bases in foreign countries.

Moorhead is a low-key legislator who does not make a lot of headlines. But his genial manner and political conservatism have won him loyal contributors. The congressman has spent about $90,000 on his campaign and still has $440,000 left. Simmons expects to raise and spend about $23,000.

Simmons, 69, a Lutheran minister and former hospital administrator from Burbank, is running an active campaign as an unreconstructed liberal in a time and place when neo-conservatism is poplar even among some Democrats.

Dean of GOP Caucus

Moorhead, 64, an attorney and former state Assemblyman from Glendale, is the dean of California’s 18-member GOP caucus in Congress. He spends a lot of time in subcommittees on technical issues of patent protection, hydroelectric power and telecommunications.

His voting record last year earned a 90% rating from the American Conservative Union and a 5% rating from the liberal Americans for Democratic Action.

Saying he has no time and it would serve no purpose, Moorhead refuses to debate Simmons. But he handed over the microphone to the challenger for a few minutes when Simmons showed up at what Moorhead said was supposed to be a nonpolitical meeting last month with constituents.

Moorhead even refuses to criticize his opponent. “I very seldom put anyone down,” he said.

‘Laid-Back Non-Leader’

Simmons, on the other hand, regularly blasts Moorhead as “a laid-back non-leader” who “hides in committees that don’t mean anything to the general public.”

The Democrat is an outspoken, aggressive campaigner who can turn on the sermon-like style of a preacher even if he is now retired from having a regular pulpit.

His usual theme is that the Reagan Administration is pursuing a dangerous military build-up while abandoning the poor and the elderly.

Simmons proposes that the nation rebuild its cities and basic industries with a domestic version of the Marshall Plan, the massive aid program that helped Western Europe recover from the ravages of World War II.

Home Was Bombed

A Minnesota protegee of former Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey, Simmons moved to California in 1952 and became involved in civil rights and other liberal causes.

In 1962, his home in North Hollywood was badly damaged by a bomb while he was speaking before a Jewish group about what he said was the danger of radical right-wing political groups.

Simmons was also the administrator and one of the founders of Lake View Medical Center. Weighed down with debt since it was destroyed in the 1971 earthquake and subsequently rebuilt, that 145-bed hospital went bankrupt and closed last year.

Some former employees say the facility suffered from poor administration. But Simmons blames cuts in government subsidized health programs for low-income people.

25TH CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT

Rep. Edward R. Roybal (D-Los Angeles), who has been in Congress for 24 years, faces only token Republican opposition in his quest for another term.

Gregory L. Hardy, a field representative for Assembly Republican leader Pat Nolan, is the Republican nominee, but he lives outside the district in Glendale, has put up no visible campaign and did not return repeated phone calls.

Ted Brown, 26, an insurance claims adjuster who lives in Highland Park, is running on the Libertarian ticket. He said he is running because “I’ve always wanted to be a congressman” and Roybal is “the embodiment of big government--everything I’m against.”

“He was raising taxes while I was still in diapers,” Brown said.

Dismantle Programs

As a Libertarian, Brown said he sees little role for the national government beyond providing for the common defense. He would like to dismantle many government programs.

There are only 672 registered Libertarians in the district, 34,890 Republicans and more than 115,000 Democrats.

Despite the limited opposition, Henry Lozano, administrative assistant to Roybal, said the congressmen is conducting a full campaign with signs, mailers and a get-out-the-vote drive.

“You can’t take things for granted,” he said.

Roybal, 70, was elected to the Los Angeles City Council in 1949 and was first elected to Congress in 1962. He is chairman of the House Select Committee on Aging and has played a leading role in legislation affecting immigration, the elderly and health matters.

33RD CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT

Rep. David Dreier (R-La Verne), seeking a fourth term, is running a campaign in which he has ignored the opposition, infuriating his opponents and even irritating officers of the nonpartisan Claremont League of Women Voters.

Democrat Monty Hempel in September challenged Dreier to “take the risk that democracy demands and join me in public debate.” He suggested they start with a debate sponsored by the league on Oct. 20.

Dreier never replied to Hempel’s letter and declined the league’s invitation after he first indicated he might attend, league officers said. He also refused to send a representative to the debate but did send a statement to be read.

Kitty Strong, voter service chairman for the Claremont League of Women Voters, said a couple of hundred people would have attended the debate if all the candidates had agreed to appear but that Dreier’s absence reduced attendance to 89.

Ignores Citizen Education

“We regret he does not take more seriously the job of citizen education that the league tries to perform,” she said.

Dreier said he had another campaign commitment, involving an appearance in San Gabriel with Republican candidates for statewide office at the same time as the league debate but will engage in debate “the moment the Democratic Party fields a credible candidate against me.”

He said he had no interest in debating Hempel or Peace and Freedom Party candidate Mike Noonan because they were involved with a group that has staged a series of unruly protests at his office against his support for the rebels, called contras , in Nicaragua.

“What’s the point?” asked Dreier. “All he (Hempel) would do is scream that I’m a war-monger”

Impediments to Deomcracy

Hempel, 36, director of the Program in Public Policy Studies at the Claremont Graduate School, said he views ducking debates and the accumulation of more than $900,000 in cash in Dreier’s campaign fund as impediments to the democratic process.

He said Dreier has adopted “a style of campaigning that relies on money rather than ideas.”

Hempel said that both he and Noonan addressed a small group of perhaps 30 protesters who picketed Dreier’s office last spring to protest the congressman’s support of the contras .

But, Hempel said, most Democrats in Congress oppose the Administration’s policy in Nicaragua and sharing that view should not make him an unworthy candidate.

Avoids Defending Record

As to qualifications for office, Hempel said he has a doctorate in American government, worked for local and state governments on urban planning and economic development and studied public policy questions for 12 years.

By avoiding his opponents, Hempel said, Dreier forecloses the opportunity for cross-examination.

“He has a record that he needs to defend,” Hempel said.

Hempel said Dreier has given voters in the 33rd district, which covers much of the east San Gabriel Valley, the impression that he is a moderate, but in fact he is rated by the National Journal in its analysis of voting records as one of the most conservative members of Congress.

Noonan, 46, the Peace and Freedom Party candidate who is making his fourth run for Congress against Dreier, said he is fighting a drift in politics toward the right.

Aping Republicans

He said the Democratic Party seems to be ready to emulate the Republicans, abandoning its liberal approach and becoming a “me, too party.”

Noonan said he believes the campaign against the reconfirmation of California Chief Justice Rose Elizabeth Bird is leading the push to the right, and he is making support of her a central part of his campaign.

Noonan, a hospital pharmacist, polled 2,371 votes in 1984 while Dreier got 147,363, or 70% of the vote.

Dreier said that although he is not debating his opponents, he is talking to voters every day, answering questions and defending his record.

‘Conservative as They Come’

He labels himself as “moderate to conservative.” Some groups have looked at his voting record, he said, and have concluded that he is “as conservative as they come,” but on environmental issues, he said, his voting record puts him among mainstream Democrats.

Dreier, 34, earned degrees from Claremont McKenna College and Claremont Graduate School and won election to Congress in 1980, defeating incumbent Democrat Jim Lloyd.

He voted this year against both the tax reform and immigration bills, measures that Hempel said he would have supported.

Dreier said the tax measure did not provide fairness or simplification; Hempel said he opposes some of the bill’s provisions but supports its shift of some of the tax burden from individuals to corporations.

Both Dreier and Hempel said they are concerned that the immigration bill, by imposing sanctions against employers for hiring illegal aliens, will discourage employers from hiring Latinos or anyone who looks like they might be from a foreign country. Dreier said he also opposes the bill’s amnesty provisions, which Hempel supports.

34TH CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT

Deputy Sheriff Charles M. House is fighting an uphill battle in his bid to unseat Rep. Esteban E. Torres (D-La Puente) in the 34th Congressional District.

A conservative black Republican, House, who has not received the endorsement of the Republican Party, is trying to win in a area in which Democrats outnumber Republicans by more than 2 to 1.

The district stretches from Baldwin Park and West Covina on the northeast through South El Monte, La Puente, Industry, Pico Rivera and Santa Fe Springs to Norwalk and Artesia on the south.

A spokesman for House said his supporters have raised more than $50,000 to finance his first bid for public office. Torres, who is seeking his third term, has more than $106,000 in his campaign chest, said Bob Alcock, his administrative assistant.

Questions Ties to SBA

House has characterized Torres as a liberal who represents a conservative area.

He and his supporters also question whether Torres should continue to serve as a member of the House Small Business Committee, which oversees the Small Business Administration. Before he was first elected in 1981, Torres received a $150,000 loan through the agency to start an import-export business.

“I find it unconscionable that a member of Congress has continued to sit on a committee which oversees a program he has been a beneficiary of,” House stated in an letter he sent to the House Ethics Committee earlier this month asking for Torres’ removal from the panel. The Ethics Committee has not acted on the request.

Torres was a private citizen when he received the loan from the Minority Enterprise Small Business Investment Co., an independently operated firm licensed by the Small Business Administration to aid minority businesses, Alcock said.

Loan Was Paid

When Torres was elected, Alcock said, he turned the business over to his wife to operate. In 1985, the loan was paid off, Torres said.

Torres described himself as a moderate who reflects the desires of his constituents. He said unemployment is one of the major issues facing his district.

“This district is an urban working-class district and mirrors the problems of the nation. When we last took a poll, unemployment was about 10%,” said Torres, a former ambassador to UNESCO and special assistant to former President Jimmy Carter.

Torres had been a representative for the United Auto Workers before he got into politics. He ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 1974.

Voted to Cut Budget

Torres said he has supported measures to get the economy moving. As an example, he said he voted to cut the federal budget by $39.2 billon, “more than President Reagan had been willing to do.”

Torres also said he voted for the recently enacted immigration, tax revision and spending bills. He said he has been a strong advocate of anti-drug legislation and had advocated the death penalty in certain drug-related crimes.

House, who lives in Hacinda Heights, has been with the Sheriff’s Department for 20 years. He has a degree in business administration from California State University, Long Beach.

Times staff writers Larry Gordon and Lee Harris contributed to this story.