Challenging Foe’s Mind : Hart Tests Drug-Free, Escalates the ‘Jar Wars’

The campaign pitting state Sen. Gary K. Hart (D-Santa Barbara) against Republican challenger DeWayne Holmdahl has emerged from the bathroom, and it could end in the classroom.

As the campaign started gearing up more than a month ago, Holmdahl, a Santa Barbara County supervisor from Lompoc, challenged Hart to follow his lead and take a drug urinalysis test. The purpose of the test, Holmdahl explained, was to show voters in the district, which stretches from Canoga Park to Santa Barbara County, that the candidates are concerned about the national drug problem. Holmdahl added that politicians should be “role models” for their constituents.

Hart grumbled that an IQ or lie-detector test would be more appropriate for a politician. But he grudgingly took the $53 test--at Holmdahl’s expense--Friday in the bathroom of the Santa Barbara Community Health Clinic. He got his results back four days later.

“I, too, am drug-free,” Hart, of Santa Barbara, wrote in a letter he mailed on Wednesday to Holmdahl, who also had tested drug-free.

But Hart, who is expected to win his reelection bid, did not stop there. The senator has challenged Holmdahl to take the California Basic Educational Skills Test, the general aptitude test that all new teachers must pass before they can obtain jobs in public schools in California.

‘Consistent With Views’

“DeWayne, I’m sure you’ll have no problem passing CBEST,” Hart wrote. “Consistent with your views of drug testing, I assume you will welcome this opportunity to stress the importance of developing basic skills for all our young people.

“And, with your taking (and passing) CBEST, we can put the tests and the role modeling behind us and hopefully (and finally!) focus on the key issues facing California,” Hart concluded.

Holmdahl said he is delighted that Hart finally took the drug test, but the supervisor said he will probably be too busy to take the three-hour education test on such late notice.

“There’s two weeks left in the campaign; my schedule will be very tight,” Holmdahl said.

But the supervisor also seemed a little leery. “I got out of college in 1963,” he explained. “I’ve been working in agriculture. I haven’t been in a classroom.”

Hart, the author of the bill that created CBEST, took the test four years ago and is again releasing his scores. A newspaper reporter from Ventura had prodded him to take the test and Hart agreed after the reporter said he would take it, too. The reporter bailed out on the day of the test, but Hart went through with it.

The senator, who is a former Santa Barbara high school teacher, said he received perfect scores in reading and writing and got a 59 on the math part of the test, out of a possible score of 75.

Hart said he doubts that what a Hart aide dubbed the “Jar Wars,” referring to the bottle used in the urinalysis tests, will accomplish anything. “With DeWayne and I drug-free,” he noted dryly, “I’m sure drug usage in Santa Barbara County will plummet.”

The test did point up the difference the two candidates have on the issue of drug testing. Hart, when asked if private and public employers should have to right to require their workers to undergo unannounced drug tests, said they should not, except when there is an issue of public safety. Holmdahl, when asked the same question, said employers should have such a right.

The third candidate in the race, Libertarian Jay C. Wood, said the employers should be able to test if the employee’s work is affected.

Holmdahl said he has not appreciated Hart’s humor about taking the drug test.

“When he started joking about it, that it was a silly idea . . . it was not befitting of an elected official,” he complained.

According to insiders in both political parties, this is the only race where candidates for state office have taken drug tests.

But Republican consultant and pollster Arnold Steinberg observed, “You never know. It could become a fad.”