Assemblyman Raps GOP Mailer Assailing Him on Drug Issue

Democratic Assemblyman Richard E. Floyd of Hawthorne on Thursday denounced as a “piece of trash” an official-looking political mailer purportedly signed by President Reagan that accused Floyd of caving in “to the powerful underworld drug industry.”

A few hours later, Assembly Republican leader Pat Nolan of Glendale acknowledged in a statement that the letter was “inadvertently” put in the mail without White House approval.

The letter, which thousands of South Bay voters received the day before the Nov. 4 election, urged support of Floyd’s opponent, Republican Roger Fiola, who lost.

The most damaging part of the mailer said, “Dick Floyd chose to give in to the powerful underworld drug industry when he sat in the California State Assembly and refused to vote on legislation to toughen our anti-drug laws.”

Managed Campaign

Assemblyman Dennis Brown (R-Signal Hill), who managed Fiola’s mail campaign, said the “mix-up” occurred in the office of the campaign’s mail consultants, Computer Caging Corp., a company headed by state Sen. H. L. Richardson (R-Glendora). Computer Caging spokesmen were unavailable for comment.

In his statement, Nolan said White House aides had approved “an endorsement letter of general support for Fiola” under Reagan’s name but that the campaign consultants drafted “a modified version” of the letter “dealing with specific issues in the district race,” a reference to the charge that Floyd was soft on drug enforcement.

Nolan said the consultants printed and mailed the altered version “under the mistaken belief that the new text had been approved.”

Return Address

Postal officials dutifully sent hundreds of letters they were unable to deliver to the return address on the envelope: “Ronald Reagan. The White House.” Caught unaware, GOP sources in Sacramento said, the White House called Nolan for an explanation.

He said Thursday it was regrettable that the wrong letter was sent but contended that the damage to Floyd “was minimal” because he won.

Fiola, a real estate appraiser who surprised Floyd by raising and spending more than $200,000 in the waning days of the campaign, said he had not been aware there was any problem regarding the Reagan mailer.

“I was involved in being a candidate,” he said. “Most of that stuff was finalized up there (in Sacramento).”

Although Floyd, a veteran politician, defeated Fiola by a comfortable margin of 34,813 votes to 28,377, he said Thursday that he was still quite angry about the mailing.

‘Piece of Trash’

He released a copy of a letter he sent Reagan calling the political mailer “an outrageous, below-the-belt piece of trash.”

“Mr. President, I can take my lumps,” Floyd said. “The game of politics is not Sunday school.” But he added, “I have never been more shocked at a piece of political mail. . . . Perhaps you can imagine how my mother felt.”