Voters to Decide Tuesday on Carpenter’s Successor

Two veteran Southeast Los Angeles County politicians are in a fierce campaign, and between them they could spend $3 million before voters on Tuesday elect the next senator from the 33rd District, which includes the northwest corner of Orange County.

Wayne Grisham, an assemblyman from Norwalk, is the Republican, and Cecil N. Green, a Norwalk city councilman, is the Democrat. The seat was vacated when Paul Carpenter--the last Democrat from Orange County in the Legislature--was elected to the State Board of Equalization.

The race between Grisham and Green has drawn statewide attention and is seen as the first major skirmish in a battle to control the Statehouse when reapportionment begins in the early 1990s.

Two minor-party candidates--Libertarian Lee Connelly of Buena Park and Peace and Freedom nominee Ed Evans of Cypress--will also be on the ballot, but in the March 17 primary each drew less than 1% of the vote, contrasted with Green’s 48% and Grisham’s 43.6%. The campaigns of Connelly and Evans have been low-spending, low-profile affairs.

Of the district’s 275,336 voters, 75% live in the Los Angeles County communities of Downey, Norwalk, Santa Fe Springs, South Whittier, Los Nietos, Lakewood, Cerritos, Artesia, Bellflower and Hawaiian Gardens. The rest live in the Orange County communities of Buena Park, La Palma, Cypress and Los Alamitos. Voter registration is 54% Democratic and 38% Republican.