Both Winner and Loser in 33rd District Senate Race Wind Up in Red

Two weeks after Democrat Cecil N. Green defeated Republican Assemblyman Wayne Grisham in a special state Senate election, both sides are adding up their bills and say they are in debt.

Grisham’s campaign officials estimate that they spent about $850,000, and Grisham figures that his election committee is $120,000 to $140,000 in the red.

Green, who spent an estimated $2 million in the race, says his campaign organization ran up a debt of $70,000 to $90,000 in winning the May 12 contest in the 33rd Senate District, which straddles the boundary between Los Angeles and Orange counties.

Green said he plans to seek reelection next year, and Grisham already is an announced candidate for another Assembly term in 1988. As a result, both sides are seeking to balance their books as quickly as possible.

First Deficit

Grisham said this is the first campaign in which he has wound up with a deficit. He said he estimates that 70% of the debt is for operations, such as get-out-the-vote efforts, that the Senate Republican leadership had agreed to underwrite.

Sen. John Seymour (R-Anaheim), the chief Senate GOP fund-raiser for the campaign, acknowledged that the Republican leadership agreed to share campaign expenses with Grisham.

“Wayne’s campaign has the prime responsibility for paying off debts,” Seymour said, “but Wayne Grisham will get all the support that we can possibly muster as a caucus.”

Stan Devereux, a spokesman for Sen. John Doolittle (R-Rocklin), who succeeded Seymour as GOP Caucus chairman in the Senate, said the debt is “still being negotiated.”

Dale Hardeman, a Grisham aide who is sorting through a pile of campaign bills, said he is seeking to arrange loans from Senate Republicans and anticipates staging “quick fund-raisers.”

Unexpected Deficit

Hardeman conceded that the campaign, which was bolstered by fund-raising help from Gov. George Deukmejian, “didn’t expect this kind of deficit.”

He said among Grisham’s major debts are $40,000 for temporary employment agencies that hired precinct walkers, $19,000 for polling and $16,000 for data processing. The remainder is spread among fund-raisers, printers, campaign consultants and bonuses for the walkers.

The bonuses--amounting to about $6,600--are owed to scores of people hired through temporary employment agencies at $5 an hour. The precinct walkers were promised additional amounts for obtaining valid signatures of voters on requests for absentee ballots.

Hardeman termed the bookkeeping on the money owed to the temporary employment agencies and in bonuses “an accounting nightmare.”

Grisham said he wants to pay these workers--many of whom are teen-agers--”100 cents on the dollar” but may seek to settle with professional campaign consultants for less than the full amounts owed.

Delayed Payments

In Green’s Senate office, spokesman Rocky Saunders said that several weeks before the May 12 election Green’s consultants and other paid staffers, including telephone solicitors, agreed to accept delayed payment for their services.

A spokesman for Green’s campaign organization said one reason the campaign treasury was stretched thin was because $40,000 was spent on more than 130,000 doughnuts given to voters on election day if they showed valid ballot stubs at shops throughout the 33rd Senate District.

As a first step to balance his campaign books, Green said he plans a $500-a-person Sacramento fund-raiser, primarily for lobbyists, on June 22 and another fund-raising event in the district in the summer or fall.