GOP Rivals Dana, Felando Face Off in Bitter Primary : Supervisor’s Son Links Assemblyman to Willie Brown, Coastal Oil Drilling

For Deane Dana III, the ambitious son of Los Angeles County Supervisor Deane Dana, the opportunity to run for the Assembly was tailor-made.

(The incumbent, Assemblyman Gerald N. Felando (R-San Pedro), had his sights set on arun for Congress and for the first time in years it looked as if there would be an open seat in the 51st Assembly District.

Dana, 35, who had long coveted a career in politics, decided to make his move. He resigned as assistant director of the state Department of Aging in Sacramento and returned to the South Bay to campaign.

But something happened on the way to next Tuesday’s primary.

Felando pulled out of the congressional race in February and decided to seek reelection. The other Republicans coveting the Assembly seat immediately backed out of the race. But Dana, who had begun campaigning using his father’s name, money and campaign signs, would not be moved.

“Mr. Felando opened the door himself,” Dana told supporters at his campaign kickoff party. “This is not a hostile attack on an incumbent seat. I was invited in. He changed his mind.”

Now, aided by $445,000 in loans from his father’s campaign fund, Dana is posing the most serious threat of Felando’s political career.

Felando Furious

The five-term incumbent is furious at being challenged by a fellow Republican. “If I were not doing my job, if I were not in touch with the district, if I was out of sync with the district philosophically, then I would say you have an issue,” Felando said in an interview this week.

“But when you come in and create issues where issues do not exist and build a campaign on complete falsehood and untruth, I don’t feel that is right. And that is exactly what they have done.”

Dana defends his campaign tactic of making Felando the issue.

Based on his own polls and precinct walking, Dana describes Felando as out-of-touch with affluent, well-educated voters in the solidly Republican district, which runs along the coast from Manhattan Beach to San Pedro and includes Torrance and Lomita.

Dana has hit hardest at Felando’s long and curious relationship with Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco).

“When I go precinct walking and I’m talking to people, they say the biggest problem in the Legislature is Willie Brown,” Dana said.

He said voters cannot understand why Felando defends Brown. “You have to ask yourself what is going on?”

Throughout the campaign, Felando has had difficulty shaking Dana’s charges. And as the race enters its final days, Dana will urge voters to “Replace Gerald Felando, the first step in replacing Willie Brown.”

Dana seized on the Brown issue after Felando was quoted in a Times story in January as saying that he would not join with a group of dissident Assembly Democrats, known as the “Gang of Five,” in a move to oust Brown. The five Democrats combined with the 36 Assembly Republicans would constitute the bare majority needed to remove Brown from the speakership.

“Don’t count on me to be the 36th vote,” Felando said. “I would support Willie. I think he’s been an excellent speaker. When Willie tells you something, you can take it to the bank. If there is somebody better, show me. And I don’t think there is.”

Dana used the quote in an early campaign mailer that attacked Felando.

On the defensive, Felando repeated that he would not move to replace Brown because his presence helps Republicans campaign against Democrats. “We want to keep him in there and run against his philosophy and policies,” Felando said after the first Dana mailer hit.

Nevertheless, concerned about the political damage that the Dana charge was causing, Felando joined in two doomed attempts last month to replace Brown with a Republican.

On the night of the first vote, however, Felando attended an Oakland fund-raiser in Felando’s honor held by one of Brown’s chief allies, liberal Assemblyman Elihu M. Harris (D-Oakland). The fund-raiser served to reinforce Dana’s charge about a long and “cozy relationship” between Felando and the speaker.

Felando’s support of the Brown speakership dates to December 1, 1980, when Felando joined with then-Assembly Minority Leader Carol Hallett (R-Atascadero), who delivered 28 Republican votes to make Brown speaker. It ended a protracted battle among Democrats over the Legislature’s most powerful post.

The following April, Brown appeared at a San Pedro luncheon meeting of Felando’s Women’s Advisory Committee and recalled how Felando had come to him as a freshman legislator in 1978 and pledged his support for the speakership.

When Democrats redrew legislative district lines in 1981 after the census, a Brown lieutenant, ex-Assemblyman Louis J. Papan (D-Millbrae), made an overture to Felando to become a Democrat.

Political Base Taken

When he declined, Democrats forced Felando, who had represented the 52nd Assembly District for four years, to run in the adjacent 51st Assembly District. The lines were drawn to include the San Pedro home where Felando lived, although he was forced to give up the rest of his native San Pedro.

Brown later named Felando as chairman of the Aging Committee, one of the few Republican lawmakers given a committee chairmanship.

Dana has pledged that if he is elected, he will introduce a motion to oust Brown.

Since February, Dana also has been sending colorful mailers telling Republican voters that Felando is on the wrong side of environmental issues from offshore oil drilling to toxic waste cleanup.

Felando has one of the worst environmental voting records in the Legislature, according to the California League of Conservation Voters. The environmental group recently endorsed Dana.

Rating Falls

The group’s most recent report card gives Felando a 22% rating in 1987, down from 30% in 1986.

By contrast, Sen. Robert G. Beverly (R-Manhattan Beach), whose Senate district overlaps Felando’s Assembly district, received a 47% rating from the environmental group last year and an 87% favorable rating in 1986.

In graphic mailers featuring oil rigs on a horizon, Dana has accused Felando of supporting offshore oil drilling in Santa Monica Bay.

Felando fired back in a campaign mailer labeled “Lies.”

The mailer said “the truth: Assemblyman Felando opposes offshore oil drilling in Santa Monica Bay. He always has and always will.”

But when he ran for reelection two years ago, Felando favored offshore drilling, including placing platforms in Santa Monica Bay. He said at the time he supported offshore drilling because “it is one way we can get from underneath the control of the Arabs.”

‘Time for Change’

Apart from attacking Felando on matters involving Brown and the environment, Dana has based his campaign in large measure on a sense that “new leadership is needed to effectively address issues facing the South Bay.”

Felando has made much of the fact that Dana’s campaign has been financed almost exclusively by $445,000 in loans from his father, the supervisor, who is running for reelection Tuesday.

In his mailers, Felando has repeatedly accused the elder Dana of running a “$1 million smear campaign” to “buy his son a job.”

That message has been echoed by Assembly Minority Leader Pat Nolan (R-Glendale), who has sent reinforcements to the South Bay in an effort to help Felando.

“It is unfortunate that after pawning his son off on four different politicians in different gravy train jobs, the father now apparently has decided the only way to get the kid a job is to buy him a seat in the Legislature,” Nolan said during a recent trip to the district.

Supervisor Dana defends the expenditure, saying his son is qualified to serve in the Legislature. “I will do anything to get Willie Brown out,” he said.

Runs in Family

Like his father, politics has been in the younger Dana’s blood for years.

After graduating from USC with a bachelors degree in psychology in 1974, he worked for a state senator before going to California Western School of Law in San Diego. He graduated in May, 1979, but has not passed the state bar exam despite four attempts.

After law school, Dana worked as a field representative for Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove) for two years.

“He did an excellent job for me,” Dornan said. “His knowledge of the district was extensive. He did an altogether terrific job.”

Nevertheless, at the request of Nolan, Dornan has endorsed Felando. “Pat tells me that (Felando’s) a superb team player and that’s why he’s going to the wall for him,” Dornan said.

Dana also received high marks in the Deukmejian administration.

For the past four years, he worked as a top official in the state Department of Aging.

His former boss, Alice J. Gonzales, director of the department, endorsed Felando after being lobbied by the assemblyman. “Jerry has been a supporter of my department,” she said. But Gonzales said Dana “did a good job” as a member of her staff. “Deane was a good employee.”

Gonzales’ chief deputy, Chris Arnold, said Dana was very versatile in his role as an advocate for seniors. “He was loyal. He was ambitious. He did his job. He was a very good employee,” she said.

Dana said he is poised to defend himself against last minute charges and expects voters will be receiving mailers repeating two character issues already raised in the campaign--that he was registered to vote in both Los Angeles and Orange counties from 1981 to 1983 and that he used a county car on his wedding day five years ago. The county was later reimbursed for the ride.

“That’s ancient history,” Dana said. “We’ve all got skeletons. It’s the severity of the skeletons that matter.”