GOP Rivals Dana, Felando Face Off in Bitter Primary : Incumbent Known for Roustabout Tactics, Says Dana Tries to ‘Buy Job’

Last September, on the final night of the 1987 legislative session, an angry Assemblyman Gerald N. Felando barged into a closed-door meeting of the Senate Rules Committee and demanded to be heard.

The San Pedro Republican wanted a rule waived so lawmakers could vote on a resolution condemning Mexican actions against American tuna boats. Instead, he found himself being escorted out of the hearing room by the sergeant-at-arms.

“I was angry. I barged into their meeting,” Felando said in an interview this week. “I didn’t realize what I had just done. I got up and left.”

Shortly after Felando was ushered out of the meeting, the committee began discussing whether to establish a policy on the carrying of weapons in the Senate.

It is known around the Capitol that Felando, a reserve deputy with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, has a permit to carry a concealed weapon. Felando said he was issued the permit because of threats against his life. He insisted he was not carrying a gun that evening and has not had a weapon at the Capitol.

But the five committee members, Republicans and Democrats alike, were sufficiently concerned about Felando’s behavior, according to two people who were present, that they unanimously adopted a policy prohibiting all but law enforcement officers from carrying guns in the Senate.

At the time, Senate President Pro Tem David A. Roberti (D-Los Angeles) described Felando’s actions as “a shocking abuse of the safety of our members. I do not know if the gentleman in question was carrying a gun or not, but as far as I am concerned it’s a terrible outrage.”

The incident was not unique for the 53-year-old Felando, a five-term assemblyman who is on the primary ballot next Tuesday. Born and reared near the docks in San Pedro, Felando has a personal and political style that reflects the rough-edged world of the waterfront.

Record Defended

Felando and his supporters say he has been a fervent advocate for commercial fishermen, the disabled and the elderly. He has fought for tougher penalties for criminals, especially juvenile offenders.

But throughout his legislative career, Felando also has been known to colleagues as a gruff, tough, outspoken, conservative lawmaker with a hot temper--traits he attributes in part to his Yugoslav heritage. “Yugoslavs love to argue and debate and they are very loud when they do so,” he said.

Although a dentist by training, Felando portrays himself as a “street fighter,” and there is an element of truth to the claim.

In 1976, two years before he was elected to the Assembly, Felando acknowledges that he was involved in a fight at a Torrance nightspot that left him with a shattered leg. The injury disrupted his dental practice for six months.

In 1981, angry about a Senate vote on a plan that removed most of his beloved San Pedro from his district, Felando ripped a picture of Sen. Robert G. Beverly (R-Manhattan Beach), who had voted for the plan, from the wall of a bar near the Capitol and threw it to the floor, smashing it with his boot. He later apologized to Beverly.

“I just watched my district collapse,” he said this week. “I wasn’t real happy about it.”

Felando ‘Explosive’

One former legislative colleague said Felando has “an explosive and unpredictable personality” and a penchant for “abusive language.”

“People are always scared of him,” the ex-lawmaker said. “He’s the town bully.”

A Sacramento lobbyist who knows Felando well said: “He’s confrontational as hell--very combative. He does not try to seek consensus. Jerry never concedes. He’s not a compromiser by any stretch.”

And a fellow Assembly Republican, who asked not to be identified, said Felando is “as unrefined as they can be--a real political street fighter.”

Now, Felando is locked in the fight of his political life.

Deane Dana III, son of the Los Angeles County supervisor of the same name, is mounting an expensive and well-orchestrated Republican primary challenge against Felando in the 51st Assembly District.

With a massive infusion of financial help from his father, Dana has spent more than three months telling Republican voters that it’s time for a change in the district, which runs along the coast from Manhattan Beach to San Pedro and includes Torrance and Lomita.

Late Fighting Back

Unaccustomed to such a well-financed attack, Felando did not fight back until three weeks ago when he started accusing Supervisor Dana of “trying to buy his son a job” by running a “$1-million smear campaign” against him.

As the campaign enters the final days before Tuesday’s election, the rhetoric has grown nastier and the charges more vicious, just as they have in some previous Felando campaigns.

Felando made history in November, 1978, when he beat Assemblyman Vincent Thomas (D-San Pedro)--a 38-year veteran of the Legislature so venerated that a San Pedro bridge was named for him--in a Republican tidal wave that followed passage of the tax-slashing Proposition 13.

A newcomer to politics, Felando won the race--according to his longtime political consultant, Allan Hoffenblum--because polls showed that once you got out of San Pedro, “people thought Vincent Thomas was a bridge. They didn’t even know he was a state legislator.”

Although Thomas had supported the death penalty and opposed busing for racial integration of schools, a Felando mailer accused of being soft on crime and in favor of busing.

Felando referred questions about the mailer to Hoffenblum, who defended it, saying Thomas had voted for a state budget that contained funds for desegregating Los Angeles schools.

Tough Contest in ’82

In the spring of 1982, Felando found himself in another tough political contest after Democrats redrew legislative boundaries and forced him to run against moderate Assemblywoman Marilyn Ryan (R-Rancho Palos Verdes) in a district that no longer included most of his San Pedro base.

Again, Felando and Hoffenblum went on the attack, charging that Ryan, an opponent of Proposition 13, was not a good Republican and questioning her receipt of a $300 campaign contribution from a Republican attorney in a prominent law firm linked to Democrats. In a mailing, Felando also suggested that he had been endorsed by the Assembly Republican caucus.

Although the letter was sent on the stationery of the caucus chairman, Felando said it did not imply a caucus endorsement. “We never suggested that,” he said.

Ryan, who supports Dana, remembers how nasty the race became. “The campaign was characterized by attacks on me rather than a positive picture of himself and his record,” she said. “I think that’s true of the campaigns that Felando and Hoffenblum have run through the years. He did it to Vincent Thomas in 1978. I think we can expect it in this campaign.”

Won by 3%

In any case, the attacks worked and Felando beat Ryan by a slim 3% of the vote.

But in the opinion of political professionals who have watched this year’s contest with interest, Dana has made inroads against the incumbent by accusing Felando, a conservative Republican, of having a “cozy relationship” with the Legislature’s most powerful liberal Democrat, Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco).

And in a district that runs along the coast and has a sizable number of upscale, well-educated voters, Dana has attacked Felando as anti-environment, in favor of offshore oil drilling and slow to move on toxic-waste cleanup.

The attack, hammered home in splashy mailers and reinforced by phone calls from the Dana campaign to GOP households, put Felando on the defensive. He fought back with mailers stressing Gov. George Deukmejian’s endorsement and accusing his opponent of running a campaign based on “lies and deceit.”

GOP Help Asked

To bolster Felando’s campaign, Assembly Republican leader Pat Nolan of Glendale has asked his colleagues in the Assembly Republican Caucus to provide financial assistance and walk South Bay precincts this weekend.

“The Assembly Republicans are absolutely outraged at the deceitful campaign being waged by Supervisor Deane Dana in an attempt to buy a legislative seat for his son,” Nolan told reporters last month at Felando’s campaign headquarters in Torrance. “The Dana campaign has been using misleading mailers and phone calls to discredit our very good friend and colleague, Gerald Felando.”

In an earlier interview in Sacramento, Nolan said: “The challenge to Jerry Felando is to make it very clear in the public’s mind that what they are being asked to do is establish a political dynasty for the Dana family.”

And that has become the theme of Felando’s campaign in recent weeks.

The bad blood between Felando and the Danas began two years ago when Felando sent a last-minute campaign mailer to voters that implied that several candidates for the Los Angeles County Republican Central Committee were allied with political extremist Lyndon LaRouche. The mailer warned voters that LaRouche was attempting to gain a foothold in the 51st Assembly District. “Don’t Let it Happen Here,” the mailer declared, and gave a list of recommended candidates.

Dana Allies Hurt

In fact, only one of the candidates was a LaRouche supporter. Several incumbent committee members allied with Supervisor Dana--with no connection to LaRouche--were not on the Felando’s recommended list.

All but one of the Dana allies lost their seats on the committee, a county Republican Party policy-making group. The seeds of a bitter rivalry between Felando and the Danas were sown.

Supervisor Dana expressed his dismay with Felando after the June, 1986, election. “I can’t in my wildest imagination understand why Jerry would put his name on something like that,” Dana said. “Why would he stoop so low?”

Felando said simply: “I wanted to get people on there who I know will support my ideals and philosophy.”

During his 10-year legislative career, Felando has earned a reputation as a tough-talking, law-and-order legislator. He points with pride to passage of a bill in 1980 that opened to the public the trials of juveniles charged with serious crimes.

And he cites his record as an advocate for the developmentally disabled and senior citizens while chairman of the Committee on Aging for two years. He takes credit for legislation to consolidate programs in the Department of Aging and crack down on motorists who park in spaces for the handicapped.

Won Landslide Funds

He also mentions his successful effort to win $2 million in state money to help Rancho Palos Verdes slow the Portuguese Bend landslide.

And this year, under attack on the home front, he co-authored landmark legislation giving law enforcement agencies authority to use wiretaps against suspected drug dealers.

Felando, who worked as a reserve sheriff’s deputy in his younger days, has put his mark on legislation to tighten penalties against juveniles who commit murder. He also wants to establish a state-supported strike force against gangs.

“We are in a war here,” he told supporters in San Pedro recently. “We are in a war against the scum that is destroying our youth.”

Felando, the son of a fisherman, also has long been the champion of the commercial fishing interests in San Pedro.

He regularly carries legislation to give the seafood industry multimillion-dollar tax breaks. For example, in September, 1986, Deukmejian signed a Felando bill to forgive more than 50 years of uncollected state taxes owed by seafood wholesalers, processors and brokers.

Pushed Tax Exemption

And last year the governor signed another measure by Felando that provided commercial fishermen with a one-year exemption from the sales tax on diesel fuel, a break that cost the state $1.4 million.

As Dana mounted his challenge, the commercial fishing industry, always a loyal contributor to Felando’s campaigns, stepped up its donations.

So far this year, Felando has received $36,900 in campaign contributions from fishing interests in San Pedro and environs.

The California Gillnetters Assn. of San Pedro has given $5,600, James Bunn Enterprises, a commercial fishing operation, $3,500, and Joseph J. Bogdanovich, chairman of Star-Kist Foods, and his family gave $1,650.

Felando was paid $2,500 last year for a speech to the California Seafood Institute, which also gave him a painting valued at $4,000 on a statement filed by the assemblyman.

Free Trip East

Felando, his wife and his administrative assistant were treated to a week-long trip to New York last December paid for by Pfizer Pharmaceuticals and valued at almost $8,000.

Most of the $274,776 in campaign contributions that Felando received between Jan. 1 and May 21 came from special interests and Republican lawmakers in Sacramento.

In recent years, Felando has raised campaign money primarily from political action committees representing beer wholesalers, doctors, dentists, hospitals and pharmaceutical firms; insurance, oil and chemical companies; cable television, electric and gas utilities, real estate interests and lottery suppliers.

Earlier this year, Felando stepped up his fund-raising as he began laying the groundwork for a run at the congressional seat held by Rep. Daniel E. Lungren (R-Long Beach).

Deukmejian had named Lungren as state treasurer, and although the Legislature had not acted on his confirmation, Felando let it be known that he was a candidate in the 42nd Congressional District.

Meanwhile, Deane Dana III returned to the district from Sacramento to campaign for Felando’s Assembly seat.

In early February, Felando abruptly backed out of the congressional race, saying the cross-country commuting would put too much strain on his family. “The conclusion I had to reach was that it really wasn’t a promotion at all to go . . . to Washington,” he said. “I think I was more overwhelmed with the thought of going to Congress than I should have been.”

But unlike a handful of other Republicans who had been exploring the Assembly race, Dana refused to back out of the contest when Felando decided to run for reelection.

The battle was on.