VOTERS’ GUIDE : TUESDAY’S MAIN EVENT : Tight Races, Growth Issue Spark an Electoral Slugfest

A controversial slow-growth measure and spirited races for two open congressional seats in heavily Republican districts have turned Tuesday’s election in Orange County into a local political free-for-all.

In the congressional races, candidates are slugging it out in campaign mailers that are expected to continue going out until the very last postal delivery before voters head for the polls. The two districts are so heavily Republican that the winners of the GOP primaries are expected to have no trouble winning in the fall general election.

In the 40th District, attorney C. Christopher Cox has risen in less than five months from the ranks of the unknown to become the GOP front-runner in a field of nine candidates. He has done it with money--more than $505,000 in contributions--and a massive direct-mail drive that has blanketed the district with his literature.

To the chagrin, and perhaps envy, of his two closest rivals, Irvine Councilman C. David Baker and Newport Beach businessman Nathan Rosenberg, Cox has successfully tied himself to President Reagan. Cox, 35, of Newport Beach, was senior associate White House counsel before resigning in January to seek the congressional seat of Rep. Robert E. Badham (R-Newport Beach), who announced in January that he would not seek a seventh term.

Ideologically, little separates Cox, Baker and Rosenberg. Each toes the conservative line and promises to be more visible in the district than Badham, who has been widely criticized for ignoring constituents.

It is the first try at Congress for Cox and Baker, both 35. Rosenberg, 36, ran unsuccessfully two years ago against Badham in the Republican primary, angering many county GOP activists for forcing a safe incumbent into an expensive contest. Lacking support from party leaders, Rosenberg has spent much of his campaign walking precincts to win votes.

Most of the key local Republican endorsements, including Badham’s and that of state Sen. Marian Bergeson (R-Newport Beach), have gone to Baker, a first-term councilman.

In recent weeks, the three major candidates have all been stung by hit mailers in a campaign that evolved from cordial to cutting.

Baker, who has built his campaign on an image that includes adherence to strong family and religious values, was accused by an unidentified man at a candidates forum of having an extramarital affair. Baker has never directly denied the accusation.

In a mailer sent by the Cox campaign, voters were told to “beware” of Rosenberg’s involvement with his controversial brother, Werner Erhard, founder of the self-improvement programs known as est and the Forum.

Late last week, last-minute hit mailers aimed at both Baker and Cox flooded the district.

And, in a disclosure whose impact has yet to be ascertained, Rosenberg campaign officials revealed that they had discovered that Cox, despite his professed loyalty to Reagan, had failed to vote for the President’s reelection in November, 1984.

Also in the race, which is expected to be the most expensive in the county, are two Democrats, a Peace and Freedom candidate and a Libertarian.

In the 42nd Congressional District, Orange County Supervisor Harriett M. Wieder is hoping that the last-minute endorsement of the incumbent, Rep. Daniel E. Lungren (R-Long Beach), will help her outdistance the three other leading candidates for the Republican nomination. Lungren decided not to seek reelection in order to pursue a court battle over his disputed appointment as state treasurer.

Wieder, 67, has had several setbacks in her campaign. Among them are her admission that she lied about having a college degree, although she never attended college, and a recall attempt launched by leaders of the slow-growth movement, who objected to her votes on development issues in south Orange County.

Wieder’s three major GOP opponents are former Cal State Long Beach President Stephen Horn of Long Beach, ex-White House speech-writer Dana Rohrabacher of Palos Verdes Estates and Andrew Littlefair of Torrance, a former White House advance man.

Although there are no independent polls being done in the district in the final weeks of the campaign, each of the three men believes that he has benefited from Wieder’s woes. The informal surveying that is being done indicates that large groups of voters remain undecided in this race.

Trying to break out of the pack, Rohrabacher brought a famous friend, retired Marine Lt. Col. Oliver L. North, to the district to campaign for him Wednesday, raising $135,000 at various events in Long Beach, Los Angeles and Pasadena--doubling his campaign war chest. He is using the money for as many mailers as he can churn out, including a letter from North to voters urging them to vote for “a man who can make a difference.”

Rohrabacher, 40, and Littlefair, 27, both are trying to tie themselves to Reagan in the conservative district that straddles the border between Orange and Los Angeles counties.

As for Horn, 57, he is second only to Wieder in name identification in the district. But not all of it is positive. President of Cal State Long Beach for 17 1/2 years, Horn was forced to resign after several years of budgetary problems, poor relations with the faculty and a public confrontation with California State University Chancellor W. Ann Reynolds.

There also are three Democrats and a Peace and Freedom Party candidate running in the 42nd District.

In both the 40th and 42nd District races, the slow-growth initiative has been used as campaign fodder. Wieder, in particular, has come in for heavy criticism from Horn and Littlefair aimed at her votes for development agreements that they say were designed to get around Measure A, as the initiative is designated on Tuesday’s ballot. Wieder has defended the agreements as a way of requiring developers to build needed roads and help pay for other public facilities and services.

In the 40th District, Baker has publicly scolded Cox and Rosenberg, who say growth control is a local rather than a federal issue, for refusing to take positions on Measure A. Baker’s position against it, however, may not win him many votes because the measure is expected to be approved.

Early public opinion surveys showed that the initiative, little understood by many voters, commanded a 73% voter approval rating.

Orange County’s developers and builders, faced with potential costly delays in county approvals of major development projects and fearful of the initiative’s effects on business generally, have mounted a last-minute, $1.6-million effort to defeat the measure. Proponents had raised only $48,000 as of May 18.

With ads proclaiming that the initiative will cost billions, raise taxes and make traffic worse, Citizens for Traffic Solutions--the main opposition group--was able to cut the initiative’s showing in the polls substantially.

In a poll taken in mid-May, voter support for the measure was pegged at 54%.

But the polls also have shown that most of the shift away from the initiative has been to the undecided ranks, leading political experts to conclude that it would still take a major upset to kill the measure.

The measure was put on the ballot after 96,000 Orange County registered voters signed petitions between August and February to get the Citizens’ Sensible Growth and Traffic Control Initiative on Tuesday’s ballot.

The signature-gathering effort came after two years of meetings in which an unusual coalition of conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats agreed that the time was ripe for a ballot measure that would attempt to prevent future growth from getting too far ahead of existing roads and public facilities.

Both sides have been shrill, each accusing the other of sending fraudulent campaign messages to voters.

For example, telephone calls to voters from Citizens for Traffic Solutions included claims that the initiative would raise property taxes even though Proposition 13 prohibits such an increase.

And a brochure by Citizens for Sensible Growth and Traffic Control contained a cartoon characterization of freeway gridlock even though the initiative would not directly affect freeway traffic because the freeways are state--not county--highways.

The Building Industry Assn. earlier this year filed a lawsuit in an unsuccessful bid to keep the measure off the ballot. If the initiative wins, the lawsuit will be continued as a bid to have the results nullified in court.

The cities of San Clemente and Seal Beach will vote Tuesday on citywide measures that are virtually identical to Measure A. Laguna Beach, Costa Mesa and Huntington Beach are to vote on similar measures in November. An attempt will be made to place a nearly identical measure on the ballot in Irvine, also for a November vote. San Juan Capistrano will vote on a citywide measure next April.

Times staff writers Jeffrey A. Perlman and Steven R. Churm contributed to this article.