Local Elections : Floyd, GOP Foe Get Down and Dirty in Tough 53rd Assembly District Race

In the final days before voters go to the polls, character has been the dominant issue raised in the bitterly personal and stridently negative campaign between Democratic Assemblyman Richard E. Floyd and Republican challenger Charles Bookhammer.

Voters in the South Bay’s politically volatile 53rd Assembly District are asked to base their decision on a last-minute barrage of campaign mailers that are long on charges and short on accuracy.

Bookhammer, a Hawthorne city councilman since 1983, has accused Floyd, who lives in Carson, of being a deadbeat and a cheat. Floyd, a four-term incumbent, denies that and has returned the fire by calling Bookhammer a liar. He also raised questions about his opponent’s fitness for office after a drug and alcohol overdose in April, 1984.

The campaign, which has been waged at a low level for weeks, has taken a turn for the worse in recent days as both sides have unleashed a new round of mailers attacking the other guy. And if history is any guide, voters in the working-class district--which includes Gardena, Hawthorne, Carson, Lawndale, Harbor Gateway, Harbor City, and north Redondo Beach--will receive one last blast from both candidates before the election next Tuesday.

Support for Labor

Floyd--a tough-talking, partisan lawmaker with a long record of support for the causes of organized labor and a penchant for using four-letter words to denounce his adversaries--has long been a target of Republican leaders in Sacramento.

Assembly Republican leader Pat Nolan of Glendale is known to harbor a deep dislike for Floyd, who often ridicules him mercilessly on the Assembly floor. And Nolan is determined to make the Democrat sweat in the last days of the campaign, according to a legislative source. “It’s the leadership’s emotional reaction,” the source said. “Nolan doesn’t like being called the fat boy who heads the sissy caucus. It’s personal.”

In the last few weeks, Republican Party organizations have poured tens of thousands of dollars into Bookhammer’s campaign in a last-ditch effort to topple Floyd. Late-contribution telegrams arriving daily at the secretary of state’s office show the infusion of cash to Bookhammer’s campaign.

Floyd, who two years ago was caught off guard by an eleventh-hour attack led by Nolan, isn’t taking chances this time.

The race has become a test among political consultants of who can produce the toughest, most negative hit mailer. “Lies” has become the favorite word of both sides.

Tone Set Early

The soft-spoken Bookhammer, who owns an insurance agency, set the tone early by accusing Floyd in back-to-back mailers of being a “fat cat” who cheats taxpayers by traveling extensively and collecting tax-free expense checks even when the Legislature is out of session.

The Republican candidate followed that double-barreled blast by sending voters a reprint of Floyd’s profanity-filled interview with a biker magazine in which the Democratic lawmaker defended his unsuccessful effort to require motorcycle riders to wear helmets.

Bookhammer also has accused Floyd of being soft on crime in a district where private polls show that the problems of gangs, drugs and crime are uppermost in voters’ minds. One of his most recent mailers goes so far as to suggest that Los Angeles gang members consider Floyd a “friend.”

Floyd is fighting back with mailers that accuse his opponent of engaging in a phony campaign of lies and distortions.

To counter the soft-on-crime charge, Floyd has turned to Atty. Gen. John Van de Kamp, who has written a letter to voters commending the assemblyman’s record. The National Rifle Assn. this week joined the fray by mailing an “Election Alert” endorsing Floyd, who carried legislation for the gun owners’ group this year.

Floyd has also sought to tie the quiet Bookhammer to the Hells Angels motorcycle group because the Republican candidate has drawn financial support from motorcyclists who opposed the helmet bill.

To undermine his opponent’s credibility, Floyd has resurrected a 1986 campaign mailer that bears the names of numerous local officials who endorsed his reelection two years ago, including Bookhammer. The GOP candidate denies he ever made such an endorsement.

But Floyd hasn’t stopped there.

In an interview, Floyd brought up Bookhammer’s drug and alcohol overdose in April, 1984. The assemblyman charged that Bookhammer either attempted suicide or is “an abuser of drugs and alcohol.”

Bookhammer flatly denied that the incident was a suicide attempt.

The 40-year-old Vietnam veteran said in an interview that he was having marital problems at the time, was struggling to keep his insurance agency operating and was “trying to keep some kind of sanity.”

He said he received a prescription for two types of drugs because he was not sleeping at night. One afternoon, Bookhammer said, he went home early and took a couple of pills. “I was at home alone. The kids were out playing,” he said. “I had a couple drinks. I must have taken some more. I needed sleep. I was totally exhausted.”

Bookhammer said his oldest daughter “found me lying on the bedroom floor.”

Paramedics were called. Bookhammer said he was revived at the scene but was later transported at his request to Centinela Hospital in Inglewood.

Negative campaigns and rancorous politics are nothing new for residents of the traditionally Democratic, melting-pot district of whites, blacks, Latinos and Asians. Two years ago, Assembly Republican leader Nolan directed a torrent of campaign hit mail against Floyd that included a phony letter allegedly from the President of the United States.

The letter--on White House stationery and in envelopes bearing the return address “Ronald Reagan, The White House”--accused Floyd of caving in to “the powerful underworld drug industry” and suggested that voters should “say No to Dick Floyd.”

Three weeks after Floyd won reelection with 53% of the vote, the White House disavowed the letter and singled out Nolan and his aides for criticism. But after investigations by the FBI, Atty. Gen. Van de Kamp and Sacramento County Dist. Atty. John Dougherty, no action was taken against Nolan or his associates.

In his first mailer of this year’s campaign, Floyd warned voters that Nolan was again trying to oust him. In an interview, Floyd vowed to show voters that Bookhammer is “a wholly owned subsidiary of Pat Nolan.”

Campaign finance reports filed with the secretary of state’s office show that the California Republican Party and the Assembly Republican Political Action Committee, which Nolan controls, have paid for Bookhammer’s campaign mailers. A Sacramento-based political committee controlled by a Nolan ally paid Bookhammer’s filing fee to run for the Assembly.

But Bookhammer rejects Floyd’s charge that he is controlled by the Assembly GOP leader. “It’s a lie,” the Republican candidate said. “I am not Pat Nolan’s boy.”

He also objects to being linked to the ill-fated 1986 campaign of Republican Roger E. Fiola, on whose behalf the phony White House letter was sent. “I wasn’t involved in that campaign in any way whatsoever,” Bookhammer said.

Firing back, Bookhammer vows that in the closing days of this fall’s campaign, he is going to show Floyd “to be a liar and a cheat.”

Much of Bookhammer’s argument centers on Floyd’s receipt of the tax-free per diem checks while the Legislature was out of session in the fall of 1986. The GOP candidate said Floyd was paid $75 a day for 41 days that fall, including Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve.

Bookhammer also noted that Floyd received more money for travel expenses than any other assemblyman in 1985 and ranked third in 1986.

In addition, he took Floyd to task for voting to boost legislative salaries each session since he was first elected in 1980. Prior to that, Floyd served as chief aide to Sen. Ralph C. Dills (D-Gardena).

Floyd, who earns about $37,105 and has no other job, is entitled to collect the per-diem payments while the Legislature is not in session if he is conducting state business. But he conceded that he was not on duty Thanksgiving Day two years ago, and recently repaid $75 to the Assembly. He said all of his travel was justified.

He defends his votes to raise legislative salaries, noting that he was hardly alone on that issue because some of his Republican colleagues joined in the two-thirds majority needed to approve a pay raise.

Such answers do not satisfy Bookhammer, who believes that the central issue in the campaign is Floyd. “You can’t scratch without coming up with dirt on Dick Floyd,” he said. “Character is the issue.”

Bookhammer is particularly angry at Floyd’s demeanor in the Assembly. The 57-year-old legislator is well known in Sacramento for his frequent use of four-letter words and no-holds-barred denunciation of his conservative Republican colleagues.

Called Governor ‘S.O.B.’

Last spring, after Gov. George Deukmejian vetoed his hard-won legislation to require motorcycle riders to wear helmets, Floyd rose on the Assembly floor and denounced the Republican chief executive as “the most hard-headed S.O.B. in this building.”

Floyd later apologized after being threatened with censure for his remarks.

Such language is commonplace with Floyd, who admits, “I’ve got a big mouth.” Even his 87-year-old mother, who lives in Lawndale, gets mad at him for what he called his “colorful language.”

Floyd knows that he has ‘offended some people,” but he offers no apologies. “I’m Dick Floyd, I’m never going to be anyone else. I’m not a man of means and breeding,” he said. “I’m from Lawndale. I’m never going to be anything else.”

Voters in the district were recently exposed to Floyd’s cruder side when Bookhammer mailed them a copy of the assemblyman’s interview with Easyriders, a motorcycle magazine.

Floyd concedes that his profane words to the bikers were “never meant for the general public” but notes that it was Bookhammer, not he, who sent the material into voters’ living rooms.

Throughout the campaign, Floyd and Bookhammer have fired rhetorical shots back and forth over the crime issue.

Bookhammer attacks Floyd for having supported former state Supreme Court Chief Justice Rose Bird, who was removed by voters in 1986. He suggests that Floyd has done nothing to deal with the gang problem that plagues parts of the district.

Floyd counters by pointing to his support this year for creation of a state strike force to coordinate law enforcement efforts against gangs. The bill by Assemblyman Gerald N. Felando (R-San Pedro) was the cornerstone of an anti-gang package, but it was vetoed by Gov. Deukmejian because of concern from district attorneys about a lack of coordination in anti-gang efforts.

To toughen his image on the crime issue, Floyd this year carried a bill for the National Rifle Assn. that would have made it easier to obtain a permit to carry a concealed weapon. The bill failed. Floyd said he favors a zero-tolerance program to seize the cars and assets of drug dealers. And he has been endorsed by most police unions, in part because of his support for higher pay and benefits for law enforcement officers.

Notes Ballot Argument

And Floyd criticizes Bookhammer for being unable to control crime in Hawthorne while a member of the City Council. He notes that Bookhammer is the author of a ballot argument for a proposed utility tax increase to pay for 19 more police officers in the city. Bookhammer said the tax increase is necessary to finance additional police officers.

Floyd’s record as a legislator demonstrates a long-standing commitment to the interests of labor unions. He has been an outspoken advocate for restoring the California Occupational Safety and Health Administration program and a critic of the Deukmejian administration’s decision to turn the worker safety program over to the federal government.

The assemblyman defends his ties to labor. “If I’m going to be owned by somebody, I’d rather be owned by working people,” he said. “I’m proud of my ties to organized labor.”

Jack Henning, executive secretary-treasurer of the California Labor Federation, counts Floyd as a friend in Sacramento. “He has a great labor record and we are supporting him strongly,” Henning said. “We consider him a strong, unquestioning advocate of labor.”

Last year, the state AFL-CIO said Floyd voted correctly on 37 out of 38 issues of importance to unions.

When it comes to environmental issues, Floyd voted with the California League of Conservation Voters 70% of the time last year.

Chamber Critical

In the just-concluded 1988 session, the California Chamber of Commerce did not like Floyd’s voting. The organization said he voted in accord with business interests on just five of 25 issues.

When he looks back over his career, Floyd, a veteran of the Korean War, is especially proud of his bill to establish a Vietnam Veterans Memorial on the Capitol grounds in Sacramento.

He also takes a perverse pride in the number of vetoes he has drawn from Gov. Deukmejian. Despite that, Floyd managed to have a number of bills become law this year. They included measures that make it a crime to shoot at an airplane or an unoccupied house, or to operate an amusement park ride without adequate insurance.

Other laws authored by Floyd this year require the state insurance commissioner to publish an annual comparison of insurance rates beginning next year, and make it a crime for school officials to file false reports of spending on educational programs.

Campaign finance reports demonstrate that Floyd’s campaign treasury has benefitted from his incumbency and his chairmanship of the Assembly Governmental Organization Committee, which considers all bills concerning alcoholic beverages, horse racing and gambling such as card clubs.

Unions Contribute

Final pre-election campaign reports show Floyd had raised $409,254 through Oct. 22, the end of the reporting period. By far the largest contributors to his campaign are labor unions, followed by Democratic campaign committees and trial lawyers.

Campaign statements show that he has received $25,000 from the California Trial Lawyers Assn. and $17,000 from the California Applicants Attorneys Assn., which represents individuals in workers compensation cases.

Floyd’s campaign contribution reports read like a Who’s Who of California labor unions. He received $8,500 from the District Council of Iron Workers, $7,000 from California Professional Firefighters, $6,300 from the United Food and Commercial Workers, $6,050 from the California Teachers Assn., and $4,000 from the United Auto Workers.

Floyd also received support from medical groups, including $5,750 from the California Society of Industrial Medicine and Surgery and $4,600 from the California Medical Assn.

The assemblyman also received contributions from card clubs, lottery equipment makers, and horse-racing interests. Both the Bicycle Club of Bell Gardens and Lotto-betting terminal manufacturer GTECH Corp. gave $5,000. Hollywood Park race track gave $3,000.

Anheuser-Busch contributed $4,000, and the National Rifle Assn. gave $2,500 in campaign contributions and a 12-gauge shotgun as a gift.

Floyd had spent about 90% of the money he raised--$357,425--on his bid for a fifth term by the close of the reporting period last week. Most of the money went to pay mailing expenses, political consultants, travel, campaign staffers, polling, and a phone bank in Long Beach designed to identify loyal Democratic voters and get them to the polls.

After lagging far behind Floyd in fund-raising throughout the campaign, Bookhammer’s campaign treasury has received a massive infusion of Republican money from Sacramento in the last several weeks.

The final pre-election campaign finance report filed last week showed Bookhammer had raised $211,188 through Oct. 22. He has relied heavily on in-kind contributions from the California Republican Party and the Assembly Republican Political Action Committee, which have produced and paid for his mailers.

Printing, Postage

The California Republican Party had given Bookhammer $51,176 by the end of the reporting period, virtually all of it in printing and postage.

Target ‘88, a GOP organization whose goal is gaining control of at least one house of the Legislature in time to redraw legislative boundaries after the 1990 Census, gave Bookhammer $45,000.

Late contributions reported by telegram to the secretary of state’s office show that he has received $85,500 in the last five days.

The Republican candidate also has received financial support from top Hawthorne city officials, including the city manager and police chief, local developers and real estate agents, and the Morstone Investment Co. of Frazier Park, which gave $4,000.

He had spent $78,483 by Oct. 22 for mailings, signs, phones, office and fund-raising expenses.

A PROFILE OF THE 53RD DISTRICT Party Registration, 1988

Democrat 87,074 60.5% Republican 41,612 28.9% Independents 12,317 8.6% American Independent 1,645 1.1% Libertarian 493 .4% Peace and Freedom 539 .4% Other Parties 192 .1% Total 143,872 100.0%

Population--1980 Census*

White 178,244 59.2% Black 43,967 14.6% Asian 39,280 13.0% Other 39,624 13.2% Total 301,115 100.0%

Communities Gardena, Hawthorne, Lawndale, Carson, Harbor Gateway, part of Redondo Beach

Candidates Democrat:

Assemblyman Richard E. Floyd, incumbent

Republican:

Charles (Chuck) Bookhammer, Hawthorne City Councilman

* The 1980 Census does not include a separate category for Latinos, who make up 23.2% or 69,788, of the district’s population.

Sources: U.S. Census, Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder