GOP Group Is Not Backing Wilson--Yet

The California Republican Assembly, gearing up for the 1990 statewide elections, opened its annual convention Friday in Costa Mesa with a pledge to hold onto the governor’s seat but withheld its support from the party’s most likely candidate--U.S. Sen. Pete Wilson.

“We will be spending the coming year with a fact-finding committee discussing the issues and the candidates,” said Bill Hoge, a Pasadena insurance agent who is expected to win the presidency of the state’s largest organization of conservative Republicans during its election Sunday.

“At our endorsing convention next year, we will decide . . . whether or not to endorse the senator,” Hoge said.

Gov. George Deukmejian has said he will not run for a third term in November, 1990, and plans to retire from public office.

But rather than publicly back Wilson too soon before the 1990 gubernatorial primary, CRA officials said they were looking forward to a speech today from Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl Gates. It would be the first time that the conservative law enforcement officer addressed the group.

“Gates will be speaking to us as a police chief for obvious reasons,” outgoing CRA president Ev Roden said. “But he’s in the exploratory stages of forming a campaign.”

The chief, who in the past has considered running for mayor of Los Angeles, has not officially declared his intentions to run for any office but has strongly suggested an interest in the governorship.

More than 400 of the group’s 10,000 members were expected to attend the weekend convention at the Red Lion Inn in Costa Mesa. Wilson, Gates and television commentator Bruce Herschensohn were among the featured speakers.

Hoge said that beginning in April, his group’s fact-finding committee will track Wilson, Gates and other Republicans who have expressed interest in running for governor, and compile their views on a range of issues and eventually meet with each one before voting to endorse any of the contenders before the GOP primary in June.

Republican candidates typically seek out a CRA endorsement because it ensures not only votes from the conservative wing of the party but also campaign donations and grass-roots help from the group’s volunteer members.

Hoge, 43, head of the CRA’s Pasadena chapter who is running unopposed for the group’s presidency, said his main goal for 1989-90 is to fatten voter rolls with Republican Party members.

“My main objective is to increase Republican registration,” he said in an interview before the convention opened. “If we do that, we should be able to retain the governorship.”

Roden said the election of former Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr. as California Democratic Party chairman after a 6-year absence from politics should not be overlooked by the state GOP.

“Some Republicans have laughed at his return, but I see him as a very formidable force,” Roden said. “He can raise funds like you can’t believe.”

Roden also defended his group’s recognition of Assemblyman Pat Nolan (R-Glendale), one of four lawmakers under investigation by the FBI on bribery allegations. Nolan will receive the CRA’s “Freedom Fighter” award Saturday.

“He is one man who has fought for the principles of the CRA and the principles of the Republican Party,” Roden said. “The investigation doesn’t bother me until he’s convicted.”

The CRA considers itself the “oldest and largest Republican volunteer” organization that supports, among other things, the idea that the United States should “stress victory over, rather that coexistence with, communism.”