Tucker’s Surprise: Puppet Pulls His Own Strings : Politics: Voters and legislators are getting used to the idea that the young assemblyman isn’t a carbon copy of the man he succeeded: his father.

When he settled into the late Curtis Tucker’s Assembly seat last year, Curtis Tucker Jr. had some surprises in store for his father’s allies.

The National Rifle Assn., accustomed to the elder Tucker’s longtime support, discovered to its dismay that the new assemblyman is a firm advocate of gun control.

And death penalty opponents learned that the Inglewood Democrat, unlike his father, strongly supports putting California’s gas chamber to work.

Although Tucker reached the state Assembly largely on the strength of his father’s name, he appears determined to chart his own political course.

“I think people are beginning to realize that Tucker’s dad is no longer around,” the 35-year-old assemblyman said. “Just as they had to get used to him, now they have to get used to me.”

This independence is certain to complicate the already longshot candidacies of the two men planning to run for Tucker’s 50th District seat this year--Democrat Matthew Olds and Peace and Freedom Party candidate Michael Long, both of Los Angeles.

To be sure, Tucker has inherited two key advantages: name recognition and fund-raising connections. These helped him capture 71% of the vote in a special election last February, four months after his father, a 14-year incumbent and chairman of the Assembly Health Committee, died in office at 70.

But by establishing his own political identity, Tucker has begun peeling away the image of him that opponents painted last year: that of a puppet of the Sacramento power brokers who helped engineer his campaign.

“He’s more than his father’s son,” said state Assemblyman John Burton (D-San Francisco), a death penalty opponent who chairs the Assembly’s Public Safety Committee, a heavily lobbied panel to which Tucker was appointed this year. “He’s his own man. He’s carving out his own area.”

It is no wonder that opponents questioned Tucker’s autonomy, however: He reached the Assembly in a process more akin to a coronation than a campaign.

Tucker says he decided to enter the political world in 1983, after working for five years as a cable splicer and cable splicing supervisor for Pacific Telephone.

A 1980 graduate of Cal State Dominguez Hills, he had hoped to study law while continuing to work for the phone company, but he says he quit his job after getting into a conflict with his supervisor and drawing an unwanted transfer to Rosemead.

His father--whose dream, Tucker says, was to be succeeded by his son in 1990--immediately helped land him a job in the Wilshire district office of Assemblyman Mike Roos (D-Los Angeles).

“I told him I was ready to make the move, and the next thing I knew I was interviewing with Roos,” Tucker said.

After a four-year stint handling constituent issues for Roos, Tucker transferred to the Crenshaw District office of Assemblywoman Gwen Moore (D-Los Angeles) in 1987 to do similar work. The move was made, Tucker says, because his father thought it would be politically wise to get him closer to the 50th District.

When the elder Tucker died of liver cancer on Oct. 9, 1988--and then beat a Republican in the first posthumous legislative victory in state history--the political machinery began churning in earnest on his son’s behalf.

Gov. George Deukmejian rescheduled the special election from April to February at the request of Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco), who stood to gain a key 41st vote in the 80-member Assembly with a Tucker win. And Brown threw his endorsement and a full complement of campaign resources behind Tucker, shooing away several strong Democratic candidates and overwhelming the Republican and two Democrats who remained in the race.

Tucker, buoyed also by a deathbed transfer of $28,000 in campaign cash from his father and thousands more from medical industry contributors to the elder Tucker’s campaigns, won big. For some, the manner of the victory still rankles.

“With all the money that came down from Sacramento, it was hard for people like me, who had no money, to withstand it,” said Inglewood School Board member Lois Hill-Hale, one of the Democrats Tucker defeated. “The money allowed him to send out more mailings than anyone. Plus the fact that Willie Brown shortened the campaign time.”

Since taking office, Tucker has kept a low profile compared to many other members of the Assembly’s freshman class. He has gotten only half a dozen bills enacted, most of them technical bills requested by state agencies.

By contrast, freshman Assemblyman Ted Lempert (D-San Mateo) attracted broad attention with a number of bills, including a measure--now law--requiring newly elected state officials to disclose all income received during the 12 months before taking office.

Olds, one of Tucker’s would-be opponents, says 50th District voters are interpreting this as inaction.

“I don’t know the man,” said Olds, a 26-year-old registrar at a Glendale trade school. “But in the community there’s a lot of resentment. People don’t think he’s doing anything.”

Others disagree. They point to evidence that Tucker has not remained hidden in his father’s shadow. Since taking office, he has staked out his own turf on several key issues.

An example is his consistent support for gun control legislation, including last year’s bitterly contested ban on military-style semiautomatic assault weapons. Reviewing Tucker’s voting record, NRA lobbyist Brian Judy does not hide his dismay.

“Of the 10 votes we used to track gun-control issues (last year), he voted for gun control and against the NRA position on all 10,” Judy said. “It is a disappointment. His father was consistently against gun control.”

Tucker has also turned heads by pronouncing himself a firm supporter of capital punishment. He has said he would endorse applying the death penalty to murderers as young as 14. Like his gun-control votes, such stands might prove popular to some in his district, parts of which are buffeted by high crime rates and gangs. But they buck the views of the two men most responsible for helping him into office--his father and Speaker Brown.

Asked to explain his position, Tucker cites the escalation in violent crimes in the Los Angeles area, and his belief that capital punishment would be meted out evenhandedly.

“My father grew up in the South, and he saw that the system didn’t always work for blacks,” Tucker said. “In today’s society, with all the counterbalances, with all the TV and newspaper accounts, I don’t think you’re going to have the mishandling of justice you had back in the ‘30s, ‘40s, ‘50s and ‘60s.”

He says changing times also justify the execution of younger criminals.

“The kids nowadays that are committing crimes are not committing your basic childhood ‘Let boys be boys’ crimes,” he said. “We’re seeing rapes, murders, aggravated assaults, burglaries, armed robberies.

“They have no fear of any retribution. I think if they commit the crime, they should serve the same penalties that an adult would serve.”

Tucker’s most recent display of independence came last month in the Public Safety Committee. He joined three Republicans and another Democrat to provide a five-vote majority for a bill that would all but ban the sale of graphic pornography from sidewalk vending machines.

The action came despite strong opposition from Burton, who called the measure “garbage.” The legislation later cleared the Assembly, and is now before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Some analysts believe that Tucker will have a tough time holding an independent course in the Public Safety Committee. The panel often handles controversial issues such as pornography and criminal sentencing, which can put conservative-leaning committee members at odds with liberal Democrat leaders.

Said a lobbyist who regularly appears before the committee: “It’s a tough committee for a rookie Democrat to be on.”

Burton, however, downplays his differences with Tucker. He points to the hard-line conservatism of Tucker’s predecessor on the panel, Gary Condit (D-Ceres), who last year won a special election for the congressional seat vacated by Tony Coelho.

“You have to look at who he replaced on the committee,” Burton said. “There’s no way in the world that his vote will be farther away from mine than Gary’s was.”

Although Tucker has yet to get major legislation passed, he has introduced several bills that could attract attention in this year’s session.

One would ban the bulk use in populated areas of hydrogen fluoride, the acutely toxic chemical used in the South Bay by a refrigerant manufacturing plant and two oil refineries. Concern about the chemical has grown since an undetected buildup of hydrofluoric acid, the liquid form of the chemical, caused a 1987 explosion and fire at the Mobil Oil refinery in Torrance.

Another of Tucker’s bills would create a pilot child-development program, providing health care, counseling, tutoring and other services for needy students at six California elementary schools that would be designated if the bill becomes law.

A third, aimed at discouraging gang violence, would require that court proceedings involving minors who are charged with serious crimes be open to the public.

And a fourth would assign a team of drug-sniffing dogs to each of California’s prisons to regularly search cells, prison grounds and visitors’ vehicles.

Tucker acknowledges that attracting backing for such measures may mean bowing to the wishes of legislative leaders on other issues. But at no time, he vows, will he stop speaking, and voting, his mind.

“I’m not trying to be a troublemaker,” Tucker said. “I’m not trying to be a wild card. I’m just doing my job.”