La Follette Won’t Seek Reelection, Sources Say : Politics: The Northridge Assemblywoman has Scheduled a ‘Major Announcement’ Today.

Republican Assemblywoman Marian La Follette of Northridge, a five-term legislator best known for her persistent efforts to carve the massive Los Angeles Unified School District into smaller districts, has decided not to seek reelection, sources close to her said Monday.

La Follette, 63, plans to endorse an aide, Robert Wilcox, 24, to be her successor in the heavily Republican 38th Assembly District, the sources said.

La Follette refused to comment on whether she would seek reelection, but scheduled a news conference today to make a “major announcement” she would not describe.

Sources close to La Follette said she is not running again for two primary reasons: Her husband, Jack, a Los Angeles lawyer, is seriously ill with cancer, and she is increasingly frustrated by political and ethics problems in the Democrat-dominated Legislature.

“Her husband isn’t doing too hot,” one source said. “He has cancer, and he’s been in and out of treatment a lot.”

After trouncing her Democratic opponent in 1988, La Follette expressed frustration over the GOP’s political weakness against the Legislature’s strong Democratic majority. She suggested she might campaign for state superintendent of public instruction if schools chief Bill Honig did not. Honig is expected to seek reelection this year.

Two sources said La Follette plans at her news conference to endorse Wilcox, who has been active in her efforts to split up the school district. Last year, Wilcox flirted with the idea of running against Assemblywoman Cathie Wright (R-Simi Valley), a La Follette antagonist, but decided not to.

La Follette’s political withdrawal is expected to touch off a scramble among Republicans to replace her in the 38th District, a GOP stronghold where the Republican nomination is usually tantamount to a general-election victory. Two Democrats have filed to run for the seat but neither is well known.

A generally a low-key legislator, La Follette has campaigned long, but unsuccessfully, for the break-up of the 610,000-student Los Angeles school district, arguing that it is too large and parents of San Fernando Valley schoolchildren have insufficient say in its operation. she has tried and failed several times to persuade the Legislature to revamp the district, and recently called for a public vote on the matter.

Assemblyman Stan Statham (R-Oak Run) said that over the last two years he has sensed that La Follette increasingly has been “turned off by the political game-playing around the Capitol.”

Kris Vosburgh, a former aide to La Follette, said the assemblywoman has been upset by the FBI’s investigation of possible corruption in the Legislature, which recently led to the conviction of state Sen. Joseph Montoya (D-Whittier) on extortion, racketeering and money-laundering charges.

She’s an extremely honest and honorable person,” Vosburgh said. “To have to be a part of an organization that has been so bespattered by the fallout of the FBI probe--it’s got to be painful to be part of that environment.”

Vosburgh added that La Follette was deeply frustrated at not being able to get many of her school-related bills out of committee, saying legislators allied with teacher unions continually stymied her efforts.

Several people close to La Follette said her husband’s illness has placed a severe emotional strain on her and much of her attention recently has been focused on him. One legislator said that during a meeting of the Assembly Republican caucus last year, La Follette broke down in tears after announcing her husband’s condition had improved briefly.

Assembly GOP Leader Ross Johnson of La Habra said La Follette has not told him what she plans to say at her press conference and that he assumes she will not run again. If she has decided not to run, he said, he will try to talk her out of that decision.