Nolan Unlikely to Stand Pat in Campaign

Facing his most difficult election in 12 years, Republican Assemblyman Pat Nolan kicked off his campaign for a seventh term in the Assembly two weeks ago with a rousing endorsement from Gov. George Deukmejian.

Addressing 600 Nolan backers at a $150-per-person reception in Pasadena, Deukmejian praised the former Republican Assembly leader as a close personal friend and key player in his administration.

“While I’m not going to be there next year and the years after, I sure will be able to sleep better if I know that Pat’s going to be reelected,” Deukmejian told a cheering crowd at the Doubletree Hotel.

The staunchly conservative Nolan, 39, has easily carried the heavily Republican 41st Assembly District, which includes a large part of Pasadena, Altadena, Glendale and Eagle Rock, since winning it in 1978.

However, he now faces uncertainty as a result of being tied to an FBI investigation into alleged corruption in the Legislature. Although Nolan has neither been charged nor indicted, he remains a target for prosecution, according to sources close to the investigation.

Nolan has no Republican challenger in the June 5 primary but could face harsh attack from a seasoned Democrat in the November final.

Vying for the Democratic nomination in June are Jeanette Mann, a trustee for the Pasadena Community College District, and Rod McKenzie, professor of geography at USC. Peace and Freedom David Velasquez is also a candidate.

Mann, 53, said she plans to hit Nolan hard on ethics.

“I believe that Mr. Nolan will be indicted,” she said.

Mann appears to have the jump on her Democratic opponent, McKenzie, 52, who characterizes himself as “just a classic academician.”

But he said he hoped to appeal more widely to voters than Mann because of her liberal posture. He said he will refrain from talking about possible prosecution of Nolan.

“My presumption is that until he has been proven guilty, the man is innocent,” McKenzie said.

It is possible that Nolan’s status will not be resolved until after the November election, rendering it an inevitable question during the campaign.

The federal political corruption investigation surfaced in August, 1988, when Nolan’s Capitol office was raided by FBI agents. The investigation, including an elaborate sting operation, led to the indictment of Sen. Joseph B. Montoya (D-Whittier), who was convicted in February of seven counts of extortion, racketeering and money laundering. Montoya resigned from the Senate shortly after his conviction.

Among the key pieces of evidence that emerged during Montoya’s trial was that Nolan, then the Assembly Republican leader, was arranging with Senate staffer John Shahabian, a government informant, to receive campaign contributions from a dummy shrimp company set up by the FBI.

Also, last November a former top Nolan aide, Karin Watson, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court to extorting $12,500 for Republican lawmakers in exchange for help in passing a bill to benefit the bogus shrimp company.

In addition to Nolan, four other elected officials were ensnared in the undercover sting operation that led to Montoya’s indictment.

Nolan has said he did nothing wrong.

“No one has accused me of doing anything,” Nolan said in an interview last week. “I say when the investigation is concluded, I think I’ll be completely exonerated.”

But the inquiry, coupled with Republican setbacks in the 1988 elections, led to Nolan’s losing his position of GOP Assembly leader. That position gave Nolan a statewide profile and took him all around California as a spokesman for his party. “I had to be from one end of the state to another,” Nolan acknowledged.

Although he won again easily in 1988, Nolan suffered a discernible erosion of his commanding margin of victory. In his second run at Nolan, Democrat John Vollbrecht increased his vote tally more than 50% from just under 30,000 to more than 45,000, while Nolan added only about 3,000 votes to his first count of 69,508--in a presidential election year when more voters traditionally go to the polls.

One source close to Nolan, who asked not to be identified, said the assemblyman was buoyed by the outcome of a recent special Senate election in which Assemblyman Frank Hill (R-Whittier), also a target of the FBI investigation, won the GOP nomination. The success of Hill, the source said, “confirmed Pat’s belief that things aren’t that bad.”

Some of his colleagues say that faced with the federal probe, the veteran lawmaker is acting more like a freshman lawmaker popping up at a variety of events in his district, sometimes several in a day. Now, relieved of his statewide duties, which included fund raising for other candidates, Nolan said he can spend more time in the district.

Since he lost his leadership post, Nolan has been involved in more issues that are popular with leaders in his district--pushing for legislation to block parole offices near homes, toughening the penalties for auto theft and equalizing state funding for school districts.

Nolan acknowledged that his district is becoming more ethnically diverse with an influx of Latinos, Armenians and Koreans, diluting his primary power base of conservative, middle-income whites. And he noted that Democrat Michael S. Dukakis carried Pasadena in the last presidential election.

But Nolan said his constituents continue to like his brand of conservative politics. “I feel that people feel that I’ve been a good, solid representative,” Nolan said.

Deukmejian played on that sentiment in his endorsement two weeks ago, praising Nolan’s contributions to the Republican agenda of the ‘80s: holding down the budget, building the economy and getting tough on crime.

Among Democratic party operatives, there is disagreement over whether Nolan is vulnerable.

Assemblyman Richard Floyd (D-Carson), who explored the possibility of attempting to recall Nolan about two years ago, asserted that Nolan’s conservative record is not in tune with the state’s voters. Floyd remains angry about Nolan’s alleged involvement in the preparation of phony presidential endorsement letters mailed on behalf of Floyd’s GOP opponent in 1986.

But other Democrats acknowledge that it would be difficult to unseat Nolan unless he is indicted in connection with the federal investigation before the November general election.

With the investigation “over his head,” Nolan must go out and talk to voters, said Assemblyman Richard Polanco (D-Los Angeles), who also represents Pasadena. But, he said, “it’s a tough district for Democrats to win because of the registration” edge. According to the Jan. 2 report of the registrar of voters, Republicans outnumber Democrats 78,805 to 64,745.

Both Democrats seeking the nomination said they are counting on isolating Nolan on the far right, especially on the question of abortion and family planning, which they believe will attract Republican voters.

“I’m sure there are a lot of Republican women, particularly professional Republican women, who support choice,” Mann said. She said she believes that they would consider voting Democratic now that the U.S. Supreme Court has allowed state legislatures to adopt laws restricting abortion.

McKenzie, who is pro-choice, said he thinks abortion and family planning will be the most significant campaign issue, even though Nolan recently supported a measure to restore cuts to family planning agencies. “I think Pat’s position against pro-choice is fairly clear. I don’t think one fairly recent vote makes a convert out of him.”

Nolan described himself as “personally pro-life” but emphasized that the Legislature seldom, if ever, considers the abortion issue. Instead, Nolan said, lawmakers confront such related issues as whether minors should be required to obtain parental consent before an abortion. Saying parents should be involved in the decision, Nolan said he supports parental consent.

McKenzie, who taught Nolan in his geography class at USC in the 1970s, said his strategy is to develop grass-roots support based on his central position.

“I hope the voters will see that I stand where they do, in the center,” he said, “a little right on foreign, a little left on domestic.”

Nolan said he has joked with his former professor about the possibility of their being opponents. Nolan predicted that it would “be a lively dialogue” should McKenzie win the Democratic primary.

“Pat will characterize me as a liberal,” McKenzie said. He said he thinks it would “come down to which candidate comes closer to the center position.”

McKenzie, however, has conceded that his Democratic rival enjoys a considerable advantage through her past political experience.

“I’m running in a weakened posture because Jeanette is an old pro,” he said of Mann.

Mann, director of affirmative action at Cal State Northridge, got her first taste of politics as a “precinct man” in the Illinois system of Chicago’s first Mayor Richard Daley.

In her first crack at elected office, Mann in 1983 unseated a former mayor of Sierra Madre, Gary Adams, from the Pasadena City College District. She was reelected in 1987.

Mann set a goal of raising $100,000 to $150,000 locally to show Democratic Party leaders that she can beat Nolan. Then, with an infusion of party money, she hopes to strike on ethics and abortion.

“I believe that the people in the 41st District need to be represented by someone who shares their ethical and moral values, and I do,” she said.

Smith reported from Pasadena and Gladstone from Sacramento.

DISTRICT 41 CANDIDATES Pat Nolan, 39

Occupation: Incumbent

“I feel that people feel that I’ve been a good, solid representative.”

Jeanette Mann, 53

Occupation: Pasadena Community College District trustee

“I believe that the people in the 41st District need to be represented by someone who shares their ethical and moral values, and I do.”

Rod McKenzie, 52

Occupation: USC professor of geography

“I hope the voters will see that I stand where they do, in the center, a little right on foreign, a little left on domestic.”