Brown Makes Appearance for State Senate Candidate

No less a political potentate than former governor and current state Democratic Party Chairman Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr. visited Laguna Hills last week on behalf of Janice Graham, the party’s candidate for the seat vacated by former state Sen. William Campbell.

In urging the Leisure World crowd of 350 to support Graham, Brown compared her candidacy in the heavily Republican 31st District to the movements for democracy in Eastern Europe.

“Get Jan Graham elected,” he said. “That will so shock Orange County that maybe things might change.”

Much of Brown’s 20-minute speech was devoted to criticism of the past decade’s Republican administrations in Sacramento and Washington.

“There was no crack cocaine in this state when I was governor,” he said.

Graham, a former schoolteacher, unsuccessfully challenged Campbell in 1988. She was the top vote-getter among the Democratic candidates in a special election last month. She finished fifth out of eight candidates overall, with 14.1% of the vote.

In the April 10 runoff election will be Graham, Assemblyman Frank Hill (R-Whittier), the top GOP vote-getter, and Robert Lewis of the American Independent Party.

The 31st District includes the Southeast communities of Whittier, La Mirada and La Habra Heights.

In a development related to the race, the California Abortion Rights Action League last week asked the state attorney general, the district attorneys of Los Angeles and Orange counties and the state Fair Political Practices Commission to investigate a letter sent out by a conservative Republican group during the February primary.

The letter, sent by the Sacramento-based Voter Information League, praises Graham as “a pro-choice Democratic woman” who could make history by being elected to the state Senate, and urges Democrats to vote for her rather than for any Republicans.

The purpose of the letter, the group’s treasurer, Allison Turner, admitted was to “preserve the sanctity of the two-party system” by keeping Democrats from affecting the Republican race.

Political officials, however, have speculated that the letter’s intent was to keep Democrats from voting for Republican pro-choice candidate Ron Isles, who came in third in the race.