CALIFORNIA ELECTIONS LEGISLATIVE RACES : Calderon Is Favored to Fill Out Montoya’s Senate Term

Assemblyman Charles M. Calderon (D-Whittier) paid a price for challenging Speaker Willie Brown’s leadership two years ago--Brown removed Calderon as majority whip, reduced the size of his staff, stripped him of his committee posts, and consigned him to a cramped office.

But Brown apparently didn’t interrupt Calderon’s political advancement.

In one of three special legislative elections in Southern California on Tuesday, Calderon is the heavy favorite to win a state Senate seat. As the only Democratic candidate on the ballot, he benefits from the 2 to 1 voter registration advantage his party enjoys in the 26th Senate District. And his Republican foe, businessman Joe Aguilar Urquidi of Montebello, said he has all but written off the special election in order to mount a stronger campaign this fall when the office is up for a full four-year term.

The special election is for the eight months remaining on the term of Joseph B. Montoya, who resigned from the Senate on Feb. 9, after being convicted on political corruption charges. The district takes in a blue-collar, heavily Latino section of the San Gabriel Valley that includes Alhambra, Baldwin Park, El Monte, La Puente, Monterey Park and Montebello.

The outcome seems similarly assured in another of Tuesday’s legislative races. In the 31st Senate District, which stretches from West Covina in Los Angeles County to Laguna Beach in Orange County, Assemblyman Frank Hill (R-Whittier) is expected to defeat Democrat Janice Graham to fill the two years left of the term of former state Sen. William Campbell, who resigned his seat late last year.

Meanwhile, a single winner may not emerge in Tuesday’s primary for San Diego’s 78th Assembly District. The seat was vacated when Democrat Lucy Killea won election to the state Senate last December. The primary’s nine-candidate field makes it unlikely that anyone will win more than 50% of the vote, meaning the top vote-getter from each party will face-off in a June special election.

Calderon, 40, won statewide attention in 1988 as a member of the “Gang of Five”--a group of Assembly Democrats that launched an unprecedented attack on Brown and his ironclad control of the chamber. The Gang of Five billed themselves as advocates of legislative reform; critics charged that they were just grabbing for power. As part of the rebellion, Calderon came within a few votes of replacing Brown as Speaker.

Calderon insists that he has repaired his relationship with Brown. An aide to Brown said the Speaker and Calderon “have a very good relationship. They have patched things up.”

Nevertheless, Calderon said, he never has regained staff or office space. His current committee assignments, he noted, carry no clout or prestige. And, as a one-time rival for the speakership, he is sure his presence in the Assembly brings Brown “no peace of mind.” In fact, he said, Brown jokingly offered to be his campaign manager if that would get him out of the Assembly and into the Senate.

The gains from his political challenge to Brown, Calderon said, are that he acquired a reputation for independence and learned that he can be effective in the Legislature without holding a powerful position.

Even without major opposition, Calderon is sending out mailers, posting signs and running phone banks in a full-scale campaign that he estimates will cost nearly $100,000.

An attorney, Calderon grew up in Montebello, where he began his political career by winning election to the school board. Considered a moderate Democrat, he won the first of his four terms in the Assembly in 1982.

Urquidi, 63, Calderon’s Republican foe, said professional political workers have told him he cannot win the special election because he is not well-known, but that if he keeps campaigning, he will have a better chance in November.

Urquidi said he is counting on his military service in World War II and Korea, his membership in veterans’ organizations, his anti-abortion views, and his skeptical attitude toward government, to attract votes.

The third candidate on the ballot, Kim Goldsworthy, 33, of Rosemead, said he expects to attract the customary 1% or 2% of the vote that Libertarians usually get. He said he is running to espouse the Libertarian view that “taxation is legalized theft.”

Neither Urquidi nor Goldsworthy offered any criticism of Calderon. “I can’t say anything about Calderon,” said Goldsworthy. “He comes across as a people person . . . a very nice guy.”

Richard S. Gonzales, a 38-year-old Democrat from Baldwin Park, has filed as a write-in candidate after failing to submit enough signatures to qualify for the ballot.

Just as the heavily Democratic makeup of the 26th Senate District is a major factor in Calderon’s favor, Republican Hill is the expected beneficiary of the political composition of the 31st Senate District, where registered Republicans outnumber Democrats 3 to 2.

Democrat Graham, of Laguna Hills, pinned her hopes of overcoming the registration figures on two issues--ethics and abortion.

Graham, 53, has consistently noted that Hill’s Sacramento office was raided by the FBI in August, 1988, as part of the agency’s investigation of legislative influence peddling that led to Montoya’s conviction. Hill, however, has not been charged and the ethics issue has not caught fire in the campaign.

Graham also has stressed her support for abortion rights, contrasting that with Hill’s opposition to most abortions. However, California abortion rights groups declined to funnel time or money into Graham’s race because they consider it unwinnable.

The 36-year-old Hill, first elected to the Assembly in 1982, has predicted he will spend about $1.2 million on his Senate campaign. Graham has reported raising only about $28,000.

In the primary for San Diego’s 78th Assembly District, election overkill and the lack of divisive issues have conspired to produce a low-profile, rather somnolent campaign.

Tuesday’s contest is the third special legislative race in San Diego County in the last six months, and some candidates and consultants predict that “voter fatigue” will result in an especially low turnout. And while the two special races late last year drew national attention as referendums on the volatile abortion issue, no such issue has surfaced in the current race to heighten public interest.

Nine names--five Democrats, three Republicans and a Peace and Freedom Party member--are on the ballot, though three of the candidates have ceased campaigning. Former San Diego City Councilman Mike Gotch, a Democrat, is the best-known candidate and the only one viewed as having a chance to garner more than the 50% of the vote needed to win the Assembly seat outright. The only active GOP candidate is Jeff Marston, a former aide to ex-U.S. Sen. S.I. Hayakawa (R-Calif.).

Times staff writers Dave Lesher and Barry M. Horstman contributed to this story.