Front-Runner Fails to Emerge in Assembly Primary Campaign : Politics: Attention focuses on GOP in race to succeed Dennis Brown. So far, it is too close to call.

Halfway through a primary campaign that developed at the last minute, no clear front-runner has emerged among the five Republican candidates seeking to replace departing Assemblyman Dennis Brown.

Brown, the Los Alamitos Republican who had represented the 58th Assembly District for 12 years and had a virtual lock on the seat, set off a political scramble when he made a surprise announcement last month that he would not seek reelection.

None of his would-be GOP successors are known throughout the coastal district that stretches from Long Beach to Huntington Beach, making for a race expected to remain close through the June 5 primary.

“I think it’s just going to come down to the very end,” said GOP candidate Jeffrey A. Kellogg, a Long Beach city councilman. “You’re just going to see a mad rush at the very end.”

The other Republican candidates are Seymour Alban, a Long Beach physician; Jan Hall, an outgoing Long Beach City Council member; Huntington Beach Mayor Thomas J. Mays; and Peter E. von Elten, a vice president at Mola Development Corp. in Newport Beach.

Attention is focused on the battle for the Republican nomination because there is just one Democratic candidate in the heavily Republican district, Luanne W. Pryor, and one Libertarian Party candidate, Scott Stier, on the primary ballot. Both are from Long Beach.

The Republican who emerges will become the heavy favorite in November, in a district in which 51% of registered voters are Republicans, to 39% Democrats.

Slightly more than half of all the district’s voters are in its Long Beach portion, although most of its Republican voters live in Orange County.

The two Republican candidates who have never run for political office--Alban and Von Elten--have the most ambitious spending plans for the campaign. Alban expects to spend up to $400,000 in the primary; Von Elten’s campaign estimates his costs could exceed $200,000.

The three city government officials running--Hall, Kellogg and Mays--complain that they will be vastly outspent. They noted, however, that they benefit from greater name identification and that Von Elten and Alban require more money to win because neither has an obvious political base.

As for issues, the environment has been a hot button in many races this year, but it has had special emphasis in this race. The district’s shoreline was fouled when an anchor tore the bottom of the oil tanker American Trader, causing 394,000 gallons of crude to spill into the ocean off Huntington Beach. The Orange County portion of the district’s shoreline was coated with oil for several weeks.

The one candidate who may have benefited politically from the spill is Mays, the Huntington Beach mayor. He appeared frequently on local TV as spokesman for angry citizens living on and near the affected areas.

Mays, along with all of the Republican candidates except Kellogg, has opposed more offshore oil drilling and favored more regulation to protect the coast from spills.

Kellogg, who has worked with his family’s oil company operating onshore drilling sites, said he does not think that the water off the 58th District should accommodate more drilling, but he would not rule out his support for a specific project.

“You have to take it on a case-by-case” basis, he said.

Ironically, with all of the Republican candidates appealing for environmental votes, the district has been represented for 12 years by an assemblyman who was rated one of the five worst in the state by the League of Conservation Voters.

Doug Linney, the San Francisco-based political director for the league, said the campaign to replace Brown is a high priority for the group’s leaders, because it offers a chance to replace one of their strongest foes with an Assembly member more inclined to support them.

Linney said the group plans to question each candidate, which may lead to an endorsement in the GOP primary. So far, it has only talked to Alban. “We feel fairly comfortable with him as a candidate,” Linney said.

Alban is the only Republican candidate who expressed general support for the so-called Big Green initiative that qualified Thursday for the November ballot. He has stopped short of specifically endorsing it, however, because he views it as a campaign tool being used by Democratic gubernatorial candidate John K. Van de Kamp, the initiative’s chief sponsor.

Some other Republicans said they supported parts of the sweeping measure, but not all of its provisions.

As a developer, Von Elten has also had to align his background with his professed support for environmental concerns. Von Elten, 46 and a Vietnam veteran, said he demonstrated his concern for the environment when his company paid to clean up a toxic waste dump in Huntington Beach before building houses on the site.

“It was a model cleanup and not a penny cost to the taxpayers,” he said.

On other issues, all of the Republicans except Mays are opposed to proposals to bar women from seeking abortions. Of the four who support abortion rights, just Kellogg was opposed to government funding for poor women seeking abortions.

At a candidates forum Thursday night in Long Beach, which Kellogg did not attend, Mays was the only candidate opposed to some forms of gun control.

“Gun control is not going to solve the crime problem,” Mays said. “Criminals won’t have to wait for a gun.”

On Proposition 111, the proposed 9-cent gas tax to pay for transportation improvements, all of the Republican candidates supported the measure except Kellogg, who said he was unsatisfied with the manner in which the state spends the existing gas tax.