CALIFORNIA ELECTIONS ATTORNEY GENERAL : Smith, Lungren Square Off on Abortion, Oil Drilling

In a possible presage to the fall campaign for state attorney general, Republican Dan Lungren and Democrat Arlo Smith sparred on the issues of abortion rights and offshore oil drilling at their first head-to-head confrontation.

Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner, who will face Smith in next month’s Democratic primary, did not attend the unusual Santa Monica Bar Assn. Law Day forum Tuesday night, citing a scheduling conflict.

While Reiner and Smith both agreed on such fundamental issues as reproductive rights and oil drilling, it took Smith little time to spotlight substantial differences with Lungren--the man either Reiner or Smith will meet in the November general election.

Devoting his entire 15-minute opening statement to the question of abortion, Smith vowed to “personally argue any case whether it be in the Municipal Court or the U.S. Supreme Court” to protect abortion rights.

“My position is first of all, one of very deep belief. I am a father. And I will not stand to allow the rights of my daughter to become a political football kicked around by politicians scrambling for the votes,” said Smith, the San Francisco district attorney who has been endorsed by the state chapter of the National Organization for Women.

Smith added that privacy provisions in the state Constitution clearly protect a woman’s right of choice. “I will fight any legislation that threatens that right,” Smith said.

Lungren, a longtime foe of abortion, accused abortion rights activists of seeking to make the issue “a litmus test (for holding) public office,” much as they “criticized the pro-life people for raising it a couple years ago.”

As attorney general, Lungren said after the forum, he would go to court to defend possible state legislation cutting off Medi-Cal funding for abortions. Smith and Reiner have said that they would refuse to defend such legislation on constitutional grounds.

Lungren, who is running unopposed for the Republican nomination, did agree with Smith on one abortion-related issue. He said that the wording of Proposition 115, the sweeping anti-crime initiative on the June ballot, would not jeopardize abortion rights.

Later in the forum, held at the Riviera Country Club, Smith drew applause from the 75-member audience when he emphasized his opposition to offshore oil drilling. “I will be there to fight anyone who wants to start drilling off of the Pacific Palisades or off the coast of San Francisco or any other place in this state,” he declared.

Lungren, on the other hand, received lighter applause when he countered that offshore drilling must be considered “on a case-by-case basis, an area-by-area basis.”

“You have to have very stringent environmental standards, very stringent environmental controls,” said Lungren. “ . . . (But) as long as there are energy needs in this country, we have to provide a careful balancing act. . . . If we’re going to say we are going to absolutely restrict energy supplies to California, we ought to have the guts to then come up and say what our alternative methods of transportation are going to be and how much they are going to cost the people.”

The subject of oil drilling is particularly sensitive in Pacific Palisades, where Occidental Petroleum Corp. lost a bitter 1988 referendum.

The debate also focused on street crime and drug abuse, with each candidate maintaining that he is better qualified to handle the problems. Smith cited his 36 years experience as a district attorney and a deputy attorney general, while Lungren focused on his decade in Congress, where he sponsored or helped win passage of several major anti-crime bills.

Inter-party debates are highly out of the ordinary before a primary, but both candidates said they would look forward to additional encounters and criticized Reiner for not joining them.

Reiner, long seen as the front-runner for the Democratic nomination, has participated in three forums with Smith, including one at the recent state Democratic convention in Los Angeles. But Reiner so far has declined Smith’s proposal for a series of four pre-primary debates in major cities across the state on specific topics ranging from street gang violence to corruption in government.