CALIFORNIA ELECTIONS / 70TH ASSEMBLY DISTRICT : Where Badham, Ferguson Part Company

At first glance, the race between Assemblyman Gil Ferguson and Phyllis Badham doesn’t look like much of a race at all.

Ferguson, after all, has held the 70th Assembly District seat since 1984 and won his last reelection races handily. Badham, a 30-year-old public relations manager, has never run for office before, much less won an election.

What she does have, though, are positions markedly different from Ferguson’s on a number of key issues and name recognition among longtime residents inherited from her father, former Rep. Robert Badham, who served as an assemblyman and congressman in the area for 26 years.

“I’m not ignoring her,” Ferguson said. “Anyone who runs against an incumbent can get 30% of the vote. . . . A relative of someone who is known in the community is bound to get a more significant vote.”

While Badham is using the name as a springboard--her campaign literature announces “a second generation of commitment to the public trust”--she wastes little time in drawing a sharp distinction between herself and her more conservative father.

“I am his daughter, not his protege,” Badham said. Her father fully endorses her candidacy, she said, even though she supports a woman’s right to an abortion, which her father once said he “abhorred.”

“He respects me for who I am,” Phyllis Badham said.

He might also have feelings of deja vu watching his daughter challenge the 67-year-old Ferguson. Her campaign theme of a moderate, young challenger taking on an older, conservative politician out of step with his constituents is reminiscent of the battles Badham faced before retiring in 1988.

“I believe an assemblyman who cares so much about (Assemblyman) Tom Hayden isn’t concerned about the environment, traffic and all the other issues so important in our district,” Phyllis Badham said, referring to Ferguson’s attempts in past years to have Hayden declared a traitor and thrown out of the Legislature. “Mr. Ferguson is militantly anti-choice, and he’s endorsed by Operation Rescue. . . . The 70th is strongly pro-choice.”

Badham said she will be much more environmentally minded than Ferguson, who was one of the lowest-rated state legislators by environmental groups. But, she said, she supports only parts of Atty. Gen. John K. Van de Kamp’s multifaceted environmental measure, known as “Big Green,” on the November ballot. And her proposals for environmental protection, such as fostering a statewide recycling program, probably wouldn’t do much for a devoted Sierra Clubber.

“When I pick up my clothes from the dry cleaners, I recycle my wire hangers,” she told a group of Saddleback Valley teachers during a campaign speech.

When asked by a teacher if she would support some kind of tax increase to put more money into education, Badham was noncommittal. “When we’re spending $36,000 a year on a prisoner, but only $3,000 on a student, I think you have to take a hard look at your priorities,” she said.

Ferguson may be more conservative than the average voter in his district, which stretches from Newport Beach south to San Juan Capistrano and into the eastern foothills. But if he is, that fact has not hurt him terribly at the polls. In 1986, he ran unopposed in the primary and beat his Democratic challenger by 44 percentage points. In 1988, he defeated Newport Beach City Councilwoman Evelyn R. Hart by 27 percentage points in the primary, then was reelected by a 41-point margin in the heavily Republican district.

“I’m elected with the largest or second-largest number of votes of anyone in the state of California,” Ferguson said. “If I’m out of step with the electorate, I don’t know why I get those kinds of results. I’m outspoken, and people know who I am. . . . If they don’t like me and vote against me, I can accept that.”

Ferguson said Badham, like Hart, comes from “a corner of the opposition we have in Newport Beach” that wants to see a woman hold the 70th District seat. “They don’t like me, and one of the reasons is that I am a man,” he said.

Badham said it is Ferguson’s outspokenness and unwillingness to compromise that make him an ineffective legislator and keep the district from getting any real representation.

“You must work with the majority party,” Badham said before a group of Republican women at the Balboa Bay Club recently. “Unfortunately, that’s the Democrats at the moment.”

Eileen Padberg, a Republican political consultant in Orange County who supports Badham, said that Ferguson has not faced a well-funded Republican challenger and that if Badham can raise enough money, she will have a chance to defeat him.

“I think if the people of the district hear her message, she’ll win,” Padberg said. “The whole thing hinges on how much money she can raise.”

Padberg said it will take between $200,000 and $250,000 to unseat Ferguson, but persuading political contributors to go against an incumbent is extremely difficult.

“Nobody has the guts to write her a check and help her,” Padberg said. “If you go up against an incumbent, you lose the ability to have him help you ever again.”

So far, Badham has not proved that she can raise that kind of money. Her campaign was about $8,000 in debt at the close of the last reporting period in March, although she said that now she is receiving “a ton” of money. The next reporting period is at the end of the month.

Her campaign has also been slowed by internal squabbles. Political consultant Robert Kiley, whom Badham hired to develop an overall strategy, left the campaign in April and filed suit last week for breach of contract and nonpayment of fees. Badham said Kiley was simply not performing up to par.

The attorney who filed the suit for Kiley, Brea City Councilman Ron Isles, is near the top of Badham’s own endorsement list.

Left in charge of the Badham campaign is Michael Fiorina, a Beverly Hills attorney and lobbyist with no previous campaign management experience and no political experience in Orange County. Badham said she and Fiorina met through the Presbyterian Church.

“I think everybody chooses their campaign staff for many reasons: trust, ability to put together a winning team,” Badham said. “Michael has the energy and the experience to win an Assembly campaign against an incumbent.”

Badham has the endorsement and financial support of the California and Orange County medical associations, as well as the California Abortion Rights Action League.

“She is one of our top two priorities in the state,” said Peter Scranton, spokesman for the Santa Monica-based abortion rights-PAC. “We gave her $2,500 and will be committing volunteers to her campaign.”

Ferguson is running his own campaign with the help of his wife, Anita, and son, Mark. “I don’t like taking advice from strangers at this point in my life,” he said.

Badham has challenged Ferguson to debate her; Ferguson said he will if Badham signs the county Republican Party’s code of ethics promising to wage a clean campaign.

Badham scoffed at her opponent’s reasoning. “You mean the 11th commandment, which is undemocratic? I am running an ethical, honest campaign. . . . If that is his only reason (for not debating), then I am convinced he is intimidated by me and on the defensive.”