CALIFORNIA ELECTIONS CAMPAIGN ROUNDUP : A Flurry of Flyers, a Twist in Old Feud

Voters will close a hectic spring election season Tuesday when they choose local leaders, party nominees for state legislative and congressional seats, and vote on referendums dealing with everything from crime to mountain lions.

Primaries in three Assembly contests in the region have drawn a flock of candidates, and three Long Beach runoffs could change the face of city leadership.

A last-minute wave of mailers and knocking on doors is expected this weekend as candidates make their final pitches in a number of heated election battles.

In the predominantly Republican 58th Assembly District, which runs from eastern Long Beach to Huntington Beach, five Republicans are scrambling after the GOP nomination in the wake of incumbent Dennis Brown’s decision to drop out of politics. The district’s Democratic primary fizzled when one of two contestants withdrew, leaving Luanne Pryor to carry the Democratic standard in the November election.

The GOP race has been marked by accusations of special-interest influence and heavy spending on the part of the best-financed candidates, Long Beach physician Seymour (Sy) Alban and Huntington Beach developer Peter von Elten.

The contest took a new turn last week when the longstanding feud between the California Medical Assn. and the California Chiropractors Assn. spilled over into the primary. Apparently concerned that Alban, who is backed by the medical association, might win the nomination, a political action committee financed by the chiropractors association mounted a $45,000 campaign on behalf of conservative candidate Thomas J. Mays, the mayor of Huntington Beach.

For years, the two associations have been engaged in a battle in Sacramento over legislation regulating chiropractic treatments. Mays said he knew nothing about efforts by the chiropractors to elect him and has never spoken to representatives of their association. He suggested that the chiropractors simply want anybody but Alban in the Assembly seat, and they chose to aid him because he is considered one of the front-runners, along with Von Elten and Alban.

The two remaining contestants, Long Beach City Council members Jan Hall and Jeffrey A. Kellogg, have both suffered from a lack of money, each raising slightly less than $50,000 as of mid-May. By comparison, Alban had nearly $200,000, Von Elten had spent $161,000, and Mays had nearly $90,000.

Alban, an abortion rights advocate, has attacked Mays’ anti-abortion stand, whereas Mays has assailed Alban and Von Elten as the respective puppets of the medical association and the development community. Von Elten has responded by pointing out all the contributions that Mays has received from developers in Huntington Beach during this campaign and his tenure on the Huntington Beach City Council.

Some of the candidates for the Democratic primary in the 59th Assembly District will be walking precincts arm-in-arm with their chief supporters, despite recent criticism that powerful political patrons have played too great a role in the campaign.

State Sen. Charles M. Calderon (D-Whittier) will be joining his district representative, Marta Maestas, who he hopes will win the seat he vacated when he was sent to the Senate in a special election. State Sen. Art Torres (D-Los Angeles) is expected to be making the rounds with candidate Xavier Becerra, and U.S. Rep. Esteban E. Torres (D-La Puente) is out with contestant Bill Hernandez. Candidate Diane Martinez said she did not know whether her father, U.S. Rep. Matthew G. Martinez (D-Monterey Park), would be joining her.

Only candidate Larry Salazar is without a powerful political ally. He has criticized the others, saying he is the only candidate who does not have to worry about “strings . . . being pulled by power groups.”

Los Angeles City Councilman Robert Farrell and three other Democrats are seeking the party’s nomination in the 48th Assembly District, which cuts across South-Central Los Angeles and Watts and includes the cities of Lynwood and South Gate.

Also running are Marguerite Archie-Hudson, a former chief of staff for Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco); Lynwood City Councilwoman Evelyn Wells, and Roderick D. Wright, a former aide to Assemblywoman Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles). Waters, who has held the seat for 14 years, is running for Congress.

Longtime Democratic political power Waters is not expected to have any problems winning the Democratic nomination for retiring U.S. Rep. Augustus F. Hawkins’ 29th Congressional District seat, which represents South-Central Los Angeles, Huntington Park, Cudahy, Lynwood and South Gate.

Waters has long been viewed as the likely successor to Hawkins (D-Los Angeles), 82, who decided to retire after 28 years. Nonetheless, she said she is walking precincts and making five to six speaking engagements in a day in her run against opponents Lionel Allen, a financial consultant and real estate developer; Twain Wilson, an independent filmmaker, and Ted Andromidas, a Lyndon H. LaRouche Jr. Democrat.

Lawrence A. Grigsby is giving Rep. Mervyn M. Dymally (D-Compton) a lively challenge in the Democratic primary in the 31st Congressional District, which runs south from Watts and Willowbrook through such cities as Compton, Lynwood and Carson before ending in North Long Beach.

Grigsby, an Inglewood attorney and a political newcomer, is backed by a group called the New Alliance Party. He and NAP, as the New York-based group is known, have been playing up Dymally’s dealings with Zairian President Mobutu Sese Seko, whose government is described by the U.S. State Department as repressive and corrupt.

Dymally, who is seeking his sixth term, says Grigsby and his NAP backers are part of a political cult that is trying to discredit him in an attempt to set up shop in the Southland. Voters in the 31st do not care about Mobutu, Dymally says, and his dealings with the African head of state have all been aboveboard, he insists. Dymally won his most recent primary with 85% of the vote.

In Long Beach, incumbent Mayor Ernie Kell has worked to beat back Councilman Tom Clark’s challenge by assailing Clark’s integrity. Last week, the Kell campaign continued the attack by complaining to the state Fair Political Practices Commission that Clark had violated contribution restrictions in three instances. In one, Kell noted that Clark had taken $1,000 from the president of a company and another $1,000 from the company, apparently exceeding the $1,000 limit on contributions from firms or individuals.

“We’ll check these out. If there’s anything in error, we’ll correct it,” said Clark, adding that if there were violations they were unintentional. “It’s been filed; it’s not something we’re trying to hide.”

Clark, an optometrist and veteran councilman, has scorned Kell’s leadership, saying he has accomplished virtually nothing as the city’s first full-time mayor. Kell has repeatedly cited what he has called Clark’s “ethical problems,” such as a 1988 episode when Clark lied about his identity when he was caught tearing down an opponent’s campaign sign.

In Long Beach City Council races, 1st District incumbent Evan Anderson Braude is running against Bill Stovall, a retired deputy police chief, and Planning Commissioner Jim Serles is making his third bid for the 3rd District seat, also being sought by Doug Drummond, a retired police commander.

Times staff writers Bettina Boxall, Michele Feutsch, Tina Griego, Lee Harris and Dave Lesher contributed to this story.