ELECTIONS : 37TH ASSEMBLY DISTRICT : Wright Out Front in Bid for 6th Term

Assemblywoman Cathie Wright (R-Simi Valley) appeared to be beating back her strongest primary challenger in 10 years Tuesday, fending off opponent Hunt Braly’s charges that she misused her office by trying to fix her daughter’s traffic tickets.

Wright, 61, was outpolling Braly in early returns by a 3-2 margin. Braly, 35, is the top aide to state Sen. Ed Davis (R-Santa Clarita), a longtime political antagonist of Wright.

“I am very happy to see that my record in the past 10 years has been accepted by the people and that they still want me,” said Wright, speaking from a crowded suite at a Simi Valley hotel.

“My daughter’s driving record is her driver record and she has paid dearly for it. The voters accepted it as her problem and they accepted that I tried to help her as a mother,” she said.

Wright and Braly spent more than $400,000 on the 37th Assembly District race, making it the most expensive and bitter primary struggle in the San Fernando Valley region. Their campaign was also one of the few hotly contested Assembly primaries in the state this year.

Wright now faces Democrat Dennis Petrie, a program director at a Chatsworth home for juvenile delinquents, in the November general election. But she is heavily favored to win a sixth term in the district, where Republicans hold a registration edge over Democrats of nearly 53% to 36%.

A staunch conservative and abortion foe, Wright became politically vulnerable when Ventura County Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury concluded, following a 10-week investigation last year, that she engaged in “a clear pattern” of trying to obtain leniency from law enforcement officials for her daughter, Victoria.

Victoria Wright faced jail or loss of her license after accumulating 28 traffic tickets--24 of them for speeding--during a seven-year period.

Although Bradbury said the assemblywoman intervened repeatedly with local police, judges and state Department of Motor Vehicles officials on her daughter’s behalf, he found that she committed no prosecutable offenses.

Braly hammered at Wright in speeches and direct-mail brochures to voters, claiming that her actions were unethical and constituted an abuse of her official position.

Wright said she was only trying to help her daughter and that voters would agree she did nothing improper. In her own mailer, she attacked Braly for trying to exploit “a sad family tragedy.”

Braly, noting the difficulty of unseating an incumbent, took comfort in the relatively large proportion of voters he won to his side.

“If I can poll 40% against her on her home turf, I think it says something about the lack of accomplishments she’s had over the past couple of years,” he said, surrounded by supporters at a Newhall restaurant.

“It means she’s got to do a better job representing the district, which is what we’ve been saying all along.”

Wright was clearly concerned about the potential impact of the charges, and she hired a high-priced Sacramento political consulting firm, Huckaby-Rodriguez Inc., that specializes in conservative candidates.

She also campaigned vigorously in her far-flung district, which stretches from the northwestern suburbs of Los Angeles County into portions of Ventura and Santa Barbara counties.

In addition, Braly stumbled during the campaign by claiming an endorsement from a pro-choice group that does not make political endorsements.

Braly quickly apologized for the incident, but Wright capitalized on it, saying in a mailer that the move was a political dirty trick that cast doubt on Braly’s own ethics.

Times Staff Writers Betsy Bates and Santiago O’Donnell contributed to this story.