ELECTIONS 21ST CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT : Gallegly Leads Korman in GOP Primary

Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) was easily winning renomination in the GOP primary election Tuesday, and appeared to be trouncing wealthy Calabasas developer Sang Korman for the second time in as many years.

In early returns, Gallegly was leading Korman by a 3-1 margin, despite the Korean-born challenger’s unusual use of television ads attacking Gallegly’s voting record and Gallegly’s disputed role in an internal FBI investigation of four Los Angeles-based agents.

“I have tremendous confidence in the voters of this district,” the congressman said. “Most of them can separate fact from fiction.”

Gallegly beat Korman soundly in the 21st Congressional District primary in 1988, when the former Simi Valley mayor racked up 55,721 votes to Korman’s 9,467.

Korman, 52, financed both races largely out of his own pocket, lending his 1988 campaign $245,000 and this year’s campaign at least $200,000. Although he arrived in the United States in 1972 with virtually no money, he said he is now worth about $800,000, mostly as a result of real estate transactions in Los Angeles’ Koreatown district.

During the campaign, Gallegly adopted a strategy of ignoring Korman as much as possible, refusing to debate him or to respond much to his frequent press release attacks.

Gallegly now faces Democrat Richard Freiman, an Agoura lawyer, in the November general election.

But Gallegly, 46, is likely to win his third term in November in the district, where Republicans outnumber Democrats 177,000 to 124,000. The district covers the western and northern portions of Los Angeles County and southern and central Ventura County.

Asked if he will challenge Gallegly a third time in 1992, Korman said: “Two years from now, how do I know?”

Despite sharing Gallegly’s basic conservatism on many issues, Korman hammered the incumbent with a $120,000 series of commercials on local network and cable television outlets--an unusual and expensive tactic in such a geographically far-flung congressional district.

In one ad, Korman attacked Gallegly for his involvement in the internal FBI inquiry in 1987 and 1988. The agents were the target of a yearlong probe after they lobbied Gallegly in 1987 to support a then-pending bill to raise their overtime pay rates.

Gallegly said he did not file the complaints against the agents that prompted the inquiry. But documents released by the FBI show that he repeatedly complained to high-ranking bureau officials that the agents threatened him and conspired to defeat him in his 1988 reelection campaign.

Korman’s ads claimed that Gallegly covered up his role in the investigation, which eventually cleared the agents of any wrongdoing.