Wilson Uses Quota Issue in New TV Ad Attacking Feinstein

The gubernatorial campaign squabble over appointing women and minorities to government jobs--and whether that constitutes a quota system--spills onto California’s airwaves today when Republican Pete Wilson accuses Democrat Dianne Feinstein in a television commercial of planning to put “quotas over qualifications” if she is elected governor.

The new 30-second ad hammering on an area where Republicans hope Feinstein will be vulnerable was expected to be aired on some small stations Tuesday night, and will expand to television markets across the state by today.

Wilson, who is in Washington while the U.S. Senate is in session, had no direct comment on the ad, but his campaign spokesman accused Feinstein of “pandering” to voting groups by promising to appoint women and minorities in proportion to their share of the state’s population.

“She made those promises to get more votes,” said Bill Livingstone, Wilson’s spokesman. “ . . . Other women would find it very distasteful to have been given a job (because of) a quota system.”

Feinstein’s campaign immediately accused Wilson of “distorting the issue.”

“She voted against quotas when she was mayor,” said Feinstein’s spokeswoman, Dee Dee Myers, citing her 1980 opposition to a San Francisco City Charter revision that contained appointment quotas.

Feinstein also could not be reached for comment. She traveled Tuesday to Washington, where she has scheduled a series of fund-raisers.

In her absence, Feinstein’s campaign staff also accused Wilson of doing precisely what he accuses the former San Francisco mayor of doing--supporting proportional representation of women and minorities in government.

They circulated copies of an affirmative action plan used in San Diego during Wilson’s tenure as mayor. The program’s objective, as set out in city documents, was to “make city employment . . . consistent with the minority composition of the city of San Diego.”

Livingstone said that plan, even though its objective is almost exactly that espoused by Feinstein, was not a quota system. “That is a goal, not something that would happen immediately,” he said of the San Diego plan. “Wilson didn’t go to black groups and promise them 7% of the jobs.”

The candidates have been bickering for weeks over whether Feinstein’s pledge represents a quota system or is more akin to traditional affirmative action programs, which emphasize goals and objectives over specific numbers.

At the root of the dispute is each candidate’s desire to appeal to diverse segments of the voting public--and particularly to women, who constitute more than half of the electorate.

The Wilson ad, notably, is being launched at the same time that Republicans statewide begin to emphasize the role of women and the party’s opposition to quotas. At the state GOP convention this week in Wilson’s hometown of San Diego, prominent Republican women such as Secretary of Labor Elizabeth Dole are expected to blast quota systems as demeaning.

The issue was first raised in the closing days of the primary campaign, when Feinstein explained how she would handle appointments at all levels of government, from her office staff to judges and department heads.

“Fairness is part of the dream,” she told black audiences in Los Angeles on Memorial Day weekend. “That is one of the reasons we have pledged an open and accessible administration. That is one of the reasons we have pledged to appoint women in proportion to their parity of the population--50%.

“To appoint people of color in proportion to their parity of the population. To see that the administration is open. . . . That is the agenda.”

When the proposal came under fire from Wilson late last month, Feinstein said she did not consider her proposal to be a quota system, which she defined as one excluding certain groups of people.

“Mr. Wilson has never known a quota. I know what a quota is,” she said. Her campaign staff later said Feinstein was referring to her exclusion from private school as a youngster. The exclusion occurred because Feinstein is Jewish.

Wilson, in previous public comments, has suggested that by promising a certain proportion of jobs to certain groups, Feinstein was de-emphasizing the individual merits of job-seekers. His campaign ad underscores that sentiment, asking in its punch line whether California can “afford a governor who puts quotas over qualifications and promises over performance.”

Wilson aides refused to disclose how much they intend to spend on the advertisement, except to describe the cost as substantial.

The strategy represents a calculated gamble. Summer is generally thought to be a season in which voters are not paying attention. But Wilson is apparently hoping that he can do what Democrat Edmund G. Brown Jr. did in 1978 against Republican Evelle Younger--hit his opponent early and hard. Brown won that election.

Another candidate in recent months launched a commercial that delivered a lead in the polls that held until Election Day. That was Feinstein, who won the primary largely on the strength of a February commercial touting her leadership in the aftermath of the assassination of San Francisco Mayor George Moscone.