ORANGE : Smoller Ads Link Lewis to Scandals

Democratic candidate Fred Smoller, who is challenging Assemblyman John R. Lewis (R-Orange) in the Nov. 6 election, launched an early television attack against his opponent Thursday with an ad that criticizes his involvement in two recent scandals.

The commercial, which is to air on cable television in Orange, highlights Lewis’ indictment last year for a fake signature of President Reagan’s on campaign literature without permission from the White House. The ad does not mention that the charge was dismissed by an appellate court.

Lewis was also criticized in the commercial for his connection to the so-called poll guard case, in which Republican Party officials placed uniformed guards at polling places throughout Santa Ana on Election Day in 1988. Smoller’s television commercial charges that the guards were hired “to frighten Latino voters.”

Lewis has admitted that he attended meetings at which the hiring of the guards was discussed. At one meeting, according to court documents, Lewis joked about driving green vans around the polling places to give the impression that Immigration and Naturalization Service agents were lurking.

Lewis dismissed the attack Thursday, saying that he has been cleared in connection with both cases and adding that he is confident of reelection because he is more philosophically compatible with the predominantly Republican district.

“He can say whatever he wants, I don’t think it will have any effect on the outcome of the election,” Lewis said. “The bottom line is going to come down to the fact that Fred Smoller is a college radical who never grew up. I think I represent a very conservative district.”

Smoller, a college professor, acknowledged that he had a difficult task in trying to unseat a five-term incumbent assemblyman. But he said Lewis’ controversial recorded motivated him to run.

Smoller said his commercial will air on 10 consecutive evenings--starting tonight--on cable television in Orange, the heart of Lewis’ 67th Assembly District. Smoller said it cost only $55 to broadcast the 30-second commercial for all 10 evenings.