CALIFORNIA ELECTIONS GOVERNOR : Feinstein, Wilson Exchange Shots on Sources of Funds

The campaign for governor took a sharp turn toward personal bitterness Thursday with Democrat Dianne Feinstein and Republican Pete Wilson exchanging barbs over receipt of campaign funds from chemical and pesticide companies, savings and loan institutions and a company that used to haul toxic waste materials.

The day began quietly enough when Feinstein went to the Elysian Heights Elementary School in the Silver Lake area of Los Angeles to sign a pledge that, if elected governor, she would halt immediately the aerial spraying of malathion in urban areas to combat the Mediterranean fruit fly.

Feinstein challenged the Republican senator to sign the pledge, too, but Wilson supports aerial spraying.

During the press conference, Feinstein said there is pressure on Wilson to support continued spraying because he “is one of the top recipients of campaign contributions from political action committees of the agricultural chemical industry.”

“But I hope he’ll listen to the less-powerful voices of those parents and children who are here today. Their voices deserve to be heard.”

By the end of the day, Wilson had accused Feinstein of engaging in “pure and simple character assassination, the worst form of gutter campaigning possible . . . taking the low road.”

The Wilson camp was especially angry because Feinstein noted again--in response to a reporter’s question--that Wilson had received more contributions from savings and loan associations while in the Senate than any other member of Congress.

While saying “I don’t have any evidence that he has done anything” wrong, Feinstein pointed out that two-thirds of the savings and loan industry fraud had occurred in Southern California. And she said that lavish giving by the industry, “if nothing else, mutes the voices of those senators.”

Wilson responded with an angry statement from Washington in which he claimed that Feinstein had flip-flopped her position on malathion spraying and had received campaign funds from toxic waste companies and Chevron USA, whose subsidiary Ortho manufacturers malathion. He added: “You, yourself, appear to profit from the toxic waste business through ownership of URS Corp. Your campaign has directly benefited from the toxic profits of URS through the millions of dollars you have personally given to the campaign.”

The Feinstein campaign responded that it received $100 from a Chevron employees political action committee and that the money would be returned. In turn, they demanded that Wilson give back the $248,000 they claimed Wilson had received from oil and pesticide firms since 1983.

As for URS, Feinstein campaign director Bill Carrick and press secretary Dee Dee Myers said that Feinstein’s husband, investment banker Richard C. Blum, bought about 10% of the San Francisco-based environmental engineering firm in 1976. They said Blum increased his share to 60% to 70% in recent months.

About two years ago, firm officials decided to go into the waste management hauling business, but abandoned it after about six months because of Blum’s opposition. “He (Blum) didn’t want to be in it,” Carrick and Myers said. Now, the firm designs the cleanup of Superfund toxic waste sites, but does not physically handle any toxic materials, Carrick and Myers said. They also added that URS does seismic safety engineering and holds several state contracts for such work.

Wilson repeatedly has accused Feinstein of changing positions on issues. Wednesday’s allegation that she had switched on the spraying of malathion was based on a statement contained in a Los Angeles Times Magazine profile article of Feb. 25.

The context of the statement was her approach to being governor and she said the Medfly cannot be ignored “or our agriculture will be badly hurt.” But the statement did not specifically endorse--or oppose--aerial spraying of malathion.

At Elysian Heights School on Wednesday, Feinstein said malathion spraying must be replaced by selective ground spraying, fruit-stripping and introduction of sterile Medflies and a crash research program at the University of California to develop alternative, non-chemical methods of controlling the Medfly and other pests.

Bill Livingstone, Wilson’s campaign press secretary, said the Medfly fuss now is largely moot because agricultural officials now have enough sterile flies to control the pest naturally and that no more spraying currently is scheduled.

Times political writer Cathleen Decker also contributed to this story.