Wright-Braly Race Tops Spending List : Campaigns: At $672,000, the bitter primary battle was the most expensive in the Valley. Another race ran up a $284,000 tab.

Assemblywoman Cathie Wright (R-Simi Valley) and GOP challenger Hunt Braly spent more than $672,000 in their bitter June primary election battle, making it by far the most expensive state legislative race in the San Fernando Valley region, according to final campaign reports released Tuesday.

Both candidates wound up in debt after the June 5 election, which Wright won by a comfortable 3-2 margin. Wright reported owing nearly $23,000. Braly owes more than $60,000.

Meanwhile, campaign reports filed with the California secretary of state showed heavy spending in the GOP primary to succeed Assemblywoman Marian La Follette (R-Northridge).

Granada Hills real estate broker Paula Boland, who won the nomination, spent nearly $183,000, and runner-up Rob Wilcox, a La Follette aide, spent $101,000. Boland, Wilcox and three other Republicans had only 13 weeks to campaign after La Follette surprised political observers by announcing in late February that she will retire at the end of this year.

Boland reported outstanding debts of $22,000. Wilcox said he was about $30,000 in the red.

Campaign reports said Wright, who faces only a token Democratic challenger this fall in the 37th Assembly District, spent $425,000 during the 12 months preceding the primary. Braly, chief aide to state Sen. Ed Davis (R-Santa Clarita), spent $247,000.

The race was the toughest Wright, 61, has faced since her 1980 election to the Assembly. Braly, 35, attacked her repeatedly for trying to intervene with law enforcement authorities on behalf of her daughter Victoria, who received 28 traffic tickets over a seven-year period.

Braly said virtually all of his debt is money he personally loaned to his campaign.

He loaned his campaign the money, he said, with “the full expectation that if I didn’t win, I’d never see that money again.” He said that unlike many candidates, he plans no fund-raisers to retire the debt.

Boland now faces Democrat Irene Allert in the Nov. 6 election in the 38th Assembly District, which stretches from Hidden Hills in the west to Sunland-Tujunga in the east.

Allert, an executive committee member of the Democratic Party of the San Fernando Valley, reported raising $8,000 during the most recent reporting period, which covers May 20 to June 30. Boland raised nearly $54,000 during the same period.