CALIFORNIA ELECTIONS / 34th SENATE DISTRICT : Ayala’s Longevity an Issue in Race With Bader

Ruben S. Ayala Community Park sits on Central Avenue in Chino, five miles from the new Ruben S. Ayala High School in Chino Hills. In Rialto, there’s Ayala Drive and not far away, in Bloomington, is Ayala Park.

Clearly, civic recognition is not a problem for state Sen. Ruben S. Ayala (D-Chino) in his 34th District, which stretches from Pomona eastward through Chino, Ontario, Fontana, Rialto and Colton to San Bernardino. But it may not be enough to assure him victory in the toughest reelection fight of his political career.

In fact, his opponent, Assemblyman Charles W. Bader (R-Pomona), is trying to turn Ayala’s solid name recognition into a liability, depicting him as an institution whose usefulness in Sacramento has long since passed.

Even Ayala’s position as chairman of the Senate Agriculture and Water Resources Committee may may be less meaningful in a district where new houses are supplanting the farms and vacant fields that stretched across the Inland Empire when he was first elected 16 years ago.

“Times Have Changed” is the theme of Bader’s drive to win one of the state’s most vigorously contested elections. The Republicans have made the race their top state Senate priority. Even Vice President Dan Quayle found time to campaign for Bader last week.

The Senate Democratic hierarchy has responded by putting Ayala’s campaign in the hands of its top political tactician, Larry Sheingold, who engineered the upset victory of Sen. Lucy Killea (D-San Diego) last year and helped Sen. Cecil Green (D-Norwalk) win two tough elections.

The candidates raised roughly equal amounts of campaign money through the first half of this year, but Ayala has since fallen behind. Bader said he will hit $1.1 million by Election Day, Nov. 6. Sheingold said Ayala will be outspent by $300,000 or more. “It’s going to be a real test of our resourcefulness,” Sheingold said.

Changing demographics in the district prompted Bader to begin planning a race against Ayala two years ago. Once a mixture of rural outposts and blue-collar neighborhoods, the community has been transformed by explosive growth of new housing for young families moving from Los Angeles and Orange counties.

Many of the newcomers are Republicans. In four years, the Republican Party cut the Democratic registration advantage by 10%, but Democrats regained some ground recently through a massive registration drive. The latest figures give Democrats nearly 52% of the registered voters to the Republicans’ 40%.

Although Bader, 50, is completing eight years in the Assembly, he is nonetheless campaigning as a fresh face whose aggressiveness, energy and diligence will get things done.

He was born in Los Angeles and grew up in Pomona, graduating from Pomona High School and then earning a bachelor’s degree in business administration at UCLA. He served in the Navy in Vietnam and entered the real estate and property management business in 1967. His political career started on the Pomona City Council in 1971 and he advanced to the Assembly in 1982.

Ayala, 68, is not as glib or polished as Bader, but friends say he is politically astute and point out that he has been winning elections since 1955. A husky, garrulous ex-Marine, he grew up poor in the Chino barrio and still lives within a mile and a half of the house where he was born.

“When I was in high school,” he said, “I would come home and take off my trousers with one patch and put on my trousers with two patches and go to work in the fields.”

After serving in the Pacific during World War II, Ayala came back to Chino and worked as a television repairman and an insurance agent. He was elected to the Chino school board in 1955 and moved to the Chino City Council in 1962, the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors in 1966 and the Senate in 1974.

Both men are considered political moderates. Both support the death penalty and oppose abortion except in cases of rape or incest or when the mother’s life is in danger. But they have some differences.

Ayala voted to ban assault rifles; Bader did not. Bader claims to be more fiscally conservative and says Ayala is too willing to follow the legislative leadership of “big-city liberals.” Ayala says Bader is too compliant with the wishes of Gov. Deukmejian.

And each has questioned the other’s integrity.

Ayala said that Bader sought to deceive voters when he left the Assembly floor early one day in June to fly home for a speaking engagement and allowed a Fresno assemblyman to cast 69 votes in his name. Bader admitted the so-called “ghost-voting” but said it was done without his permission.

Bader said Ayala has tried to deceive people by voting against abortion while making statements in favor of abortion rights. Ayala said that his statements were misconstrued and that he has always opposed abortion.

Ayala is counting partly on the district’s Democratic registration edge, but is also expecting volunteer help from teachers, firefighters, nurses and other union members to mount a massive voting drive.

However, Ayala has lost the support of a number of law enforcement labor organizations who contend that Ayala is unapproachable and out of touch with rank-and-file officers.

Ayala noted that he still has the support of some statewide police organizations, including the California Assn. of Police and Sheriffs.

Bader, meanwhile, is facing strong opposition from local teacher groups and the California Teachers Assn.

But Bader, whose wife is a school principal, prides himself on his work on educational issues, including a bill that redirected $14 million from urban to suburban school districts.

Ayala said he hopes to return to Sacramento so he can help solve the area’s water problems. He authored the Peripheral Canal legislation in 1981 that would have imported more water from Northern California, but the proposal ultimately was rejected by state voters.

Bader said he wants the seat partly to influence the once-a-decade redrawing of districts next year. San Bernardino County will pick up two Assembly seats and a U.S. House of Representatives seat, he predicted.

“The person who is elected senator is going to have a tremendous amount of influence,” he said, “not only in the drawing of lines, but also in the waging of the campaigns in 1992.”