LOCAL ELECTIONS 44TH ASSEMBLY DISTRICT : Beteta Attacks Hayden While Assemblyman Pushes ‘Big Green’

In a fall election campaign where Democratic incumbents are favorites to win reelection to every Westside legislative seat, only one lawmaker has drawn heavy fire--Assemblyman Tom Hayden.

The barrage against the Santa Monica Democrat has come not from his under-financed Republican challenger in the Assembly race, but from some of the state’s biggest industries. They are determined to stop the sweeping environmental protection initiative dubbed “Big Green,” which Hayden helped draft.

In an expensive statewide media campaign, opponents of Proposition 128 have branded the measure “the Hayden initiative.” They have sought to defeat it by repeatedly reminding voters of Hayden’s radical past and suggesting that he will seek the new office of environmental advocate if the proposition passes.

Hayden concedes that the radio advertising blitz that began during the summer has hurt the measure’s standing in public opinion polls. The latest Times Poll found voters evenly split on the initiative.

Although not ruling out running for environmental czar, Hayden says he has no long-term plans, pending the outcome of the Nov. 6 election.

“The plan is to get reelected in 1990 and then make a personal assessment of what I want to do with the rest of my life,” he said. “I’m 50 years old. To continue a political career is an option, not the only one. I resist efforts to try to draw a conclusion now.”

Hayden is confident enough of victory in his bid for a fifth term representing the heavily Democratic 44th Assembly District that he is devoting most of his efforts to winning passage of Proposition 128. He is active in raising money, charting campaign strategy and overseeing the production of television advertisements for the measure.

The proposition would ban cancer-causing chemicals in food, reduce emissions that damage the ozone layer and contribute to global warming, preserve old-growth redwood forests, and impose new taxes on oil companies to pay for oil spill prevention and cleanup.

The ads opposing the initiative, financed mainly by oil and chemical companies, criticize the measure as too costly and promising too much.

The proposition sharply divides Hayden and Republican challenger Fred Beteta, a member of the Santa Monica College Board of Trustees for 15 years.

Beteta opposes Proposition 128 and echoes the belief that Hayden is trying to set “himself up as environmental czar.”

Beteta, a 60-year-old retired associate engineer for Hughes Aircraft, contends that the measure will cost jobs. He argues that the assemblyman’s “leftist political machine” is “attempting to choke off free enterprise by regulation.”

Hayden says that opponents are raising fictitious issues about the initiative’s cost and impact.

In another matter, Hayden took the unusual step during the summer of inserting himself into a hot local issue when he vigorously objected to plans by restaurateur Michael McCarty to build a luxury hotel and community center on a publicly owned parcel of Santa Monica Beach.

Beteta plays down the fight over the hotel, calling it a local matter. He said he intends to vote for McCarty’s project because it has some good features.

Beteta is no stranger to controversy.

At a Cinco de Mayo celebration this year at Santa Monica College, Beteta urged organizers to cut short a speech by a part-time instructor of Mexican and Latin American history who was urging the audience to fight oppression. He later argued with the instructor offstage.

“I didn’t like the tone or context of his speech,” Beteta said after the incident. “I thought it was highly inappropriate. This is a cultural event, a music and dance celebration. I didn’t appreciate him turning the celebration into a political rally.”

A Chicano student group later demanded a public apology from Beteta. He refused.

Elected to the Santa Monica College board in 1975 as a Democrat, Beteta switched to the GOP eight years ago in a falling out with Hayden allies.

The two have been on a collision course ever since.

Hayden was a staunch opponent of U.S. aid to the Contras, but Beteta, who was born in Nicaragua and came to this country in 1947, was a strong supporter of the armed opposition to the Sandinistas.

Despite the overwhelming odds, Beteta said he is running against Hayden because he wants the voice of what he calls the political center and right to be heard in the liberal district, which hugs the coast from Malibu and Santa Monica to Venice and reaches inland as far as Century City.

Beteta faults Hayden for his attendance record in Sacramento. The assemblyman attributes the fact that he missed one out of every five votes in the Assembly during the last year to his refusal to participate in the traditional practice of legislators’ adding on to missed roll calls at the end of floor sessions.

Hayden’s legislative record has been impeded by numerous vetoes of his bills during the last eight years by Republican Gov. George Deukmejian. But the lawmaker points with pride to the enactment this year of a bill to increase regulation and oversight of construction crane operations.

The measure, which followed a series of fatal crane accidents, was one of Hayden’s accomplishments as chairman of the Assembly Labor Committee. Labor unions are his largest campaign contributors.

As chairman of an Assembly subcommittee on higher education, Hayden has been one of the chief sponsors of a package of bills that would update California’s master plan for the state’s college and university systems.

He also counts as a success passage of a measure to direct Caltrans to give priority to retrofitting freeways with the greatest seismic risk and heaviest traffic volumes. In Los Angeles, the interchange of the Santa Monica and San Diego freeways has been identified as having among the highest risk of failure in a major earthquake.

Beteta admits that raising campaign funds to take on the assemblyman has been very tough because of a sense in the district that Hayden is invincible.

Lacking the money to take Hayden on through an extensive ad campaign, Beteta is hoping for the chance to confront him one on one. In a letter to Hayden last week, Beteta called for a debate. Hayden spokesman Bill Schulz said that the assemblyman was preparing a response to Beteta.

Libertarian Rebecca Donner, a 19-year-old Santa Monica College student, and Peace and Freedom candidate Timothy A. Burdick are also on the ballot.