ELECTIONS / 38TH ASSEMBLY DISTRICT : Abortion Is Hottest Issue in a Battle of Party Regulars

For more than 25 years, real estate broker Paula Boland of Northridge has been a grunt for the Republican Party.

When Barry Goldwater ran for President in 1964, she stuffed envelopes for his campaign. When Bobbi Fiedler ran for Congress in 1980, she staffed phone banks and walked precincts on election day.

As GOP candidates for offices from city council to President made speeches and basked in applause, Boland worked in the trenches for them, making coffee, running errands and planting campaign signs in neighbors’ lawns.

Now the conservative Boland, 50, wants to take a quantum leap in party ranks. She is running for the 38th Assembly District seat held by Assemblywoman Marian La Follette (R-Northridge), who is retiring.

Boland’s Democratic opponent in the Nov. 6 election is Irene Allert, an educational consultant from Kagel Canyon who is an executive committee member of the Democratic Party of the San Fernando Valley.

But political observers say Allert, 46, is a long shot in the upscale, conservative district, which arcs across the San Fernando Valley from Hidden Hills to La Crescenta. With Republicans holding a 48% to 42% registration edge over Democrats, the seat is considered a safe one for the GOP.

The district has been held for 10 years by La Follette, a conservative who dispatched her most recent Democratic opponent, Mark Lit, by nearly 65% to 35% in 1988. Boland also holds a large lead over Allert in fund raising, taking in $102,000 to Allert’s $43,000 in the reporting period that ended Oct. 5.

Boland and Allert have sharply differing positions on several major issues, but the one that has generated the most heat so far is abortion. Boland opposes abortion rights and Allert supports them.

The race marks the first time that two women Assembly candidates with opposing views on abortion rights have faced off in a general election since last year’s U.S. Supreme Court decision in Webster vs. Reproductive Health Services. The ruling gave states more latitude to restrict abortions.

Allert has received thousands of dollars in contributions from the National Women’s Political Caucus, the California Nurses Assn. and other groups favoring abortion rights. Boland has received money from the National Right to Life Committee and is backed by James C. Dobson of Arcadia, host of the daily “Focus on the Family” radio shows and a leading spokesman for the religious right.

“In terms of legislative races, this is the hottest one between two women,” said Robin Schneider, executive director of the California Abortion Rights Action League, which backs Allert.

Boland’s campaign also is being closely watched by Assembly Republican Leader Ross Johnson of Fullerton, who sponsored a Sacramento fund-raiser for Boland in August and attended another in Granada Hills last week. Her election would help Johnson, a fellow conservative, cement his hold on the leadership job, which comes up for a vote immediately after the November election.

The daughter of a barber and a beautician who emigrated from Italy, Boland is a diminutive, strong-willed woman who has been heavily involved in local civic and small-business activities for years.

A onetime model at local dress shops and charity shows, Boland ran the Miss Granada Hills beauty pageant for 13 years. She has served on a review board that interviewed potential recruits for the Los Angeles Police Department and is a board member of a Granada Hills bank.

Boland was active in Bus Stop, a group which opposed mandatory school busing in the 1970s, and has been closely involved with efforts to make the Valley a separate city from Los Angeles. She was appointed by Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich as a member of the county Local Agency Formation Commission, an influential agency that oversees city incorporations and annexations.

Her campaign is supported by some of the Valley’s best known GOP conservatives. Former Rep. Fiedler, a close friend, has raised money for her, and wealthy car dealer Bert Boeckmann shares the chairmanship of Boland’s campaign with his wife, Jane, publisher of Valley magazine.

Allert, who describes herself as a social liberal and fiscal conservative, is a carpenter’s daughter who attended the now-defunct Immaculate Heart College in Los Angeles before becoming a junior high school teacher. She operates a firm that refers science and health teachers and supplies educational materials to public and private schools.

Among the groups endorsing her are the National Organization for Women and the California AFL-CIO. The bulk of her campaign contributions have come from labor unions, groups favoring abortion rights and local Democratic clubs.

Allert’s campaign consultant, Parke Skelton, said that to beat Boland, Allert must win at least 10,000 crossover votes from Republicans. The campaign is telephoning every Republican in the district to identify potential crossover voters, he said.

Allert said she expects to raise $150,000 before the election. But a Democratic political consultant, who asked not to be identified, said she needs “a minimum of $250,000 to get close” to winning.

To prepare for the fall campaign, Boland--who has a tendency to ramble and mangle her syntax when she speaks publicly--practiced making speeches before a video camera.

But some critics say Boland, whose formal education ended in high school, doesn’t have the intellectual capacity to be an effective assemblywoman.

“When people sit down and talk to her, they realize she’s no brain surgeon,” said a Republican political consultant who believes she will win nonetheless.

“She’s never going to be a leader in the state Assembly. She’s never going to come up with creative, innovative solutions to the problems facing California . . . She’ll be good at handing out plaques and resolutions and attending chamber of commerce events,” said the consultant, who asked to remain anonymous.

Boland supporters disagree.

“I consider myself a bright person, but she catches me screwing up all the time. And I’ve got a master’s and have been to law school,” said Boland campaign manager Mark Thompson.

“When she’s a little angry or excited, the Italian comes out in her and she speaks from inside, from the gut. At that point, you don’t care whether her language shows she’s a college graduate or not,” he said.

“She’s a tough woman. People get the impression she’s a bubble-head, but they better beware, because she’s a pillar of strength,” Thompson said.

Although Allert has been endorsed by two local assemblymen, Tom Bane and Richard Katz, her campaign has not drawn any visible support from Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco) or other Assembly Democrats, who could steer contributions and volunteers her way.

The Democratic consultant said Allert has committed two cardinal campaign errors: She is spending too much time attending Democratic Party events and seeking endorsements from political clubs outside the district, and not enough time going door-to-door in search of votes.

“If you don’t have money, you have to do it the old-fashioned way: shoe leather,” the consultant said.

But an Allert campaign official said she is “walking her feet off” and Allert said she believes she can win the race.

“We knew in the beginning that we were underdogs. But what we really knew was that the issues were on our side. . . . The issues, I know, are going to carry us in this,” she said.

Boland has repeatedly sought to play down her position on abortion rights, saying it is not an issue in the campaign. She denounced a small band of supporters of legal abortion who picketed a fund-raising luncheon for her last week as “those airheads down there.”

Boland accused Allert of being a “one-issue candidate” and said members of the Assembly cannot directly change state and federal laws governing abortion, although they could place an initiative on the ballot for a public vote.

But Allert and her supporters said the Assembly is nearly evenly divided between those favoring and those opposing abortion rights, and her election could be a crucial vote for abortion advocates.

They said more legislators favoring abortion rights are needed to tip the balance in Sacramento on abortion-related issues, such as higher funding for family-planning clinics.

Boland promised that if elected she will resume La Follette’s fight to break up the Los Angeles school district into smaller agencies. She attacked Allert for “being in bed with” the school board and teachers union.

Allert, who is backed by school board member Julie Korenstein, said she hasn’t made up her mind on the breakup idea pending completion of a $250,000 study conducted by the state.

Allert criticized Boland for not taking a position on the massive Porter Ranch development in the hills north of Chatsworth. Allert said the project should be dramatically scaled down to avoid traffic, pollution and other problems.

Boland, who is supported by Porter Ranch lobbyist Robert Wilkinson and Los Angeles City Councilman Hal Bernson, the project’s chief City Hall proponent, said the matter is one for local, not state, officials to decide. But Allert said state authorities can exercise substantial decision-making over the project, including deciding whether to expand the nearby Simi Valley Freeway.