CALIFORNIA ELECTIONS CONGRESS : Energetic Challengers Seek Incumbents’ Achilles’ Heel

None of the incumbents in four Southeast area congressional districts appears to be in trouble this election year, despite energetic campaigns by challengers in three of the districts.

The only quiet race is in District 38, where Republican incumbent Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove) is facing a Democratic opponent who, while still on the ballot, withdrew from the race early on.

In Districts 33, 34 and 42, however, spirited--though underfunded--challengers are waging energetic campaigns based on issues they consider important.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Long Beach), a freshman congressman seeking his second term, is facing loud criticism for his opposition to federal funding of art projects he considers obscene.

Longtime incumbent Esteban E. Torres (D-La Puente), on the other hand, is being taken to task for precisely the opposite: allowing federal dollars to flow to the National Endowment for the Arts with too little scrutiny. His opponent also favors a constitutional amendment to outlaw flag burning; Torres opposes such an amendment, and has aligned himself with anti-abortion forces, in contrast with Torres’ stance for abortion rights.

And David Dreier (R-La Verne), who has represented District 33 in the House for a decade, is being challenged by his Democratic opponent, Georgia Houston Webb, to defend his voting record, which she characterizes as consistently against women, workers, families and the disadvantaged.

“The more we expose Dreier’s record, the better we’ll do,” said Webb, the 39-year-old senior assistant director of admissions at Scripps College in Claremont.

“The complaint,” Dreier said, “is that I’m not an extreme liberal Democrat, but the majority of voters in the district are registered Republicans.”

At issue, according to Webb, is the congressman’s opposition to the Civil Rights Act of 1990, the Family Leave Act, minimum wage increases, abortion funding and the establishment of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday as a national holiday.

Dreier said most voters know his record and that it corresponds to their views.

He voted against the Civil Rights Act, he said, because he believes that it would require quotas, and he opposed the King holiday because of the cost to the government.

As for the Family Leave Act, which would have required businesses to offer unpaid leaves to workers to care for newborn children, Dreier said he voted against it because he opposes excessive government regulation.

In many ways, the race is a classic battle between a liberal Democrat and a conservative Republican.

While Webb is a firm advocate of abortion rights, Dreier opposes government funding of abortions. And while both were against the budget compromise worked out recently by the White House and congressional leaders, they arrived at their positions for different reasons.

Dreier said he could not vote for the measure because he has always run on a platform of not increasing taxes or spending. Webb said the budget should contain deeper cuts in military spending and a lighter tax burden on the middle class.

Webb has also criticized Dreier--who is on the House Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs Committee--for failing to deal with the savings and loan crisis. She points out that the congressman has more than $1.5 million in his campaign treasury, much of it received from the thrift industry.

Dreier said contributions to his campaign from savings and loan interests amounted to $72,000 over 10 years and came from reputable members of the industry “who have been working to get the crooks out.”

The two also disagree on foreign affairs, a field in which Dreier has become increasingly active as chairman of a Republican task force on foreign policy. In Central America, for instance, Webb favors withdrawal of military aid, while Dreier does not.

A third candidate, Libertarian Gail Lightfoot, said voters are becoming increasingly disenchanted with both major parties. “People are perceiving that the parties are alike,” said Lightfoot, 53, a public health nurse from San Dimas.

The 33rd District--which is heavily Republican--includes Azusa, Bradbury, Claremont, Covina, Diamond Bar, Duarte, Glendora, Hacienda Heights, the City of Industry, La Habra Heights, La Mirada, La Verne, Palmdale, Pomona, Rowland Heights, San Dimas, Walnut and Whittier.

Torres’ Foe Stresses High-Profile U.S. Issues

In the 34th District, incumbent Torres, 60, is facing a spirited challenge from Republican John Eastman, the director of land acquisition for a Newport Beach land-investment company. Eastman is making his first bid for office.

Realizing that his only chance to put Torres on the defensive is to set the campaign agenda, Eastman, 30, has been focusing on such high-profile national issues as flag burning, federal funding of the arts and abortion.

He said he would support laws outlawing flag burning and even a constitutional amendment if necessary. He also opposes federal funding of arts projects that contain explicit sexual themes or that blaspheme religion. And he has allied himself with anti-abortion forces.

Torres takes a diametrically different stand on all these issues. He voted against a constitutional amendment prohibiting flag burning, although he did support a law against flag desecration, which the Supreme Court later found to be unconstitutional.

Torres also favors federal funding of the arts, a stand that he said reflects his opposition to both political and artistic censorship. And he supports giving women the right to choose abortions, even to the point of co-sponsoring a House bill aimed at protecting such an option.

Eastman has also attacked Torres on two other issues: congressional pay raises and the savings and loan crisis. “The American people are extremely upset,” he said regarding Torres’ support for a 40% pay increase that House members recently voted for themselves.

As for the savings and loan debacle, Eastman said he holds Torres, an eight-year member of the House Banking Committee, personally responsible.

Torres bristled at that charge, saying Eastman is implying guilt by association. “He cannot point to anything that shows I used my influence as a legislator to protect any nefarious dealings,” he said.

While acknowledging that he has accepted about $75,000 in political contributions from the banking industry, Torres said the funds came from a wide spectrum of financial institutions and not from the thrift industry in particular.

In his own campaigning, Torres has tended to focus on local issues. He takes credit for beginning efforts to stop the spread of ground-water contamination in the San Gabriel Valley. He has also asked Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney to close a regional military fuel depot where millions of gallons of highly flammable jet fuel are stored near homes in the southern area of Norwalk.

“These tanks are volatile and dangerous,” Torres said. “In the event of an earthquake we would have a major catastrophe.”

Demographics in the district, which is 61% Democratic and heavily Latino, favor Torres. A former unionist, he started out as an assembly-line worker, was a special assistant for Latino affairs in the Jimmy Carter White House and was elected to the House in 1982.

Despite the odds, however, Eastman said he is confident that his candidacy will appeal to a conservative strain of Latino voters.

The district includes Artesia, Norwalk, Santa Fe Springs, Pico Rivera, South El Monte, Industry, La Puente, Valinda, West Covina and Baldwin Park.

Rep. Dornan Running Virtually Unopposed

In District 38, Rep. Dornan is running virtually unopposed. Although Democratic foe Barbara Jackson is also listed on the ballot, she withdrew from the race early on and has not campaigned.

The race might have been an interesting confrontation. Dornan, a staunch conservative, is known for his anti-abortion views, while Jackson, public affairs director for Planned Parenthood in Santa Ana, is a strong abortion-rights advocate. But in an irony of political life, the very thing that made her attractive as a candidate also made it impossible for her to run.

As a nonprofit agency, Planned Parenthood is prohibited by federal law from participating in political campaigns. So the organization’s board of directors, fearing that the adverse publicity associated with Jackson’s campaign could jeopardize their tax-exempt status, asked her to drop out.

Jackson had been recruited as the Democratic Party’s last-minute candidate after disabled Vietnam veteran Ron Kovic, on whose life the movie “Born on the Fourth of July” was based, decided not to run.

Dornan, 57, who has represented the district since 1985, is a former Air Force pilot known for his strong support of military defense projects.

The 38th District includes Garden Grove and Cerritos, as well as parts of Midway City, Stanton, Anaheim, Buena Park, Santa Ana and Westminster.

Rohrabacher Race Centers on Arts Debate

District 42 has been the scene of a lively debate over federal funding for the arts between a Republican incumbent who thinks the government ought to steer clear of supporting art projects he considers obscene and a Democratic challenger who hopes to gain support from those who say that such meddling borders on censorship.

Rep. Rohrabacher, a Republican seeking his second term in the House, has made headlines recently with his criticism of the National Endowment for the Arts’ sponsorship of art exhibits dealing with sexual and religious themes.

In a vote last week, the House rejected by a substantial margin the freshman congressman’s proposal to bar NEA support for material that offended any religion, was “indecent” or could be interpreted as denigrating the American flag.

Although the vote was widely seen as a political setback for Rohrabacher, many arts supporters still see some cause for alarm because the compromise funding bill passed by the House requires, among other things, that the NEA consider “general standards of decency” in funding art.

“It’s just sad and tragic,” one art executive told The Times last week, “but the American public’s ability to view art and form (its) own opinions is going to be diminished.”

Rohrabacher’s opponent, Guy Kimbrough of Huntington Beach, hopes to translate such sentiments into funds and ultimate victory.

“I didn’t go into this race as some sort of Pollyanna to raise some issues,” said Kimbrough, a political science instructor at Mt. San Jacinto College. “I entered to win.”

Kimbrough also hopes to unite voters put off by Rohrabacher’s support for offshore oil drilling and a ban on abortions.

But Kimbrough, who lost to Rohrabacher in the 1988 general election, 33% to 64%, has severe handicaps. Chief among them: weak fund raising and a heavily Republican voter registration in the district, which follows the coast from Torrance to Huntington Beach.

Rohrabacher said he will not focus his campaign on the NEA but on his support of the aerospace industry and his views on tax and spending issues.

The third candidate in the race is Libertarian Richard Gibb Martin, a Long Beach contractor.

Times staff writers George Hatch, Mike Ward, Bob Schwartz and Howard Blume contributed to this story.33RD CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT

The district: La Mirada, La Habra, Whittier, Covina, Glendora, Pomona, San Dimas, part of the San Gabriel Mountains.

Candidate Party David Dreier (incumbent) Republican Georgia Houston Webb Democrat Gail Lightfoot Libertarian

Voter Registration Registered Percent Democrats 123,665 41.8% Republicans 143,104 48.4 Declined to State 23,492 7.9 Minor Parties* 5,359 1.8 Total 295,620

1988 Results Votes Percent David Dreier (R) (inc.) 151,704 69.2% Nelson Gentry (D) 57,586 26.3 Gail Lightfoot (Lib) 6,601 3.0 Mike Noonan (P&F;) 3,492 1.6

34TH CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT

The district: Artesia, Norwalk, Pico Rivera, Santa Fe Springs, parts of the San Gabriel Valley.

Candidate Party Esteban E. Torres (incumbent) Democrat John Eastman Republican

Voter Registration Registered Percent Democrats 128,401 60.9% Republicans 64,450 30.5 Declined to State 13,885 6.6 Minor Parties* 4,268 2.0 Total 211,004

1988 Results Votes Percent Esteban E. Torres (D) (inc.) 92,087 63.2% Charles House (R) 50,954 35.0 Carl Swinney (Lib) 2,686 1.8

38TH CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT

The district: Cerritos, Anaheim, Buena Park, Garden Grove, Stanton, Santa Ana, Westminster.

Candidate Party Robert K. Dornan (incumbent) Republican Barbara Jackson Democrat

Voter Registration Registered Percent Democrats 97,246 47.6% Republicans 87,885 43.0 Declined to State 15,164 7.4 Minor Parties* 4,117 2.0 Total 204,412

1988 Results Votes Percent Robert K. Dornan (R) (inc.) 87,690 59.5% Jerry Yudelson (D) 52,399 35.6 Bruce McKay (Lib) 3,733 2.5 Frank German (P&F;) 3,547 2.4

42ND CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT

The district: Signal Hill, Long Beach, Los Alamitos, Cypress, Huntington Beach, Palos Verdes Estates, Rolling Hills, Torrance, Seal Beach.

Candidate Party Dana Rohrabacher (incumbent) Republican Guy Kimbrough Democrat Richard Gibb Martin Libertarian

Voter Registration Registered Percent Democrats 109,705 36.1% Republicans 162,435 53.4 Declined to State 26,536 8.7 Minor Parties* 5,627 1.8 Total 304,303

* American Independent, Peace and Freedom, Libertarian and miscellaneous

1988 Results Votes Percent Dana Rohrabacher (R) 153,280 64.2% Guy Kimbrough (D) 78,778 33.0 Richard Rose (P&F;) 6,563 2.8