CALIFORNIA ELECTIONS / SENATE : Up for 2 Seats, Lawmaker Hits the Garamendis

Assemblyman Patrick Johnston, no stranger to the turbulence of legislative campaigns, finds himself in the awkward spot of asking constituents to vote for him twice on Nov. 6--once for the Assembly and again for the state Senate.

Is he greedy? Power hungry? No, says the five-term Stockton Democrat.

Johnston complains that he was forced into seeking two offices simultaneously because of a maneuver by a Democratic “power couple”--former state Sen. John Garamendi and his wife, Patti--that was skillfully timed to give her an election advantage to succeed her husband.

John Garamendi, heavily favored to win his own race as California’s first elected insurance commissioner, was so confident that he resigned his Senate seat on Labor Day instead of waiting until after the election or until he took the new office next year.

In doing so, Garamendi gave his wife a campaign boost in her attempt to win his old seat, says Johnston. He is now forced to try to explain to the Stockton-area constituents he has represented for a decade why his name appears on the regular ballot for reelection to the Assembly and on the special election ballot for the state Senate.

“Some people say, ‘Oh yeah, I get it.’ But I’m not sure they always do,” Johnston said of the voters. “It didn’t have to be this way, but it was a calculated decision by John to benefit Patti.”

Along with Johnston appearing on two ballots, Garamendi’s early resignation gave his wife valuable time to organize her campaign.

Although seeking public office for the first time, Patti Garamendi--a law school graduate and mother of six children ages 4 to 22--for years has been enmeshed in her husband’s ambitious political career.

Married for 25 years, the Garamendis were sweethearts during the 1960s at UC Berkeley, where John was a football star. Later, they served together in the Peace Corps and ranched in the Northern California Gold Rush country near Mokelumne Hill.

From her husband’s first race for the state Assembly in 1974, Patti Garamendi has been considered a full partner in his many campaigns for legislative and statewide offices.

She acquired a reputation as the spark plug of his political ambitions, a notion she rejects. “I think that is really untrue and unfair,” she said. “I think that is a way of taking a cheap shot at John. He’s brilliant. There are not too many men I could have stayed in the semi-shadow for.”

Patti Garamendi argues that Johnston has overblown the voter confusion issue and asserts that after 16 years of working with her husband, “I now have this window of opportunity in my life to serve. I may never have that opportunity again.”

Patti Garamendi, 46, and Johnston, 44, an expert on insurance, banking and savings and loan issues, are the best known of 10 candidates in the Nov. 6 special election to fill the two-year unexpired term.

If no one wins outright, a runoff will be held in January for the sprawling district that includes parts of the picturesque Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, the historic Mother Lode in the Sierra and vast expanses of farmland in the Central Valley.

Some Republican strategists foresee a runoff as offering the GOP its best hope in decades of seizing the Senate seat.

John Garamendi emerged from the June primary as the odds-on favorite to become insurance commissioner. And Johnston and Patti Garamendi began in earnest to organize their campaigns to succeed him.

But Johnston, who said John Garamendi had tried to persuade him not to run, said he had expected to run in a special election for Garamendi’s seat next year--not next month.

Johnston’s name was already on the November ballot in his Assembly district, which is wholly contained in the Senate district. “I can’t get off the Assembly ballot even if I die,” Johnston said.

Johnston asserts that timing of the resignation was designed to create confusion among Johnston’s core constituents in his Assembly district, whom he counts on heavily to return him to the Assembly and send him to the Senate.

“I ask them to vote for me twice,” said Johnston. “If I am elected to both, I will resign from the Assembly.”

But the Garamendis contend that their timing saved taxpayers the $500,000 cost of a special election next year and assures constituents that they will be represented when the new Legislature convenes in December.

Claiming she had no insider information, Patti Garamendi maintains that she did not know until the night of Labor Day that her husband had actually submitted a letter of resignation that she said he had mulled over for three days.

“He came home and I said, ‘Well, did you do it or not?’ He said, ‘Yeah, I stopped by the Capitol on my way back from the airport.’ So, immediately, I think we’ve got to get his state car cleaned up and returned. I’ve got to get health insurance for six kids and it’s all . . . go on my television (spots).”

Besides taking heat about her candidacy creating the possibility of a Garamendi “dynasty,” Patti Garamendi said she is also up against entrenched alliances. She charges that Johnston and Assembly Speaker Willie Brown tried to stake out the Senate seat as Johnston’s political property.

She recounted that she got into a shouting match with Brown over the issue. As she recalled the exchange, she informed Brown:

“I’m going to run for John’s seat.’ He told me, ‘That’s Pat Johnston’s seat.’ I said, ‘That’s my seat.’ His voice rose, ‘No way, no way.’ ‘Just watch me,’ ” she said.

Johnston, married and the father of two, first won election to the Assembly in 1980 by only 25 votes after a recount. Low key, he is known for doing his homework on insurance and finance issues and has been discussed as a contender to succeed Brown as Assembly Speaker.

Johnston, an aide to John Garamendi for six years, and Patti Garamendi are both philosophically moderate Democrats with few differences on issues, except the death penalty. She supports capital punishment and he does not.

In the short nine-week campaign that is heavily dependent on television spots to reach the sprawling district, Johnston has sought in one commercial to explain his races for two offices. “John and Patti Garamendi have manipulated the date of the Senate election to hurt my chances of winning,” he says.

A “generic” Johnston commercial cites neither office. This tactic gets him exposure for each and also allows his separate Assembly and Senate campaign committees to split the high cost of broadcast time.

Patti Garamendi’s TV spots feature her recalling her Peace Corps experiences in Ethiopia and her familiarity with tightly knit rural communities of the district. Her low-key campaign also points out “16 years of legislative experience working with Sen. John Garamendi.”

The biggest single contributor to her campaign has been Patti Garamendi. Recently filed public records show contributions of $182,500--including $106,000 she loaned the campaign herself--most of it for television advertising.

Johnston, meanwhile, has collected $252,350 for his Assembly campaign and $131,010 for his Senate race, most of it from organizations with business before the Legislature--labor, physicians, teachers, hospitals, insurance companies and developers.