46th ASSEMBLY DISTRICT : Chain Letter Campaign Against Roos Resurrects Ties to Moriarty

A wildcat political action group has launched an unorthodox campaign against powerful Los Angeles Assemblyman Mike Roos, flooding his district with chain letter-style mailings that blast the six-term Democrat for a past brush with scandal.

The group, calling itself Californians Against Corruption, claims to have reached nearly all 65,000 voters in the mid-Wilshire district using a network of volunteers who each mailed up to 100 packages of literature at their own expense.

The group has filed no campaign statements and is not registered with the state because it has raised no funds, its organizers said.

The two mailings, the first spread over several weeks and the second reaching voters in the week before Tuesday’s election, cast Roos as one of the “corrupt politicians . . . strangling the effectiveness of government.”

Both contain reprints of newspaper articles on Roos’ involvement with fireworks magnate W. Patrick Moriarty, who was convicted in January, 1986, on corruption charges. Although it was disclosed that Roos, who is Assembly Speaker pro tem, made a $50,000 profit on a Moriarty condominium project at the same time he was pushing a bill helpful to Moriarty’s fireworks firm, Roos was not charged with a crime.

The letters urge a vote “for anyone but Mike Roos in November!”

Although most members of the group have declined to identify themselves, leaders said they come from across the political spectrum and are mainly businessmen drawn together by their opposition to restrictions on gun ownership. They organized last year in response to the state’s assault rifle ban authored by Roos, said one of the founders, Manuel Fernandez.

The group’s first mailing, which started to go out about 10 weeks ago, apparently got a boost when a national gun enthusiasts’ newsletter published a how-to column urging readers to write the Pasadena-based organization for voter rolls and basic literature.

After the article appeared, volunteers wrote in from all around the nation requesting materials, Fernandez said. Each was instructed to reproduce the 10-page mailer, mail it in a stamped, hand-addressed envelope and return the voter lists with the recipients’ names crossed out.

Though Roos is considered by professional politicians to be unbeatable in his bid for a seventh term in the 46th District, where Democrats outnumber Republicans 2 to 1, Roos was apparently jolted by the letter campaign.

Roos appeared at several community meetings this week and met his Republican challenger, Geoffrey Church, in a debate Friday, a gesture that is virtually unheard of for an incumbent in such a commanding position.

Church said a Roos staff member told his campaign manager that “the phones were ringing off the walls” over the letters. Church said he is not affiliated with the group, although he supports its viewpoint.

Meanwhile, the Roos camp responded in a letter from the Los Angeles Police Protective League, received by voters this week. It characterized the attack on Roos as an illegal campaign by the National Rifle Assn.

A spokesman for the NRA said the organization has no connection with Californians Against Corruption and said the NRA’s attorney has notified the Police Protective League that its letter contained “actionable libel.”

Neither officials of the Police Protective League nor Roos’ office returned phone calls from The Times.

Californians Against Corruption also denied any connection with the NRA, which one of its leaders characterized as “a sporting club” that doesn’t care about rights.

Fernandez said the group is no longer motivated only by firearms issues, but is taking on corruption throughout government.

“We started looking into Mike Roos because we wanted to recall him,” Fernandez said. “The more we looked into him, the more garbage we found.”

He said the group decided to target Roos in Tuesday’s election after conducting surveys in the district that showed a high degree of voter apathy and a lack of knowledge about Roos’ connection to Moriarty.

Fernandez said the organization will continue to seek Roos’ recall if he wins and will target other elected officials it finds lacking in integrity.