CALIFORNIA IN BRIEF : PALM SPRINGS : Sonny Bono Won’t Seek Senate Seat

Sonny Bono, mayor of Palm Springs and half of the 1960s singing duo Sonny and Cher, said he has decided against seeking one of the state’s two Senate seats in 1992. “There’s something about it I don’t like,” Bono told The Desert Sun in an interview published Thursday. “You have to buy the position. It becomes a money contest. A lot of people are being elected because they have a lot more money than the next guy.” Bono, a Republican, said he had been encouraged by some people at the “higher level of politics” to run for one of the seats. Bono, elected mayor in April, 1988, said he wants to run again for mayor in April, 1992. “In the long run, this job is preferable to that one,” Bono said. “I’d like to carry the ball all the way to the goal line here in Palm Springs.”