Davis to Pick Race Later in Bid for Senate

State Controller Gray Davis announced his intention Wednesday to run for the U.S. Senate in 1992, but left unanswered the most pressing strategic question: On which of the two seats has he set his sights?

Publicly acknowledging a move that has been an open secret for weeks, Democrat Davis said he has filed papers setting up an exploratory Senate committee. Asked whether he would seek the six-year seat now held by the retiring Democrat Alan Cranston or the two-year seat to which Republican John Seymour was recently appointed, Davis said he has yet to decide.

“I really can’t give you a time frame,” he said. “It could be in 30 days; it could be the end of the year.

Davis, who in November was elected to his second term as controller, said he would choose the seat “that offers the best opportunity for me to communicate our message.”

“I want to offer a campaign of ideas, new direction and a new sense of accountability to government,” said Davis, who is 48.

Ultimately, Davis will have to pick between two difficult options. He could bid for the Democratic nomination for the Seymour seat against the well-financed and well-known Dianne Feinstein, who is piggy-backing her Senate race atop her close loss to Pete Wilson in the 1990 governor’s race. Or he could jump into the crowded Democratic field for the Cranston seat, vying with four other announced candidates.

The best-known of the Democratic candidates for Cranston’s seat is former Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr., in whose Administration Davis worked for seven years as chief of staff. After leaving that post, he served in the California Assembly for two terms and, in 1986, ran for and won the controller’s job.

In his most recent race for controller, Davis received more votes than any other Democrat on the state ticket, a factor he said Wednesday indicates his potential strength in a Senate race. Davis received 3.86 million votes; the Democrat with the next highest total, fellow Senate candidate and current Lt. Gov. Leo T. McCarthy, won 3.61 million votes.

“I bring as good a chance as the Democratic Party has to win one of these seats,” he said.

Asked to define his “new direction,” Davis suggested he would expand on tactics he has used in his four-year tenure as state controller. For instance, he said, he would consider ordering state employees to drive to and from work during off-peak times, as 40% of the controller’s 1,300 workers now do.

Davis also has been instrumental in persuading private companies to settle payments due the state by turning over land. Sixty acres of wetlands near Los Angeles International Airport and another 37,000 acres were preserved in that fashion. Davis suggested the gesture could be replicated at the federal level.

The Democrat was the second elected official in as many days to announce a Senate bid. U.S. Rep. Tom Campbell, a Republican from San Jose, said Tuesday he will run for his party’s nomination for the Cranston seat. Campbell has no announced opposition, but television commentator Bruce Herschensohn is expected to run against him and Rep. Robert K. Dornan of Garden Grove has also indicated an interest in the seat.

In the Republican bidding for the other seat, Seymour has attracted the opposition of conservative U.S. Rep. William Dannemeyer of Fullerton.

Ordinarily, the Senate seats would be decided in alternate elections. But because Seymour was appointed to fill the seat after its elected occupant, Wilson, won the governorship, it must come before the voters again in 1992. The seat will resume its normal electoral cycle in 1994.