LOCAL ELECTIONS 5TH DISTRICT RECALL : History to Be Made Despite Recall Outcome

In the final hours of a campaign as unusual as it is historic, the candidates in Tuesday’s San Diego City Council recall campaign are redoubling their efforts that will either salvage or terminate one political career while beginning or resuming another.

The person with the greatest stake in the 5th District recall contest is freshman Councilwoman Linda Bernhardt.

For Bernhardt, Tuesday’s election will result in either the ignominy of being the first council member to be recalled since the City Charter was adopted early this century, or an impressive against-the-odds victory.

“One way or another, history will be made,” Bernhardt said. “I hope it’s a story I’ll want to look back at later.”

The group seeking Bernhardt’s ouster, meanwhile, views the campaign as the embodiment of grass-roots citizen power, an opportunity for alienated constituents to provide an immeasurably more dramatic check on government than that afforded by the city’s normal quadrennial elections. If Bernhardt is recalled 17 months into her four-year term, they argue, the message will reverberate throughout City Hall, putting other members on notice that transgressions can have immediate, career-breaking consequences.

For the seven candidates hoping to succeed Bernhardt, Tuesday’s race looms as a politically irresistible chance to become a city councilman in the nation’s sixth-largest city with--in the wry analysis of consultant John Kern--”fewer votes than you need to get elected student body president at a decent-sized college.”

Indeed, with less than 20% of the district’s 72,424 registered voters expected to cast ballots, several thousand votes could be sufficient for the plurality needed for victory in the seven-candidate field. Most of the votes that are cast probably will come via the 9,768 absentee ballots that voters requested. As of Friday, slightly more than half of those ballots had been returned to the county registrar of voters office.

“When the numbers are that small, it’s difficult to automatically write off almost any candidate,” said Tom Shepard, a consultant to former Councilman Floyd Morrow, widely regarded as one of the front-runners. “For some candidates, their chances this time are probably better than they will ever be again.”

If Morrow’s name recognition placed him near the head of the seven-candidate field, the strong financial support drawn by corporate lawyer Tom Behr did the same for him. With much of his backing coming from the development industry, Behr had raised $33,491 as of March 23--nearly three times more than his nearest competitor.

Most of the other five candidates expect to tap into pockets of support based either on ideology or geography, with each looking to his respective neighborhood or an interest group as a foundation. However, because their prospects hinge largely on a series of what-ifs, including a badly divided vote, a victory by any of them would be an upset.

The peculiar dynamics of the recall campaign stem from myriad factors, including its origins, unusual format, crowded field of candidates and brevity.

Under the unorthodox procedures governing the election, Bernhardt’s political fate will be decided by a simple majority vote in one race, while her seven would-be successors compete in a separate but simultaneous contest.

If the 31-year-old Bernhardt receives more than 50% of the vote, she will retain her post, rendering the outcome of the companion race moot. However, if she is ousted, the candidate drawing the most votes in the other contest--in which Bernhardt is ineligible--would serve the rest of her four-year term, taking office when the council officially certifies the recall, probably later this month.

In addition to Morrow and Behr, the candidates hoping to replace Bernhardt are land-use planner John Brand, general contractor Les Braund, lawyer and part-time county planner Mike Eckmann, former congressional aide Dena Holman and credit union services manager Ken Moser.

Throughout the campaign, a strong undercurrent of debate has focused on questions about the recall process itself and whether it is being properly used.

Bernhardt argues that, whatever her faults or missteps during her brief tenure at City Hall, they do not rise to a level meriting a mid-term removal from office. Recalls should be reserved, her supporters insist, for extreme cases, such as illegal or immoral behavior by an officeholder, rather than being used to vent mere displeasure, however severe, with an elected official’s performance.

The political lodestone of Bernhardt’s campaign has been her argument that she is being unfairly victimized by the same pro-development interests that opposed her when she defeated two-term incumbent Ed Struiksma in 1989. Not content to wait until she faces reelection in 1993, “a small group of disgruntled opponents have . . . manipulated and twisted the political process” in their impatience to return a conservative, pro-development majority to the council, Bernhardt argues.

“Fairness is the key issue in this campaign,” Bernhardt said. “After all the talk about what I did or didn’t do, or how I voted on this or that, it comes down to basic fairness. I deserve to serve a full term and to be judged on that basis.

“I’m just like other people--I make mistakes and admit that I’ve committed some blunders,” Bernhardt added. “But nothing to merit throwing me out of office. If people don’t like me, they can try to knock me off when I run for reelection. Not now. Just because they lost the first time doesn’t mean that they should get an extra chance.”

By focusing voters’ attention on that core question, Bernhardt not only has sought to deflect criticism of her own record, but to also put her opponents on the defensive.

Recall leaders have willingly accepted that challenge, describing the recall process as a perfectly appropriate response to what they characterize as Bernhardt’s “deception, lies, arrogance and absolute failure” to provide adequate representation.

“We didn’t feel we could wait,” said Kathy Gaustad, chairman of the Recall Bernhardt Committee. “District elections were supposed to improve neighborhood representation. When you’re dissatisfied with the representation you’re getting, you shouldn’t have to wait three or four years to do something about it. Situations like this are why there are recall laws.”

From the anti-Bernhardt group’s perspective, the councilwoman broke faith with her constituents by jettisoning Scripps Ranch and Mira Mesa into another district under a redistricting plan approved by the council last year. Recall leaders argue that she “abandoned” those communities in an effort to rid herself of their politically nettlesome growth problems.

“She dumped us, now we should dump her,” recall spokesman Perry Beaird told one forum.

Bernhardt’s credibility was further tarnished, recall leaders contend, when she began accepting contributions from developers after her election, contrary to campaign pledges not to do so. An unresolved district attorney’s investigation dealing primarily with Bernhardt’s campaign finances raises additional questions about her integrity, they argue, as do other incidents, including an expensive redecoration of her council office.

Bernhardt responds that she complied with the narrow definition of “developer contribution” used in her campaign pledge, and points to her endorsement by the Sierra Club as proof that her donations have not influenced her pro-environment voting record. The investigation into her campaign finances, Bernhardt argues, was initiated primarily by her opponents “for political, not legal, reasons.”

Although the recall committee has pulled no rhetorical punches, the seven challengers have generally striven to distance themselves from Bernhardt’s difficulties.

As a result, despite the obvious link between the two races, there has been little interaction between Bernhardt and the seven challengers. Just as Bernhardt recognizes that her fate is in her own hands, the seven contenders regard the up-or-down decision on her political future as something that will resolve itself independently of their own actions.

“They’re not my opponents or what I have to worry about,” Bernhardt said. “But, in my mind, they’re part of a process that shows politics at its very worst. There’s clearly a lot of political opportunism out there. To me, that makes them as guilty as the ones who brought forth this whole thing.”

In one sense, however, the seven challengers are Bernhardt’s opponents, given that their efforts at least partly complement those of the Recall Bernhardt Committee.

“The way I see it, there are nine groups of voters: pro-Linda, anti-Linda and those who support one of the seven other candidates,” Brand adviser Kern argues. “You’ve got to figure that eight of the nine are against her.”

Though some campaign strategists argue that support for a challenger implicitly carries with it a yes vote on the recall, others believe that that is not necessarily so. For that reason, strategic considerations have prompted the seven candidates to be relatively restrained in their public comments about Bernhardt.

Harsh criticism of Bernhardt, several challengers concede, could alienate Bernhardt supporters who will look to the other candidates if she does not survive.

With those “second-choice” votes in mind, several candidates--in particular, Morrow, Braund and Holman--have tried to position themselves as a backstop to Bernhardt. Their growth-management policies, the three argue, are compatible with Bernhardt’s and, therefore, would best preserve the council’s slim pro-environment majority.

Morrow can point to his strong environmental record on the council to make his case. Braund trumpets his endorsement by the managed-growth group Prevent Los Angelization Now (PLAN). Holman, meanwhile, has tried to claim her share of the pro-environment vote through detailed proposals dealing with issues ranging from recycling and waste disposal to water conservation and trash hauling.

The short timetable of the race has benefitted Morrow, whose 1965-77 council tenure allowed him to begin the race with a name identification and political base unmatched by any other challenger.

Morrow, however, has not won a race for public office since the early 1970s, losing elections since then for mayor (twice), City Council, state Board of Equalization and judge. If the 58-year-old lawyer, who has lived and worked in Kearny Mesa and Linda Vista for more than three decades, is to make a comeback in the very district where his career began, he will have to overcome that reputation as the Harold Stassen of San Diego politics.

The 46-year-old Braund, a Mira Mesan who describes himself as “a kind of insurance policy” for both environmentalists and Bernhardt supporters, made it clear whom he regards as his major opposition in a mailer that he sent to voters last week.

“How do you spell developer? B-R-A-N-D,” the mailer says. “How do you spell developer money? B-E-H-R. And, how do you spell genuine growth management? B-R-A-U-N-D.”

Aware that Braund has underlined a vulnerability, both Behr and Brand have sought to soften and downplay their professional and political links to the construction industry.

In Behr’s case, that means emphasizing his service on the Scripps Ranch and Kearny Mesa planning groups. The 47-year-old Scripps Ranch resident also cast himself as someone whose effective advocacy for the district has already been demonstrated, noting that his lawsuit helped ensure that the recall would be held in the district that elected Bernhardt, not the new one created under last year’s redistricting plan.

Similarly, Brand, who worked for several large development-related firms before starting his own land-use company, argues that “development and environmentalism are not necessarily incompatible.” In addition to extolling the virtues of projects with which he has been involved, Brand has emphasized his research on degradation of African and Indonesian rain forests and orangutan habitats.

“I’m not an armchair environmentalist,” the 35-year-old Mira Mesa resident says.

While most of the candidates have tried to position themselves as moderates, Moser, a 32-year-old Mira Mesa resident, has tried to “corner the conservative niche” in the race by, among other things, reciting his doctrinaire conservative positions on issues such as the death penalty, abortion and gun control--topics beyond the council’s purview.

Anti-abortion groups, a potent force in local politics, have rallied to Moser’s cause. That factor, combined with his targeting of a segment of the electorate given only cursory attention by the other candidates, caused some of the front-runners to nervously glance over their shoulders at Moser in the race’s final days.

In a race in which each of the candidates has struggled to distinguish himself from the crowded pack, Holman hopes that her sex will help her to do so. An aide to former Democratic Rep. Jim Bates, the 36-year-old Linda Vista resident has reminded voters that she is the only woman running with a brochure showing six similar suit-clad, male torsos beneath the script: “When most candidates look and sound the same, Dena Holman stands out.”

Although he finished a distant fourth in the 1989 5th District contest, Eckmann wears that candidacy as a political badge of honor, arguing that it demonstrates that he is not simply a “political opportunist” seeking to capitalize on Bernhardt’s problems.

Widely seen as having only marginally better chances this time, the 46-year-old Scripps Ranch resident surprised his fellow candidates by loaning $28,000 of his own money to his campaign. Others, however, regarded that action as compelling evidence of how the recall race has come to be seen as an unparalleled political opportunity.

“If you’re going to take your shot, this is the time to do it,” Brand aide Kern said. “Besides, a man’s entitled to his hobbies, and sometimes they’re expensive.”