New Districts Attract Plenty of Candidates : Politics: Because of reapportionment, the region likely will have four seats without incumbents. That means wide-open races.

The primaries are not until June, and reapportionment is still up in the air, but candidates are lining up to run in wide-open races for two new Assembly seats and a new congressional post in the San Gabriel Valley.

Former Assemblyman Charles Bader of Pomona and former Pasadena City Councilman Stephen Acker have declared their intentions to run.

Others, such as former Pasadena Police Chief Bruce Philpott and South Pasadena Councilwoman Evelyn Fierro, say they are strongly considering it.

Some candidates are holding back because the district boundaries are not final. A three-judge panel has recommended the reapportionment plan to the state Supreme Court, but the justices will not act until January. And there is still an outside chance that the Legislature and governor will redraw the lines themselves.

But the region likely will have four legislative districts without incumbents--including a state Senate seat that will not be filled until 1994.

The reapportionment plan would change the boundaries of all legislative districts, but most San Gabriel Valley legislators would wind up with politically safe districts similar in makeup to the ones they currently represent.

The only local legislators harmed by the plan are those who would be thrown into districts with other lawmakers.

Republican Assemblymen Richard Mountjoy of Monrovia and William Lancaster of Covina would be in the same district. So would Democratic Assembly members Xavier Becerra of Monterey Park, Richard Polanco of Los Angeles and Lucille Roybal-Allard of Los Angeles, although Polanco has eased that logjam by announcing he will run in another district.

The San Gabriel Valley will gain part of the 41st Congressional District in the Pomona-Chino-Ontario area, one of the seven new House seats California gains because of population growth.

Rep. David Dreier (R-La Verne) could run for the new post, which includes part of the area he now represents, but he is expected to seek reelection in his 28th District, which stretches east along the foothills from Pasadena to Claremont and south to West Covina. That would leave the 41st open.

In the state Legislature, the number of seats remains the same, but with the way the proposed boundaries have been drawn, the San Gabriel Valley is expected to get two Assembly districts without incumbents.

One of the seats would be in the 61st District, at the eastern edge of the area, taking in half of Pomona and extending east to Ontario.

Assemblyman Jim Brulte (R-Ontario), who represents much of this area, could run for this seat, but he is expected to announce this week that he has decided instead to seek the seat in the 63rd District, which extends from Upland to Redlands.

The San Gabriel Valley’s other open Assembly seat would be the new 44th, which takes in Pasadena, Altadena, La Canada Flintridge, South Pasadena, San Marino and Temple City.

Assemblyman Pat Nolan (R-Glendale), who represents Pasadena, could run, but he says he will seek election in a neighboring Glendale district.

Stephen Acker, 40, a Republican who was on the Pasadena City Council from 1979 to 1983, was the first to declare for the 44th. Acker, an attorney, was quickly followed on the Republican side by Barbara Pieper, a former mayor of La Canada Flintridge who is vice president of the county Board of Education, and by Roy Begley, a Pasadena political activist.

The potential field of Democrats in the 44th includes Philpott and Fierro. Philpott, 47, lives outside the district, in Glendale, but he is well-known in Pasadena, where he retired as police chief in June. Fierro, 43, was the Democratic nominee last year against Mountjoy, running a strong, but losing, campaign. Both said they are considering running but have not made a decision.

Republicans lead Democrats in registration in the district, 46.4% to 43.6%. Some political strategists believe that any district with more than 42% Republican registration is a safe GOP seat because Republicans tend to be more faithful voters than Democrats.

But Philpott said, “It’s a very unstable political environment. I’m not sure that the usual predictability of party alignments is going to hold true.”

Fierro said the new district “would be competitive. And since there is no incumbent, it’s a wide open seat.” She said the fact that Michael S. Dukakis carried Pasadena against George Bush in the 1988 presidential election shows that Democrats can win there.

In the proposed 61st Assembly District, which includes Chino, Chino Hills, Montclair and portions of Pomona and Ontario, the party registration is almost evenly divided. Democrats lead Republicans, 46.3% to 45%.

Bob Erwin, 48, a county probation employee from Chino who was the Democratic nominee against Brulte last year, said he is strongly considering running again. Another Democrat, Pomona Councilwoman Nell Soto, said she might run.

Chino Mayor Fred Aguiar, 43, who changed his party affiliation from Democrat to Republican three years ago, said he is putting together a campaign staff in the event he decides to run, but he will not announce his candidacy until Brulte makes his decision. Aguiar is director of commercial development for Lewis Homes Management Corp.

Other Republicans who say they may become candidates are Pomona Mayor Donna Smith and Ontario Councilman Gus Skropos.

Skropos, a former San Bernardino County supervisor who now works as a deputy district attorney, said he is considering both the 61st Assembly District and the new 41st Congressional District.

“I’ll run for one of the two seats,” he said.

The congressional race has already attracted Bader, a former Pomona mayor and four-term assemblyman who gave up his seat last year to run against state Sen. Ruben S. Ayala (D-Chino). The district, which is 50% Republican, seems tailor-made for Bader, who represented much of the area in the Assembly, but that has not scared away other candidates.

John Eastman, 31, a former spokesman for the U. S. Civil Rights Commission who was the Republican nominee last year against Rep. Esteban E. Torres (D-La Puente), said he will run for the congressional seat that Dreier bypasses, presumably the 41st.

The district includes parts of San Bernardino, Orange and Los Angles counties, including the San Gabriel Valley cities of Rowland Heights, Diamond Bar and Pomona.

The reapportionment plan would create a heavily Democratic, predominantly Latino state Senate District, the 24th, that would stretch across the San Gabriel Valley from Alhambra and Monterey Park east to Azusa and La Puente. But because senators serve four-year terms, evenly numbered districts such as the 24th, will not have elections until 1994. Until then, senators elected in 1990 will continue to represent their old districts.

Sen. Charles M. Calderon (D-Whittier) represents most of the cities in the new district. But he has indicated he will run in another district, which includes South El Monte but lies mostly south of the San Gabriel Valley, in 1994.

Proposed New Legislative Districts This is a breakdown by percent of political party registration and minority population in proposed new legislative districts in the San Gabriel Valley.

41st Congressional 24th Senate 44th Assembly Democrats 39.98 58.46 43.59 Republicans 50.37 30.71 46.41 Other 9.65 10.83 10 Black 6.9 2 11.9 Latino 31.5 59.3 19.1 Asian 10.1 20.9 11.2

61st Assembly Democrats 46.34 Republicans 45.02 Other 8.64 Black 8.4 Latino 41.7 Asian 5.2

Source: The Rose Institute of State and Local Government at Claremont McKenna College