41st District House Race Loses a Candidate

Eastman Out--John Eastman of West Covina has pulled out of the race for the Republican nomination in the new 41st Congressional District because of a lack of funds.

Eastman, a former spokesman for the U. S. Civil Rights Commission, said he was convinced that he might have won--if he had been able to raise $500,000. But after two months of intense campaigning, Eastman had collected less than $35,000 and estimated that he could not have raised more than another $100,000.

Meanwhile, James V. Lacy, a former national chairman of Young Americans for Freedom who gave up a job as an attorney in the Department of Commerce in Washington to run for Congress, raised more than $53,000 in December. And Lacy says he believes he can collect as much as $750,000.

The acknowledged front-runner in the GOP race, former Assemblyman Charles W. Bader of Pomona, is a proven fund-raiser, having collected and spent more than $1 million on a state Senate race two years ago.

Nod to Bader--In withdrawing, Eastman said he will not endorse anyone yet. But he said that Bader has “a record that I’m comfortable with.”

Eastman made it clear that he is not comfortable with Lacy, whom he has criticized for moving to the district just to run for Congress after 10 years in Washington.

Although it was certainly not Eastman’s intention, Lacy could profit from his withdrawal from the race because both candidates have been pitching their appeals to the most-conservative elements of the party.

Eastman said he thinks the race will be settled by geography, not philosophy.

Lacy’s political ties are to Orange County, which holds about 20% of the district. The remainder is in Pomona, Diamond Bar, Rowland Heights and western San Bernardino County, where Bader is well-known from his years in the Assembly.

“It’s an Inland Empire district. And I think someone from the Inland Empire is going to win,” Eastman said.

Diligence Undone--Assemblyman Paul Horcher (R-Hacienda Heights) filed a campaign statement this month with the county registrar-recorder’s office saying he owed $4,722 from his 1989 campaign for the Whittier City Council.

That listing was on the same page that Horcher signed affirming that he had used “all reasonable diligence” in preparing the report.

The problem: Horcher, elected to the Assembly in 1990, has never run for the Whittier City Council. The debt actually was from his successful 1989 Diamond Bar City Council campaign.

“Just a typo,” Horcher explained.

Incidentally, Horcher said, Diamond Bar City Councilwoman Phyllis Papen--who has announced that she will run against him for the Assembly in the Republican primary in June--will be disappointed if she thinks his campaign will be slowed by an old debt.

Horcher loaned himself more than $320,000 for his 1990 Assembly race, but he is a patient lender. Instead of raising money to retire the loan, he has been building a war chest for his reelection campaign. He had amassed $138,000 in cash by the end of last year and netted an additional $48,000 in a recent fund-raiser.

“We’re looking at $200,000 sitting there for the primary,” Horcher said.

Extra Cash--Assembly members Sally Tanner (D-Baldwin Park) and Bill Lancaster (R-Covina) have the money to run for reelection, but neither has the desire.

Both have decided to retire.

So what happens to the $45,000 in Tanner’s campaign treasury and the $117,000 Lancaster holds?

Proposition 73, a campaign reform initiative approved by voters in 1988, prohibits the transfer of funds from one campaign to another. But a federal appeals court ruled last week that the transfer ban is unconstitutional.

Tanner said candidates are already asking her to transfer money to them, and she will share some of the surplus with her staff aide, Edward Chavez, a La Puente councilman whom she has endorsed as her successor.

But, surprisingly, Lancaster said Tuesday, no one has approached him for a donation.

Short Subjects--Rep. David Dreier (R-La Verne), Sen. Frank Hill (R-Whittier) and Assemblyman Pat Nolan (R-Glendale) all formally announced last week that they will seek reelection in June.

Bonifacio Garcia, an attorney who is running against Rep. Matthew G. Martinez (D-Monterey Park) in the Democratic primary, will talk to voters at a meeting sponsored by the Alhambra Democratic Club at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at Alhambra Community Hospital.

Sally Ann Holguin-Fallon, a La Puente City Council candidate, said she was kicked out of a fund-raiser for Assembly candidate Hilda Solis at the home of La Puente Councilman Manuel Garcia last weekend. Fallon said she was asked to leave because of an old dispute with the Garcia family. She left, but she wants an apology from the Solis campaign for the treatment, or at least a refund of the $30 she paid for tickets.