GOP Candidate Herschensohn Backs Wright for State Senate

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Bruce Herschensohn on Friday endorsed Assemblywoman Cathie Wright (R-Simi Valley) in the election for the state Senate seat representing the 19th District.

The district covers the Santa Clarita Valley, the northwestern San Fernando Valley--including Northridge, Chatsworth and Mission Hills--and stretches westward through Ventura County to Oxnard.

Wright is competing with Marian W. La Follette and Fillmore Councilman Roger Campbell in the June 2 Republican primary for the seat being vacated by Sen. Ed Davis (R-Santa Clarita). The winner of the GOP nomination will square off against Democrat Henry Phillip Star, a Bell Canyon lawyer, in the November election.

“Cathie Wright, whom I have long admired, is a conservative’s conservative,” Herschensohn said in a statement Friday. “She knows the issues of importance to the residents of Ventura and Los Angeles counties, and we know that she will be fully capable and ready when she reaches the state Senate.”

“I’m thrilled, absolutely,” Wright said of Herschensohn’s endorsement. “I’ve known Bruce since 1982.”

She said she in turn has endorsed Herschensohn’s candidacy for the U.S. Senate. Herschensohn, for 13 years a political commentator for KABC radio and television in Los Angeles, is seeking the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Alan Cranston. He faces moderate Republican Rep. Tom Campbell of Palo Alto in the primary.

Wright and La Follette clashed a day earlier over an $8-a-day increase in per diem expenses for members of the Assembly.

La Follette criticized the State Board of Control for approving the raise, which increased daily allowances from a tax-free $92 to $100 per day. The money goes to the 120 state lawmakers every day that the Legislature is in session, which comes to $1,500 a year.

If elected, La Follette said, she would donate the extra allowance to the Independent Living Resource Centers in Ventura and Los Angeles counties. The centers, which have recently lost some of their state funding, help disabled people living independent lives.

Minutes after La Follette supporters began criticizing Wright for supposedly accepting the increase, Wright issued a statement saying she would not take it either.

“The state Legislature needs to set an example if we are going to ask various state departments, agencies and the courts to all cut back,” Wright said in the statement.

Wright’s campaign said she would also return the increase but would “put the money back in the general fund where it belongs. Marian just wants to give it away again.”

La Follette countered that “a lot of money in the general fund gets lost. I’d rather give the money directly to the centers.”