ELECTIONS 23RD CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT : 2 Democrats Compete for the Chance to Face Gallegly

Anita Perez Ferguson is such a polished campaigner that she holds classes in Washington for other women on how to succeed in politics.

Kevin Sweeney is so accomplished at campaign management that he literally wrote the book on handling the news media for the Democratic National Committee.

These two congressional candidates are competing in the June 2 Democratic primary in an election year that some Democrats believe is their best shot at capturing a congressional seat representing Ventura County in more than 40 years.

Both Ferguson, 43, and Sweeney, 33, are bright, attractive, articulate candidates with political connections that reach across the nation. In normal election years, that would not be enough to defeat a sitting Republican congressman who has $400,000 in political donations stashed away.

But 1992 is far from a normal year, with anti-incumbent sentiment soaring among angry voters and the congressional check-bouncing scandal reaching the feet of incumbent Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley).

Gallegly, a three-term conservative congressman, disclosed Friday that he has bounced five checks, three more than he previously thought.

Also, Gallegly is running in the new 23rd Congressional District, which has far fewer conservative voters than his old district and reaches into unfamiliar political turf. The new district has lost the Republican bastion of Thousand Oaks and picked up Ventura and portions of Oxnard that have heavier concentrations of Latinos who want to oust Gallegly over his efforts to crack down on illegal immigration.

On top of this, political experts say this could be the year that voters vent their long-building frustration, fueled by a sagging economy.

“There’s a general pervasive feeling that Congress ought to be changed,” said veteran political analyst Herbert E. Alexander, a USC political science professor. “Congress is now held in lower esteem than in any recent time.”

Such political momentum is not lost on Sweeney.

“This is a great opportunity for me to serve,” he said in a recent interview. “It’s not something I’ve been planning for several years.”

Sweeney, a Ventura resident for three years, picked up much of his political experience as press secretary to former Sen. Gary Hart (D-Colorado) during Hart’s 1988 presidential campaign. He has also worked on Capitol Hill and in 1990 wrote the “Press Secretary Manual: A Guide for Democrats” for the Democratic National Committee.

In an interview last week, Hart vowed to support his former aide. “I will help Kevin every way I can,” Hart said. “He’s a man who is serious about his beliefs. He is motivated by ideas and issues.”

An ardent environmentalist, Sweeney used his skills as a political organizer to help several local candidates win public office on political themes of slow growth and preserving the county’s remaining open space. Most of his time in Ventura was spent as public affairs director for Patagonia Inc., an outdoor clothing firm.

The bearded Sweeney is a rapid-fire speaker with a vast knowledge of public policy issues. He has drawn from his national political experience to get his campaign off to a fast start.

Recently, he hired two campaign aides who began the political season working for former Democratic presidential candidate Bob Kerrey of Nebraska, and he talks about amassing a small army of volunteers to take his campaign to the voters’ doorstep.

To finance this effort, Sweeney has traveled to the East Coast to raise donations from the same Wall Street traders and environmentally conscious business owners who supported his mentor, Hart.

Sweeney does not shy from his strong environmentalist beliefs, no matter who is in the audience. “I am what I am,” he recently told a local labor group.

But he also tells skeptics that he is the antithesis of a one-issue candidate, and that creating jobs and a fair tax system are his top priorities.

“The biggest issue facing everyone is uncertainty about the economy,” he said in a recent interview.

His primary opponent, Anita Perez Ferguson, an education consultant, is making her second bid for Congress. In 1990 she was easily defeated throughout the district, including in heavily Latino Oxnard, by longtime incumbent Rep. Robert Lagomarsino (R-Ventura).

Lagomarsino decided to move north to run in a new congressional district covering Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties. And Ferguson, a Santa Barbara resident, recently bought a house in Oxnard and plans to move there soon, said Sam Rodriguez, her campaign manager.

This time around, Rodriguez said, the Ferguson campaign will attempt to increase voter registration among Latinos and redouble efforts to get them to the polls on election day.

Ferguson has stage presence and knows how to hold an audience’s attention. She is so polished that the Washington-based National Women’s Political Caucus uses her as “a trainer in political skills” for women contemplating running for public office or working in campaigns, caucus spokeswoman Patricia Reilly said.

Harriett Woods, president of the caucus, said, “She’s a role model for other women to take the risk to run.” Ferguson is the group’s first vice president.

Woods said Ferguson is one of the top priorities of the caucus. In February, the caucus contributed $5,000 to Ferguson’s campaign through its political action committee.

Jamie Cox-Nowland, president of the Ventura-Oxnard chapter of the National Organization for Women, said her local group also plans to assemble volunteers to campaign for Ferguson during the primary season. “We would be willing to walk the district for her,” she said.

But most of Ferguson’s volunteers will come from the California chapter of the women’s caucus, said Linda Tangren, the caucus’ California president. In a few weeks, she said, about 100 campaign workers from across Southern California will begin to walk precincts for Ferguson. “They are well-trained and know the candidate very well,” Tangren said. “Most of the women who do this are real pros. A lot of them are campaign managers in their own right.”

For her part, Ferguson, who spends part of her time teaching and advising minority students, appears ready to emphasize traditional Democratic issues of equal opportunity and economic prosperity.

“My perception is to expand opportunities and not expand bureaucracies,” Ferguson said. “I want to put ordinary working people into government leadership.”

As for her opponent, she said, “He’s high on philosophy and low on experience.” Echoing this sentiment, she recently told labor representatives: “Mr. Sweeney may be telling you the truth. I am living the truth with you.”

Like Sweeney, Ferguson favors abortion rights for women and promises if elected to focus on restoring economic health to Ventura County.

“We have tremendous problems in an area where we ought to have tremendous plenty,” she recently told a labor group.

In a few days, the Tri-County Central Labor Council--representing 60,000 AFL-CIO union members in Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties--will endorse Ferguson for Congress, said a union source who requested anonymity.

This will come as no surprise to the outspoken Sweeney. In recent remarks to council members in Ventura, he said he wasn’t afraid to tell them that he wholeheartedly supported free trade with Mexico-- an unpopular position among the rank and file in a struggling economy.

“You know I’m saying what I believe because it costs me,” he told the members.

At the same meeting, Ferguson took the position that Washington should first make sure that Mexico’s worker safety and environmental protection laws match those in the United States before opening the borders to free trade. “The workers were not being protected,” she said on observations based on her visit to Mexican companies along the border.

“Union members perceive Sweeney as a tree hugger, someone who pushes no-growth which means no jobs,” the union source said.

Kevin Looper, Sweeney’s press secretary, said this perception of Sweeney by some voters is something “we want to focus on in this campaign.”

He said being an environmentalist doesn’t mean no-growth. Indeed, he said, “Cleaning up after the mess of the late ‘70s and ‘80s is going to be a growth industry” and will generate new jobs.

“Clean air and clean water mean jobs and new industries,” Looper said.

Political analysts offer mixed assessments of Ferguson and Sweeney, with no clear consensus on who would win the primary and mount the strongest challenge to Gallegly.

“Sweeney has been a strong political organizer in Ventura County,” said analyst John Davies of Santa Barbara. “He knows the community and knows the activists. And he knows how to catch the media’s attention.”

Government affairs consultant Jim Dantona of Simi Valley said Ferguson can’t be sold short because she ran before for a congressional seat and has some name recognition in the county.

“But neither one is a common household name,” he said. “And both will have a tough time raising money.”

Dantona said, however, that former Sen. Hart of Colorado “was one of the best fund-raisers and his financial base is still there” for Sweeney to tap--if he can.

USC’s Alexander said a contest such as the one between Ferguson and Sweeney can turn on something as seemingly simple as name recognition. “The problem with these challengers,” he said, “is gaining name recognition to contest effectively. That’s hard to do.”

Although Gallegly is a three-term incumbent congressman, he is not well-known in portions of the new district that stretches into Oxnard and Ventura.

Gallegly, a former realtor and Simi Valley mayor who has lived in Ventura County for 25 years, said he was not daunted by the prospect of running in a district that is more balanced between Republicans and Democrats.

“From a philosophical standpoint, there will be a slight shift,” Gallegly said. He said Democratic voters are interested in the same issues as Republicans--jobs, taxes and quality of life.

On these issues, the congressman said he is proud of his legislative record and the strong support he has received from Republicans and other voting blocs such as law enforcement officials. “My continued focus will be the economy,” Gallegly said.

But Gallegly also has triggered anger among many Latinos--concentrated in Oxnard, Santa Paula and Ventura--who make up about 27% of the county’s population.

Last fall, Gallegly introduced a legislative package designed to stem the flow of illegal immigrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. His most controversial proposal is a constitutional amendment that would no longer grant U.S. citizenship to a child born here of undocumented alien parents.

He said his critics don’t understand that immigrants here illegally most directly harm economically deprived Latinos, crowding them out of welfare and health services and jobs.

“I am firmly convinced it is the right position,” Gallegly said. “If it ends up costing me votes, it ends up costing me votes. I’m not going to compromise my position.”

Some in the Latino community accuse Gallegly’s legislative package as being designed to draw bigots to the voting booth.

Oscar C. Gonzalez, president of the Ventura County Mexican-American Bar Assn., said he reacted to Gallegly’s immigration bill with “anger” and “astonishment.”

“I really don’t think Gallegly has looked at the demographics of the new district closely,” he said. “Close to a third of the 23rd (Congressional District) is Latino. Maybe he’s well aware of it, but knows that they don’t vote.”

Gallegly defends his position. “I think it’s really important to note that I don’t look at illegal aliens as evil people,” he said. “I look at illegal immigration as a violation of our law.”

As for his involvement in the House’s check-bouncing scandal, Gallegly said he’s prepared to defend his ethics.

Gallegly acknowledges that he wrote five checks that did not fully clear the House bank for a total overage of $847. But he said he learned about the checks only after demanding to know the status of his account in October after the scandal became public.

Upon being informed of the first two checks that bounced, he said, “The first thing I did was issue a press release. Certainly, there wasn’t anything I was trying to hide.”

On Friday, he issued a second statement disclosing the additional three bad checks because “the public has a right to know the facts, even though the overages were inadvertent.”

If his opponents raise the issue, he said he plans to issue a challenge: “I will open my checkbook for the last 10 years, if you’ll open yours so I can see if you’ve ever bounced one.”

Gallegly said he plans to campaign aggressively to retain a seat in Congress. So far, he has raised about $400,000 in campaign cash. “I take nothing for granted,” he said. “I worked too hard for this job.”

Generally, Gallegly declines to reveal too many details of his campaign strategy. It remains to be seen how much of this campaign treasury, if any, he will spend to defeat his two Republican primary opponents.

His challengers, both newcomers to politics, are Daphne Becker, 50, of Ojai, a businesswoman, and Dr. Robert Shakman, 48, of Ventura, an executive with a health-insurance company. Shakman is also a USC medical professor and is on the staff of the Ventura County Medical Center.

Both Becker and Shakman favor abortion rights. Gallegly said he opposes abortion except in the case of rape or incest or when the mother’s life is threatened. Both oppose Gallegly’s immigration legislation.

Becker, the co-owner of a property management company and a dental health-care company, said she will spend $50,000 of her own money to finance her campaign.

Shakman said he is running on “a bare-bones” budget and has yet to raise $5,000.

One of Shakman’s top issues, he said, is “high quality medical care, a system that provides for everyone” and is funded through government revenues. Private choice of physicians would be preserved, he said.

Of Gallegly’s proposed changes in immigration law, Shakman said he believes that Gallegly “chose to do it for the worst of purposes. He was appealing to something that’s latent in our society--latent racism.”

Becker said she decided to run for the seat because Congress needs fresh faces and ideas.

“Gallegly seems too much like the rest of the politicians,” she said. “They all look alike, think alike, talk alike. More dead than alive.”

Libertarian Party candidate Jay C. Wood, a Fillmore resident and educator, will also be challenging Gallegly in November.

Congressional District 23 Overview: Until redistricting, Ventura County was split between two congressional districts, with Rep. Robert J. Lagomarsino (R-Ventura) representing the eastern sections. Now, most of the county is in one district. Lagomarsino moved north to run in a separate district, avoiding a primary battle with Gallegly. Where: The district includes Carpinteria and all of Ventura County except Thousand Oaks. To find out if you live in the district, call the Ventura County elections office, (805) 654-2781.

Demographics Anglo Latino Black Asian 62% 30% 3% 5%

Party Registration Demo GOP Others 42% 45% 13%

Candidates: Democrat Anita Perez Ferguson, education consultant Kevin Sweeney, environmental activist Libertarian Jay C. Wood, educator Republican Daphne Becker, businesswoman Elton Gallegly, congressman Robert A. Shakman, physician