ELECTIONS / 17th Senate District : Sprawling Area Makes Running for Office a Far Bigger Challenge

In the race to represent the sprawling 17th Senate District, Don Rogers has a clear edge.

Rogers, a Republican state senator from Bakersfield, flies a plane. His main challenger, probation officer William M. Olenick, has only a Porsche 928.

“One week, I drove more than 2,800 miles” campaigning, said Olenick.

Racking up the miles while running for office is easy in a district that stretches north from Santa Clarita past Bishop on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada and east to the Nevada border. The district includes the oil fields of eastern Kern County and the Mojave Desert in San Bernardino County.

But challenging Rogers--who served four terms in the Assembly and was elected twice to the state Senate--may prove a long, hard road for Democratic candidate Olenick and Libertarian candidate Fred Heiser. The three men are unopposed in their June primaries and will compete with one another in November’s general election.

The newly created 17th District--which includes the cities of Needles, Barstow, Tehachapi and Bishop and all of Inyo County--seems tailor-made for Rogers, a popular conservative who has a Ronald Reagan campaign poster hanging in his Bakersfield office and a stack of “Buy American” bumper stickers for visitors.

In 1990, Rogers won a four-year term in the 16th Senate District. But after reapportionment changed district boundaries, Rogers decided to run for reelection in the 17th, which includes much of his old territory. To reach constituents in the huge district, Rogers flies his single-engine plane.

If he loses the election in the 17th, Rogers still would have the option of finishing out his term in the 16th, which expires in 1993. Theoretically, he could then run for reelection in that district.

It seems unlikely that will be necessary, however. Republican registration in the 17th is nearly 52%, which the 63-year-old Rogers said gives him an advantage that is “the best I have ever had for any election.”

On top of that, Rogers has raised more than $100,000 for the race, according to campaign disclosures filed last month. Olenick and Heiser claimed in their reports to have raised less than $1,000 by the third week in March.

Between Jan. 1 and March 17, Rogers’ campaign raised $28,500, almost all of it from business groups representing agricultural interests, utilities and the health care industry.

Montrose attorney Thomas J. Jeffers, who gave Rogers $200, was the only individual to contribute to the campaign, according to the report. Jeffers met Rogers shortly after Rogers helped lead the fight to abolish the state’s inheritance tax in 1982, said Jeffers, whose law practice deals with such matters.

“That was the best thing to happen in California,” Jeffers said.

Rogers said he will spend much of his campaign talking with voters in Lancaster, Palmdale and Santa Clarita--the largest cities in the 17th District. He has not represented those residents before, although he now serves the eastern portion of the Antelope Valley.

To run in the new district, Rogers, a geological consultant for oil businesses, had to move to Tehachapi from his longtime Bakersfield home, where he started his political career in 1973 as a city councilman.

Olenick bases much of his case against incumbent Rogers on that fact.

“I am the only high-desert candidate,” Olenick, 40, said. “I grew up in the Antelope Valley and I’ve lived here 34 years.”

Although he is well-known to Antelope Valley voters, Olenick has lost his last two bids for office in the 1989 and 1991 trustee elections in the Antelope Valley Union High School District.

Olenick, who was the top vote-getter when elected to the school board in 1985, said he was not reelected because of publicity stemming from his arrest three months before the election for allegedly slapping his wife during an argument. No charges were ever filed against Olenick, and the woman recanted her story. The couple are now divorced.

“No question, that led to my loss,” Olenick said.

On most issues, Olenick and Rogers hold similar views.

“I’m more conservative than most Republicans,” Olenick said.

The two men agree that the state Legislature should ease up on business to stimulate growth, citing environmental regulations as one reason many firms are failing.

“I am a geologist, and I know more about the Earth and its makeup than the average person,” Rogers said. “The Earth has built-in checks and balances in its climate. What little effect man has on it is negligible.”

Not to be outdone, Olenick said: “I love the outdoors, but we need a more reasonable approach. We’ve created a hostile environment for business.”

Both Olenick and Rogers said California’s workers’ compensation insurance system should be reformed, an issue that has caught fire across the state with small- and medium-business owners whose premiums have escalated dramatically in the past 10 years. More than 50 legislative proposals for reform of the system are under review in Sacramento.

Rogers opposes abortion except in cases of rape or incest, or if the mother’s health is endangered. He also supports the death penalty. Olenick favors the right to choose abortion and also supports the death penalty.

Libertarian candidate Heiser, 36, is an aerospace engineer who lives in the Santa Clarita Valley. He favors shifting most government duties to private business, the fundamental principle of his party.

“Government seems to be setting up programs to manage problems, not solve them,” said Heiser, who predicts he will probably spend less than $1,000 in his campaign. “Once your job is to manage the problem, there is an interest in keeping the problem so you can manage it.”

Heiser said he favors the right to an abortion only until a fetus is 20 weeks old. He also said he would support the death penalty if prosecutors were required to show that a criminal was guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt, rather than the current measure of guilt, which is beyond a reasonable doubt.

Even under those requirements, Heiser said he favors giving defendants a choice between the death penalty and life in prison.

“The death penalty has absolutely no deterrent value,” Heiser said. “People who say that are only trying to cover the emotion of vengeance.”

Senate District 17

Overview: The newly drawn district is spread across four counties-Los Angeles, Kern, Inyo and San Bernardino-and covers a large expanse of sparsely populated desert communities. However, it also includes rapidly growing areas such as Santa Clarita, Palmdale and Lancaster. Republican Don Rogers, who now represents the 16th Senate District, is running for reelection two years to preserve his seat. The district is heavily Republican.

Where: The district includes the Los Angeles County communities of Acton, Agua Dulce, Gorman, Green Valley, Lancaster, Leona Valley, Littlerock, Llano, Palmdale, Pearblossom, Quartz Hill and Santa Clarita, and portions of Canyon Country and Saugus. In Kern County, it includes the communities of Boron, California City, Frazier Park, Johannesburg, Lebec, Mojave, Ridgecrest, Rosamond and Tehachapi. It also includes portions of Inyo and San Bernardino counties. To find out if you live in the district, call the Los Angeles County registrar-recorder’s office at (213) 721-1100.

Demographics Anglo: 75% Latino: 16% Black: 5% Asian: 3%

Party Registration Demo.: 36% GOP: 52% Others: 12%

Candidates: Democrat: William M. Olenick, deputy probation officer Republican: Don Rogers, state senator Libertarian: Fred Heiser, engineer