CALIFORNIA ELECTIONS / U.S. SENATE : Environment Records of 6 Rated ‘Good’

The League of Conservation Voters said Wednesday it has found the environmental records of six of the 12 major party candidates running for two U.S. Senate seats acceptable.

Five Democrats received the 35,000-member league’s best rating of “good,” but only one Republican, Rep. Tom Campbell, got a top rating.

Borrowing the title from a spaghetti Western movie, the league ranked the candidates as “the good, the bad and the ugly.” With the exception of Campbell, the Republicans ranked from bad to ugly.

The ranking poured fuel on the already intense battle for Republican votes between Campbell and political commentator Bruce Herschensohn in the GOP primary for the seat being given up by Democratic Sen. Alan Cranston. While the league heaped praise on Campbell, it scorned Herschensohn as “enthusiastically anti-environmental.”

Herschensohn said he would have it no other way. He called environmental leaders “kooks” and repeated a stock line that they are more interested in “rats and snails than people and jobs.” And he said placing Campbell in with a group of Democrats is fitting.

“This is just further proof of what I have been saying all along, that he is a Democrat in everything but registration,” Herschensohn said.

A third Republican in the GOP primary for Cranston’s seat, Sonny Bono, the onetime pop music figure and former mayor of Palm Springs, fared nearly as poorly in the league survey as Herschensohn.

Bono and incumbent Sen. John Seymour received “bad” ratings, as opposed to the “ugly” ratings given to Herschensohn and Seymour opponent Rep. Bill Dannemeyer, a veteran GOP congressman who refused to fill out the league’s questionnaire.

Lucy Blake, the league’s executive director, called 1992 an “exceptional year” because so many strong environmentalists are running for the Senate.

The league judged the Senate candidates on a variety of environmental issues such as energy and water development, pollution controls, proposals to protect California deserts and proposed amendments that would weaken the Endangered Species Act.

The only candidate who answered an unqualified “yes” to the league’s position in 11 environmental areas was Democratic Rep. Barbara Boxer. Other Democrats getting top ratings were Rep. Mel Levine and Lt. Gov. Leo McCarthy, who are running against Boxer in the Democratic primary to succeed Cranston. In the other race, Dianne Feinstein, the former mayor of San Francisco, and state Controller Gray Davis both received top rankings.

The league did not rate two other candidates, Democrat Joseph L. Alioto Jr. and Republican Bill Allen, because it said it did not have enough information on them.