ELECTIONS / 40th ASSEMBLY DISTRICT : Fund-Raising Lead Boosts Lawmaker

Assemblywoman Barbara Friedman (D-Los Angeles) raised nearly $500,000 last year to win election to a 15-month term representing the 46th District, which in December will be wiped out by a redrawing of district boundaries.

Now the freshman is once again raising money, but this time for a more secure job: representing the 40th Assembly District, a Democratic stronghold in the San Fernando Valley represented by Assemblyman Tom Bane (D-Tarzana). He is retiring at the end of the year after easily winning reelection since 1974.

To run in the district, which stretches west from Studio City through North Hollywood and Van Nuys to a portion of Woodland Hills, Friedman moved north over the Santa Monica Mountains to a condominium in the Valley.

Now, boosted by a substantial fund-raising lead as well as her incumbency status, Friedman is a clear front-runner in a race with three Democratic rivals. A year ago, in her first bid for office, she won the party’s nomination by only 31 votes.

During the first three months of this year, Friedman had raised about $90,000, with about $35,000 coming from business, $35,000 from labor interest groups and about $15,000 from lawyers and legal associations, according to campaign finance reports. Contributions under $100 from individuals totaled $370.

Friedman’s fund-raising prowess comes in large part from her association with the influential political organization headed by Reps. Howard L. Berman (D-Panorama City) and Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles). Friedman is the former chief of staff for Assemblyman Burt Margolin (D-Los Angeles), an associate of the Waxman-Berman group.

None of Friedman’s opponents in the Democratic primary has much money or name recognition.

Attorney Joel B. Kelman, 51, specializes in personal injury cases and is a longtime friend of Bane’s but is little known among voters. Kelman, who lives in North Hollywood, said he plans to spend as much as $10,000 of his own money on the race and, as of the last reporting period, had raised less than $1,000 from other sources.

Although Bane still has nearly $500,000 in campaign contributions that he is allowed to pass on to other candidates or use to pay off expenses, Kelman said he does not expect to receive any financial help from his friend.

The other two Democratic candidates are Jim Aldrich, 46, a medical entrepreneur, and Dan Coen, 23, who is unemployed.

In the Republican primary, voters will choose among three candidates, including Los Angeles Raiders music director and apartment owner Horace Heidt Jr., 45, and second-generation mortician Jon Robert Lorenzen of Lorenzen Mortuary in Reseda. Brian Perry, 30, an administrator of a medical supply house, is also running.

Democratic registration in the district is 54%, compared with about 35% for Republicans. So the winner of the Democratic primary will have a strong advantage in November’s general election and likely will emerge as the winner.

All of the Democratic candidates favor keeping abortion legal, and none support tax increases.

Kelman believes that the main concern of the Legislature should be reducing crime, which he said could be accomplished by providing cities with money to hire more police. He favors reducing welfare costs by allowing recipients to work, with the state providing a small income supplement.

Aldrich, who lives in Reseda, said he supports increasing teacher salaries and reducing class sizes but is opposed to a tax increase to pay for those improvements. He said some money could be found if the state prodded school districts to cut administrative costs. He also ran for the Assembly in 1976 and 1978.

Coen, who lives with his parents, said abortion will be the main issue facing the Legislature in coming months. He recently lost his job after his employer went out of business, so he plans to reach voters by walking door to door every day. “I can get up to 500 homes a day,” he said.

The Republican candidates said they favor reductions in taxes and the easing of environmental and other regulations to stimulate business. Heidt and Lorenzen oppose legal abortion, except in cases of rape, incest and danger to the health of the mother; Perry supports legal abortion.

Three minor party candidates are running uncontested in the primary. They are Libertarian candidate John Vernon, a caterer; Peace and Freedom candidate Jean K. Glasser, a teacher, and Green Party candidate Glenn Bailey, a part-time administrator at Cal State Northridge.

Vernon and Bailey are also running in the 20th Senate District election against Senate President Pro Tem David Roberti and Republican Carol Rowen. That office will be filled June 2. Because both Vernon and Bailey are uncontested in the 40th Assembly District primary, they can run in both races.

Although Friedman has been in Sacramento just since July, she has pursued an ambitious legislative agenda.

She proposes increasing cigarette taxes by two cents per pack to raise money for medical research and to pay for breast cancer screenings for women who cannot afford them. She also has introduced a bill to reform the state’s workers’ compensation program, which has been targeted for reform by businesses and is the subject of more than 50 different reform bills.

In addition, Friedman is seeking to give juvenile dependency court judges more authority to enforce their orders with schools and other agencies that provide education or counseling for children.

She is also seeking to make spouse beating a felony for repeat offenders. Under present law, those attacks can be charged as a misdemeanor crime.

Finally, Friedman said she wants to limit how much doctors and hospitals charge for medical services.

“The medical community and insurance companies must take smaller profits,” Friedman said. “Active, sophisticated doctors know this is coming.”

Her present district, the 46th, includes the communities of Atwater, Silver Lake, Los Feliz, Hollywood, Koreatown, Mid-Wilshire and part of downtown, areas hit hard by rioting. She said the state cannot afford to offer financial help to the owners of businesses there without taking the money from other programs or raising taxes.

Friedman took a leave from her job in the Los Angeles city controller’s office to run last spring for the job vacated by former 46th District Assemblyman Mike Roos. Friedman finished 31 votes ahead of Deputy City Atty. John Emerson to win the Democratic primary in June.

She went on to defeat Republican candidate Geoffrey C. Church by about a 3-to-1 margin in the July runoff election.

But that district was carved up last year as a result of the reapportionment done every 10 years to adjust for population changes recorded by the U. S. Census.

She had been expected to run against Assemblyman Pat Nolan (R-Glendale) in what is a predominantly Republican district. But shortly after Bane’s surprise retirement announcement, she changed her mind and decided to run for his seat.

Friedman, 42, has since moved to a Laurel Canyon Boulevard condominium in the district, but points out that she has long ties to the Valley. She declined to be interviewed at her new home.

Friedman graduated from Van Nuys High School, earned a history degree at UC Berkeley and went on to work for a number of liberal causes, including stints in labor and community organizing.

“It’s not like I left and have never seen the Valley since,” she said. “My family lives here.”

Assembly District 40

Overview: After Democratic Assemblyman Tom Bane, a fixture in San Fernando Valley politics for more than 30 years, announced that he would no seek reelection, the race to represent his heavily Democratic district attracted four Democrats, three Republicans and three minor party candidates. The best known is Assemblywoman Barbara Friedman, a Democrat, who had been searching for a new political home after losing her Griffith Park-Los Feliz district to reapportionment.

Where: The district includes portions of the communities of Encino, North Hollywood, Panorama City, Reseda, Sherman Oaks, Tarzana, Van Nuys and Winnetka. To find out if you live in the district, call the Los Angeles County registrar-recorder’s office at (213) 721-1100.

Demographics Anglo: 58% Latino: 30% Black: 4% Asian: 8%

Party Registration Demo: 54% GOP: 35% Others: 11%

Candidates: Democrat Jim Aldrich, research analyst Dan Coen, community relations director Barbara Friedman, assemblywoman Joel Bernard Kelman, attorney Peace and Freedom Jean K. Glasser, teacher Republican Horace H. Heidt, businessman Jon Robert Lorenzen, businessman Brian Perry, businessman Green Party Glenn Bailey, community issues specialist Libertarian John Vernon, businessman