ELECTIONS 20TH STATE SENATE DISTRICT : Bane Says She Has Quit Rowen Campaign Post

Amid controversy over her political tactics and Democratic Party affiliation, Marlene Bane said Wednesday that she has quit as campaign manager for Republican state Senate candidate Carol Rowen.

Bane, a political consultant married to Democratic Assemblyman Tom Bane of Van Nuys, said she resigned to give Rowen a better chance of getting campaign money and other assistance from the Republican Party in her June 2 runoff election with Senate leader David A. Roberti (D-Los Angeles).

But Roberti and a local Republican political consultant questioned if Bane has actually left the campaign. They said they think she is faking her resignation to eliminate herself as a political liability to Rowen but still is working for her behind the scenes.

Roberti and Rowen are locked in a bitter special-election battle for the 20th Senate District seat vacated by former Sen. Alan Robbins, who resigned last year and later pleaded guilty to federal corruption charges. The district, which Robbins had represented since 1973, encompasses the south-central San Fernando Valley.

Bane’s role in Rowen’s campaign raised eyebrows among both Republicans and Democrats because of Bane’s history as a prodigious fund-raiser for her husband and for Democratic Assembly Speaker Willie Brown of San Francisco, who has used his campaign money to help defeat GOP Assembly candidates around the state.

Roberti’s camp charged early in the campaign that Marlene Bane recruited Rowen, a longtime friend, to run against him after he rejected Bane’s offer to manage his campaign for up to $50,000--an allegation Rowen and Bane have repeatedly denied.

Bane said she told Rowen of her decision May 7. At the same time, she also informed Joe Shumate, a political adviser to Gov. Pete Wilson, and Sen. Ken Maddy (R-Fresno), chairman of the Senate GOP Caucus, which allocates party resources to GOP Senate hopefuls.

Rowen told a reporter as recently as Tuesday that Bane had not left her campaign “as far as I know” and a Rowen spokesman insisted Wednesday morning that Bane was still the campaign manager.

Roberti and GOP political consultant Paul Clarke of Northridge said Wednesday that they don’t believe Bane has actually severed her ties to the campaign.

Clarke said Bane called him Monday to ask if he would join Rowen’s campaign. When he declined, she asked if she could call him for political advice, he said.

“If she quit on Thursday, why would she call me this Monday?” said Clarke. “I think what they’re trying to do is take the single-most troublesome question off the plate.”

“Somebody’s lying somewhere,” he said.

Bane responded that she has “no official role whatsoever” in Rowen’s campaign and has not since May 7. She repeated that she was not being paid by Rowen’s campaign.

Bane acknowledged calling Clarke on Monday but said she asked if Rowen could call him for advice.

Bane said that, although GOP leaders never explicitly asked her to step down, she “felt kind of an undercurrent” of pressure from the party to quit.

Bane said Rowen asked her to stay on, but she told Rowen that “her chances of getting party support would be better if I was not her campaign manager.”

However, Bane denied that her high-profile presence in Rowen’s campaign was making the party balk at giving Rowen financial support.

“They’re not balking, they just didn’t do it,” said Bane, adding that she isn’t sure if the reason is “my presence or the fact that we’re both women.”

Now that she has left, Bane said, the GOP is “faced with a winner. . . . They will have to come in and take over her campaign, because they have a winning candidate.”

Rowen and GOP officials could not be reached for comment Wednesday night.

Last month, Roberti attacked Bane and her husband for orchestrating a smear campaign against him with two harshly worded mailers that were later disavowed by two Republican Assembly members whose signatures appeared on them.

The lawmakers, William J. Filante (R-Greenbrae) and Tricia Hunter (R-Bonita), said that they both backed Rowen, but they never gave final approval to the scorching anti-Roberti language used in the brochures, which Marlene Bane helped to draft.

Both Bane and Rowen insisted, however, that Filante and Hunter had signed off on the mailers.

Bane said she did not know who would take her place as manager.