CALIFORNIA ELECTIONS ’92 : CONGRESS / NORTHERN CALIFORNIA : Family Ties, Reapportionment Influence Races

Bennett Johnston has his father’s name, and some of his father’s money. Soon he hopes to join him in the Congress--by way of Marin County.

His father is Sen. J. Bennett Johnston, the powerful Democratic senator from Louisiana. In his first bid for public office, the younger Johnston has become one of the most controversial California candidates running for Congress this year.

Although his senator father has been a longtime champion of the oil industry, the 32-year-old candidate is campaigning as an environmentalist. Although the junior Johnston is backed by some leading environmentalists, he also has the support of much of the Democratic Establishment in Washington.

The Marin and Sonoma counties district, reshaped by reapportionment into a highly competitive seat, is one of a handful of hotly contested districts from the San Joaquin Valley to the Northern California Coast that could fall to either party in November.

With an unusually large number of empty seats and an anti-incumbent mood sweeping the state, some Northern California races have attracted a dozen or more candidates for the June 2 primary.

The largely suburban and rural 6th Congressional District, spanning all of Marin and most of Sonoma County, includes some of the most liberal and wealthiest communities in the state.

The race to succeed Rep. Barbara Boxer, who is giving up the seat to run for the U.S. Senate, has drawn 12 contestants. But Johnston’s family name and fund-raising success have attracted the most attention--and the harshest criticism from his Democratic rivals.

In particular, they point to at least $8,100 in contributions from special-interest groups that come before Sen. Johnston’s powerful Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. The elder Johnston also has given his son $10,000 from his own political action committee and helped him raise at least $14,500 from other members of Congress.

“The money is not being raised because people meet and are inspired by the candidate,” charged candidate Dennis Rice, an attorney and former Marin County supervisor. “The money is being raised because of what the father can do or not do.”

Johnston’s campaign, however, dismisses such charges as, well, politics. Campaign manager Doug Herman said Johnston is a committed environmentalist who spent seven years as director of conservation for the Trust for Public Land.

“Bennett and his father are very different politically,” Herman said. “Our opposition is trying to make the link with Bennett’s father as a political tactic.”

Although the district is heavily Democratic by registration (53% to 33% Republican), the winner of the primary is expected to face a tough fight against Republican Assemblyman William J. Filante, a physician from Greenbrae who has gained a reputation in Sacramento as a liberal.

Other contested districts in Northern California and the San Joaquin Valley include:

11th District: Parts of Sacramento County and most of San Joaquin County / 51% Democrat, 39% Republican

A new congressional district has been carved out of the rapidly growing Central Valley. Centered in Stockton, the district is heavily Democratic by registration, but its conservative electorate often votes Republican.

Each primary race features an experienced, well-connected woman candidate: Republican Sandra Smoley, a Sacramento County supervisor, and Democrat Patti Garamendi, wife of state Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi. But both face challenges in their primaries.

Smoley, considered a moderate in part because of her stand in favor of abortion rights, is opposed by two conservative first-term city councilmen: Richard Pombo of Tracy and Jack Sieglock of Lodi. They have challenged Smoley as being too liberal. They also portray her as an outsider from Sacramento who cannot win support from the 80% of the district’s voters who live in San Joaquin County.

On the Democratic side, Garamendi is making her third bid for office in three years. She lost in 1990 in a state Senate race and again last year in a contest for the Assembly.

Often viewed as abrasive, she faces a stiff challenge from five-term San Joaquin Supervisor George Barber, who has strong support from developers.

19th District: San Joaquin Valley / 48% Democrat, 43% Republican

In the last reapportionment, this meandering rural district in the center of the San Joaquin Valley was held up as the worst example of Democratic-dominated gerrymandering. Now Rep. Richard H. Lehman (D-Sanger), who was the beneficiary of that oddly shaped district, finds himself in a more conservative district--and in his toughest race in a decade.

Among the four Republicans vying for the chance to run against Lehman are Talleyrand (Tal) Cloud, a USC business graduate who once managed a Realty World franchise in Mission Viejo, and Mariposa County Supervisor George Radanovich, a grape grower and vintner.

Cloud, 27, who moved to Fresno and used his real estate earnings to start a paper and pulp company, favors abortion rights and is running as a moderate alternative to Radanovich, who is campaigning on a “pro-family, anti-big government and pro-life” platform.

10th District: East Bay / 45% Republican, 42% Democratic

Another new congressional seat has been carved out of the suburban communities east of San Francisco Bay, and it appears well-suited to longtime Republican Assemblyman Bill Baker of Danville.

In the heavily Republican Contra Costa County and Livermore Valley, the acerbic conservative faces a modest challenge from Dave Williams, who has run unsuccessfully for Congress several times, as well as for governor in 1990.

Democrat Wendell Williams, a Walnut Creek management consultant who came close to defeating Baker in the 1990 Assembly race, hopes to edge out two other Democrats on the ballot.

14th District: Parts of San Mateo and Santa Clara counties / 46% Democratic, 38% Republican

On the San Francisco Peninsula, 15 candidates have entered the race to succeed Republican Rep. Tom Campbell, who is running for the U.S. Senate. The district, which includes Stanford and the Silicon Valley, would be a prize for either the Democrats or Republicans, and the races are hotly contested in both parties.

Among the candidates are three members of the San Mateo Board of Supervisors, Republican Tom Heuning and Democrats Anna Eshoo and Tom Nolan; Democratic Assemblyman Ted Lempert, who is losing his district to reapportionment; former GOP Assemblyman Dixon Arnett; and the eccentric Stanford whistle-blower, accountant Paul Biddle.

Times staff writer Mark Arax in Fresno contributed to this story.