ELECTIONS / 41ST ASSEMBLY DISTRICT : Candidates Replay Dispute Over Budget

If you listen closely to Assemblyman Terry B. Friedman and Republican challenger Christine Reed as they battle over an Assembly seat shared by the Westside and the San Fernando Valley, you would think the contest comes down to a fight between Gov. Pete Wilson and Assembly Speaker Willie Brown.

The budget crisis that pitted the Republican governor against the Democratic leader and kept California issuing IOUs for two months is very much a part of the 41st Assembly District contest.

Friedman, a liberal Democrat, is an outspoken critic of Wilson’s approach to managing California’s troubled finances. He opposes the governor’s initiative to reduce welfare benefits, calling it an extreme measure designed mainly to enhance the chief executive’s power to cut state spending.

Reed, a moderate Republican and former Santa Monica city councilwoman, is a stalwart Wilson ally who favors the measure, Proposition 165 on the Nov. 3 ballot.

The partisan posturing takes on a preeminent role in this hard-fought Assembly contest because the two candidates agree on many basic issues.

Friedman and Reed strongly support abortion rights. They consider themselves environmentalists. To varying degrees, they support public education and vow to be tough on crime.

Reed backed Friedman’s recent bill to protect the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy and supported his landmark legislation to outlaw job discrimination against gays and lesbians.

They differ over their approach to the death penalty, welfare and tax reform, and how to cure what ails the California economy.

But politics is what truly divides the two candidates as they campaign in one of the districts statewide that will determine which party controls the Assembly.

Reapportionment has presented Friedman, who won election in 1986, 1988 and 1990 in a safe district, with serious competition for the first time in his political career.

The Encino Democrat was forced to move westward into a new district that spans the Santa Monica Mountains. An estimated 75% of the territory is new to him.

When the district was created early in the year, Democrats held about a nine-point advantage over Republicans in voter registration. Given that Republicans tend to be more loyal to their party and more conscientious about voting, that would make the district a tossup.

But while Reed slugged it out in the spring with four conservatives to win a heated primary, Friedman coasted to the nomination unopposed and used the time to help organize voter registration efforts.

The registration push, coordinated with other Democratic campaigns and abortion-rights groups, was a success: Democrats now enjoy a 50% to 37% edge over the GOP in the district.

But Friedman is taking nothing for granted. He is walking precincts, meeting voters and vowing to run a grass-roots campaign in addition to the traditional battle of the mailbox. “I’m taking this race seriously,” he said.

Reed hopes to tap voter discontent. “It’s time for a change,” she said. “People are very angry at the Legislature, at Sacramento in general, at Washington in general.”

Interviews with the candidates this week provided a look at what lies ahead. Reed depicted Friedman as too liberal for the district. She will try to brand him as a loyal follower of Brown despite Friedman’s efforts during the budget fight to distance himself from the Speaker.

Friedman will portray Reed as an opponent of Santa Monica’s tough rent control law, and a supporter of landlords and developers during her 15 years on the Santa Monica City Council.

As the campaign entered its final month, Friedman had a substantial lead in campaign funds. In contribution reports filed this week, he showed almost $237,000 in his treasury at the end of September.

Reed had just $17,609 on hand at the end of last month, and enters the final weeks of the race at a disadvantage in her ability to communicate with voters.

The reports show sharp differences in their money sources.

Friedman drew heavy support from labor unions, ranging from carpenters to teachers to state employees to police officers. He has also received contributions from numerous political action committees representing such special interests as trial lawyers, doctors, nurses, hospitals, dentists and optometrists. His largest contributions came from the Los Angeles County District Council of Carpenters, which gave $12,500, and the Police Officers Research Assn. of California, $11,000. Entertainer Don Henley gave $10,000 and Warner Bros. Vice President Howard Welinsky donated $5,500.

Reed has drawn donations from landlords, builders, realtors, mobile home parks, insurance companies, Republican groups and numerous Santa Monica businesses. Her largest contributions have come from the Apartment Assn. of Greater Los Angeles, $6,000; Seaside Financial Corp. of Santa Monica, $5,500, and Santa Monica property owner Polly Benson, $3,500. Actor Arnold Schwarzenegger gave $1,000, and Santa Monica restaurateur Michael McCarty provided an in-kind contribution of $1,149 for a fund-raising event.

The first face-to-face encounter of the campaign, which took place Monday at a meeting of the Santa Monica Area Chamber of Commerce, was cordial. Both candidates said the economy was the dominant issue in the race.

“The state of California is in big trouble,” Friedman told the group. “Our economy is in desperate shape and we simply must take vigorous action.”

Reed said that “the most important thing we have to do for our state is to restore a healthy business environment, to restore jobs . . . to listen to the business community and to clearly address the concerns that they have.”

Friedman called for greater investment in schools, saying it is vital to the state’s economic health.

The assemblyman said Wilson’s proposal for reduced education spending was the defining issue in the budget fight.

Reed took a different view. “I support public education, but I am a fiscal conservative,” she said. “The state cannot spend money it has not got.”

Never mentioning President Bush, she invoked a competitor’s name. “Listen to Ross Perot talking about our grandchildren paying for our lives today,” Reed said. “We cannot borrow from the future. . . . We are in hard times. We have to cut back.”

Both candidates speak of the need to reform California’s workers’ compensation system to ease the burden on business.

Reed said she supports the death penalty. “I think it is a deterrent,” she said.

Friedman opposes capital punishment.

“I recognize that the overwhelming majority of Californians support the death penalty, but in good conscience I cannot,” he told the Santa Monica business group. “It is a matter of . . . my religious training and upbringing.”

Friedman said the murder rate is no different in states that have the death penalty and those that do not. He favors life imprisonment without possibility of parole for murder with special circumstances.

Another major difference emerged during their joint appearance. Reed endorsed Wilson’s welfare initiative, Proposition 165.

Although she said the measure is “harsh in some of its requirements,” including reduction in welfare benefits, Reed praised other provisions as excellent. “The idea of telling out-of-state welfare recipients that they cannot get California level of welfare for a year . . . is a good idea,” she said.

But Friedman said the welfare cuts are a device to mask other provisions of the measure.

“The primary purpose of Proposition 165 is to give the governor unilateral, dictatorial power to determine the budget of the State of California,” Friedman said. “To let one person decide how $60 billion is going to be spent is . . . a very bad idea.”

Friedman declined to take a position when asked whom he will support for speaker if he wins reelection. “I will make no commitnment for Willie Brown.” Reed promised to oppose Brown.