CALIFORNIA ELECTIONS / 78th ASSEMBLY DISTRICT : Little Separates the Candidates

With a fuzzy portrait of Ross Perot as a backdrop, Republican state Assembly candidate Jeff Marston was in his element last week as he spoke before a few dozen Perot supporters at the “United We Stand America” San Diego election headquarters.

He made disparaging remarks about doctors, lawyers and insurers, popular targets among voters who believe that the cost of medical care is exorbitant because of feuds among the three powerful lobbying forces.

Though his main opponent in the 78th Assembly District, incumbent Deidre (Dede) Alpert (D-Coronado) didn’t appear, voters may not have noticed the difference if she had. The candidates agree on almost everything.

“I wish I was running against a nut who was completely different from me,” Alpert said. “But we tend to sound a lot alike. Jeff and I are both pretty much centrist candidates. There are more shades of differences with us.”

Marston, however, has portrayed himself as an outsider to Sacramento, even though he spent six months in the Assembly in 1990 after a special election to fill Lucy Killea’s unexpired term. When the race was on for a full two-year term, Marston lost to Mike Gotch by 628 votes.

Before the Perot crowd last week, he vowed not to raise taxes, while pledging to keep businesses in California.

Marston called 1992 “most certainly a year of change. It’s the year, more than ever, that the electorate is looking to displace the status quo. Certainly, you in ‘United We Stand’ know that better than anyone.”

Marston has a considerable advantage. Voter registration in the district is 45% GOP and 37% Democratic.

A third candidate in the race is Sally Sherry O’Brien of the Peace and Freedom Party.

Republican leaders consider the race one of the more important in the state and one they need in order to regain control in the Assembly.

Democrats outnumber Republicans, 47 to 33, in the Assembly.

Alpert, a Solana Beach school board member from 1983 through 1990, won her seat in the 75th Assembly District in 1990, defeating Sunny Mojonnier, who had held the job for the previous eight years.

Mojonnier, an Encinitas Republican, had been embroiled in a series of problems, including her use of state-paid sergeants-at-arms for private chauffeuring and double-billing her state and campaign committee for certain expenses.

In the current race, the candidates differ on few issues.

Both have accepted money from political action committees but support the elimination of PAC contributions. Both oppose the use of so-called “soft money” contributions from political parties.

Marston has not taken a position on whether candidates should be able to raise money outside their district. Alpert opposes it.

The 78th District stretches along the coast from Del Mar’s southern boundary to the Mexican border, extending inland to include portions of Clairemont, Linda Vista, Old Town, Hillcrest and North Park.

Marston wants environmental impact statements accompanied by economic statements showing the financial consequences of protecting the environment. He also would seek a way to streamline the construction permitting processes by having business interests collect all permits at one location. New businesses wanting to move to California should get a first-year tax break, he said.

“The leaders in the majority of the Legislature just don’t get it,” he said. “They don’t understand that when you overtax and over-regulate business, you drive them out of state or into bankruptcy. And with that, you drive tens of thousands of people onto the unemployment rolls.”

Alpert agrees with all of that.

“The No. 1 issue is the economy and jobs,” she said. “Without a healthy economy, none of the priorities can be accomplished. We have to take a role in trying to reach out to business and show that Democrats, in particular, should be more responsive.”

Two bills she sponsored that became law are among her top accomplishments, she says.

One requires that everyone who runs or operates a child care center have at least 15 hours of health training, such as CPR. Another requires that parents of children who attend family day care produce proof of their child’s immunization.

She has also gotten a bill approved that protects community medical clinics from being sued, as a way to get more medical care in poor areas of San Diego.

While Marston has criticized Alpert’s votes to raise taxes, including the state sales tax last year, the incumbent said she had little choice, given the state’s dire condition following the Los Angeles riots, the Oakland fire, two major earthquakes and a drought.

He has also focused on her opposition to the death penalty. In a mailer to her district, Alpert explained that she has voted to increase prison terms for convicted felons and has made a case that death penalty appeals actually cost the state millions more than housing condemned killers for life.

“I want to make it clear that while I oppose the death penalty, I am not soft on crime,” she said. “Since the death penalty in this state is the will of the people, I would not try to change that.”

Characterizing himself as a “local control freak,” Marston, who works for a public-relations firm, said he would work for a bill in Sacramento that would give school districts a set amount of money under a “charter” concept, which would be distributed in exchange for meeting certain achievement goals.

Strengthening the economy will depend on reforming workers’ compensation, the environmental permitting process and the tax code, he said.

“The majority of the Legislature doesn’t understand that the problem isn’t that we are not taxed enough,” Marston told the Perot audience. “The problem is that the state, with its failed economic programs, has not enough Californians working and paying their fair share to fund the truly legitimate services of government.”

Marston, who worked on the staff of former San Diego City Councilwoman Gloria McColl, Rep. Duncan Hunter and U.S. Sen. S.I. Hayakawa, has been endorsed by Gov. Pete Wilson, the San Diego Police Assn., the San Diego Firefighters Assn., and the Peace Officers Research Assn. of California.

While Marston has attacked Alpert as being part of the problem in Sacramento, Alpert counters that Marston is the “consummate insider,” having been a staff member to elected officials for years.

“I am much more an agent of change than he is,” Alpert said.

Through last week, Marston had raised $195,814 and spent $171,197 through one committee. Through another committee, he had taken out a $2,500 loan and spent $52,974.

Some of his major contributors: The Political Action Committee of the Assn. of California Insurers, $7,500; the state Correctional Peace Officers Assn., $25,000; the California Defense Counsel PAC, $7,000, and the Lincoln Club of Orange County, $5,000.

Alpert has been backed by state Sen. Lucy Killea, the California Assn. of Highway Patrolmen, the California Nurses Assn., the Sierra Club and the California Teachers Assn.

She had raised $236,306 as of last week and spent $128,581. Some of her major contributors are: the Democratic State Central Committee of California, $25,658; the state Council of Laborers PAC, $7,500; the California Teachers Assn. for Better Citizenship, $6,500; the California Society of Industrial Medicine and Surgery PAC, $5,000, and the Assn. of California School Administrators PAC, $6,250.

O’Brien, 75, who lives at a downtown San Diego hotel and has a jail ministry, said she does not intend to win but is running to see how many votes she will get.