CALIFORNIA ELECTIONS : U.S. SENATE : Seymour TV Ad Blasts Feinstein on Crime Issue

Republican Sen. John Seymour aired a television ad Saturday claiming that Democrat Dianne Feinstein’s positions on crime issues are so liberal they would result in “turning people loose, like Robert Alton Harris,” an executed murderer.

Feinstein campaign manager Kam Kuwata denounced the ad as “a piece of trash.” Feinstein said Seymour has nothing else to run on, so he hopes to win their Senate race “by destroying me.”

“Anyone who knows me knows that I am not soft on crime,” added the former San Francisco mayor, who is challenging Seymour for the final two years of the Senate term won by Gov. Pete Wilson in 1988. Wilson appointed Seymour to the seat in early 1991 when Wilson resigned from the Senate to become governor.

The 30-second commercial, which is airing statewide, is arguably the toughest attack ad in either U.S. Senate race in California this year. It features Stephen Baker, the father of one of Harris’ victims. When Harris went to the gas chamber April 21, he became the first person to be executed in California in 24 years.

Baker, appearing in a prison setting, said that he has kept “a close eye on these politicians” since his son Michael was murdered in 1978, adding:

“And the fact is, when Feinstein had a chance, she paroled 21 convicted murders. On average, murderers were turned loose after only six years when Feinstein sat on the parole board.

“We don’t need another liberal senator like Feinstein appointing more liberal judges, and turning people loose, like Robert Alton Harris.”

Feinstein was one of five members of the state women’s parole board from 1960-66, and Seymour has used the parole issue against Feinstein repeatedly since raising it in their televised debate in Sacramento this month. Feinstein has responded that the board handled about 5,000 cases while she was a member, that she was one of the most conservative members of the board and that the board operated under sentencing and parole rules far different than today’s.

So far, she has said, there is no evidence that any of the 21 women cited by Seymour committed any felonies or were returned to prison after their paroles. Seymour has not come forth with any such cases.

The ad also questions the sincerity of Feinstein’s support for the death penalty. Baker opens by saying: “Dianne Feinstein’s a candidate again and now she claims to support the death penalty.” A script of the ad distributed by the Seymour campaign underlined the word now for emphasis.

Although she opposed the death penalty into the 1960s, Feinstein changed her mind, in part because of her experiences on the women’s parole board, and she has long been a supporter of the death penalty, she said Saturday. In fact, Feinstein was condemned by her own San Francisco County Democratic Committee in the 1970s for supporting the death penalty for those who killed police or correctional officers. She was booed at the Democratic State Convention in 1990, when she was running for governor, for voicing her backing for the death penalty.

Feinstein has criticized Seymour for voting against a crime bill in the Senate this past year--one she said would devote more than $1 billion to putting more police officers on the streets.

“I think they are trying to obfuscate his position on the crime bill and his own record in that area,” Feinstein said. “They can’t debunk the fact that when I was mayor, the San Francisco crime rate went down 27% and I put 200 additional police officers on the streets.”

The Seymour commercial also is misleading because it implies that Feinstein would be “appointing more liberal judges.” Senators recommend candidates for the federal courts, but all appointments are made by the President, subject to confirmation by the U.S. Senate.

When she was on the women’s parole board, Feinstein said, first-degree murder carried a sentence of seven years to life and second-degree murder five years to life, with the convicts eligible for parole after 21 months in prison.

“It was a different system,” she said.

Campaign manager Kuwata said: “The people who brought us Willie Horton on television are bringing us more trash in 1992. It is unfortunate that rather than deal in the truth and vision as a U.S. senator, they are trying to play on the grief of a father. It’s sad they would stoop that low.”

On Friday, Seymour attacked Feinstein for her campaign ads that he called “a disgrace” and “character assassination.” He referred specifically to one commercial that said his Senate payroll was the largest of any senator’s, as reported by the secretary of the Senate. Seymour’s response has been that “on a per-capita basis, I rank 100 out of 100.”