ELECTIONS 36TH CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT : Foes Share Little Besides Political Pedigrees : Democrat: Jane Harman has made formidable connections in Washington. Now, she’s fighting to prove her allegiance to California.

This may be Jane Harman’s first run for public office, but she is not a political neophyte. Neither are her kids.

“Vote Reginomicks, NOT!!” advises a red, white and blue cartoon face of Ronald Reagan that her 10-year-old son, Dan, made for her campaign office.

The boy’s attitude is not surprising, considering that his mom was deputy secretary to the Cabinet in the Carter White House, and that his dad--Sidney Harman--served as undersecretary of commerce under Carter.

Harman’s Democratic pedigree--featuring nearly two decades of work for the party in both the public and private sectors--gives her entree to some of the most powerful Democrats inside the Washington Beltway.

But as Harman, 47, reaches the homestretch in her race for the 36th Congressional District seat, she is fighting to convince coastal South Bay and Westside communities that her heart remains closer to them than to Capitol Hill.

“If elected to Congress, Jane Harman will represent the Washington D.C. insiders . . . NOT US!” declares a campaign mailer sent out by her Republican opponent, Los Angeles City Councilwoman Joan Milke Flores.

Sporting Harman’s resume--and headlined “The Career of a Washington D.C. Insider,”--the mailer raps Harman for her 22 years of public- and private-sector jobs inside the Washington Beltway. Also included in the mailer are reproductions of Harman’s District of Columbia voter registration card and the 1993 property tax bill for her $1.8-million District of Columbia home.

Harman and her supporters say the carpetbagging label won’t stick because she was raised in West Los Angeles and has maintained business and personal ties to the area, periodically renting homes and at one point owning a vacation house in Los Angeles County.

“My background and experience and skills are much closer to those of the voters of the 36th District than are those of Joan Flores,” Harman said. “I understand this district and its needs and I have the knowledge of the Washington system to know how to meet those needs.”

Born in New York, Harman was 4 when her physician father relocated his medical practice to Culver City and moved his family to West Los Angeles. Following her graduation from University High School in 1962, Harman earned a degree at Smith College in Massachusetts and then a law degree at Harvard Law School.

She passed the District of Columbia bar and soon joined the staff of former California Sen. John Tunney, through whom she became chief counsel and staff director of two subcommittees of the Senate Judiciary Committee. She won her White House post in 1977.

It was a heady time of transition at the start of the Carter Administration. Harman’s duties included helping to coordinate and execute White House domestic policy, which brought her in contact with most of the important Democratic leaders of the day.

“Jane brought a lot of energy and intelligence and skill to the process,” said Jack H. Watson Jr., who as secretary to the Cabinet recruited Harman for the post. “She relishes the political process. She’s a good negotiator because she really enjoys the give-and-take of what in the private sector would be called deal-making and in the political sector is putting together coalitions and consensus.”

Even now, 14 years after she left her White House position, Harman remains extremely well-connected to the intricate processes that rule Capitol Hill, Watson said.

“She would be a formidable congresswoman,” he said. “She is irrepressible, like an irresistible force.”

A 1978 divorce cut short her White House tenure, Harman said, because she wanted to resign and devote more time to her two young children.

A year later, she returned to the Washington political scene as a special counsel to the Department of Defense. Roughly a year after that, she moved to a private Washington law firm, but her party connections continued.

In 1984, she served as counsel to the Democratic convention’s platform committee, in 1987 she co-chaired a $2.2-million Democratic Party fund-raiser, and from 1986 to 1990 she chaired the National Lawyers’ Council, which acts as a legal network for the Democratic Party.

Her campaign finance filings show that party ties have served her well. The statements include contributions from such party luminaries as former President Carter, former vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro, former Sen. Tunney and former Democratic National Chairman Charles Manatt.

Her strong support for abortion rights also has brought in scores of donations, including dozens of individual contributions from members of EMILY’s List, a national group that coordinates donations to Democratic women candidates who favor abortion rights.

Harman, who like Flores has so far spent about $600,000 campaigning this year, loaned herself nearly $250,000 to get her primary campaign rolling.

Noting that this is one of only three congressional races in the nation pitting a woman who supports abortion rights against one who does not, Harman says that her polls indicate nearly three-quarters of the district’s voters want abortion to remain legal.

“In this Year of the Political Woman, it’s not just any woman,” Harman said. “I think this district more than any other in the country offers a very stark choice between women, and marks . . . the next level of women in politics.”

After her 1980 marriage to Sidney Harman, founder of audio equipment manufacturer Harman International, Harman began what she characterizes as a bi-coastal lifestyle.

Her legal duties as a corporate attorney and her responsibilities at the California manufacturing facilities of her husband’s company, for which she is board secretary, frequently required her to travel to Los Angeles, she said.

But she never became a member of the California bar and continued to maintain her primary residence in Washington.

Harman says a joint-custody agreement with her ex-husband discouraged her from returning home to California until their two children were grown.

It wasn’t until last year, when her eldest son graduated from high school and his sister decided to spend her senior year abroad, that Harman says she felt free to make the move permanent. The family, which now includes two more children born during Harman’s second marriage, last year purchased a house in Marina del Rey.

Harman acknowledges she had congressional aspirations at the time.

“I’ve always tried to find ways to serve California . . . and I saw in these (district) lines a chance to talk about the issues I had always cared about, including choice and jobs,” she said.

“I saw this as a community of people terrified about losing jobs who have enormously sophisticated training and skills,” she said. “I want to make sure Los Angeles does not lose their tremendous talents.”

Experience inside the Washington bureaucracy, she said, will make it easier for her to ensure that the district’s businesses get the defense contracts, job retraining and research funding they need.

Without saying specifically how many terms she would want to serve, Harman said she will achieve her goals and then get out.

“I view serving in Congress as a chapter in my life,” she said. “ Entrenched incumbent will never be words you use about me.”

Minor-Party Candidates

Three minor-party candidates also are vying for votes in the 36th Congressional District on Nov. 3.

If elected, Green Party candidate Richard H. Greene said he would implement “a broad, sweeping plan of reform” that would emphasize federal backing of alternative energy technologies, clean manufacturing and environmentally sound engineering.

Libertarian candidate Marc F. Denney said he wants to scale back the federal government and create a single, flat-rate national sales tax that would replace all other levies on incomes and businesses.

Peace and Freedom candidate Owen Staley says he wants to see “a complete socialist make-over” of the federal government. He would make more tax money available for social programs.

The Issues

THE ECONOMY AND JOBS

Harman supports a system of job retraining, particularly for unemployed defense workers, combined with a public/private partnership aimed at developing new technologies and industries.

Flores, who wrote enterprise zone legislation for the City of Los Angeles, supports using tax incentives and tax breaks to stimulate the economy. She supports a cut in the capital gains tax and incentives for American companies that invest in expansion. HEALTH CARE

Harman supports a system that would provide affordable health care for everyone, while still allowing a choice of providers. She favors a national plan that would stress preventive care and cover long-term care, but does not say if it would be government-run.

Flores opposes creating a government-run national health program because she believes it would require rationing care. Instead, she favors a “Medisave” program that would allow people to pay for their insurance with before-tax dollars and health care reforms that would standardize medical insurance paperwork and make premiums fully tax deductible.

ABORTION

Harman, whose campaign motto is “Pro-Choice, Pro-Change,” supports abortion rights and believes the government should play no role in a woman’s decision on whether to have an abortion.

Flores has said in the past that she would support a ban on abortions except those involving rape, incest or a threat to the life of the mother. But she opposes a constitutional amendment banning the procedure. EDUCATION

Harman and Flores support reducing the federal and state bureaucracies, saying red tape hampers the flow of money to the classroom.