Killea Headed for Reelection to Senate; Kelley Also Leads

State Sen. Lucy Killea, the independent candidate whose abandonment of the Democratic Party sent shock waves through San Diego’s political community last year, was headed for reelection Tuesday over former state Sen. Jim Ellis, who occupied the seat for most of the 1980s.

“I think in this election people were looking for someone to speak out and be independent,” Killea said late Tuesday. “We were trying to prove a point. San Diego is an independent-minded county, and they felt they could support me.”

In the 37th Senate District, GOP Assemblyman David G. Kelley was handily beating opponent Jim Rickard. Kelley was expected to win the seat in the heavily Republican district, which includes portions of San Diego, Riverside and Imperial counties.

The race for the 39th Senate District, a key test for GOP efforts to gain control of the Legislature, became a referendum of sorts on the 70-year-old Killea, who made news in 1989 when San Diego Catholic Bishop Leo T. Maher prohibited her from receiving Communion because of her pro-choice abortion views.

The ensuing uproar and national media attention that year propelled Killea, a former assemblywoman and San Diego city councilwoman, to beat out Republican Assemblywoman Carol Bentley in a special election. Killea used her pro-choice platform again in this election against Ellis, who opposes abortion.

Last year, Killea stunned the state Democratic Party by announcing she was becoming an independent. A Democrat for 40 years, she said she had grown tired of partisan politics. Critics said she was simply trying to take advantage of the newly redrawn district’s 4% GOP registration edge.

Seeking to blunt criticism of party-switching, Killea ran television ads--one showing her in a rowboat and another showing her in a parka, standing beside blocks of ice--telling viewers she had been neither “cast adrift” nor “frozen out” of Sacramento, as some had predicted.

“It was my most successful term yet,” Killea said, citing passage of most of her bills.

In attempting a comeback bid, the 64-year-old Ellis, who held the state Senate seat from 1980 to 1988, accused Killea of being “anti-business” because the California Chamber of Commerce gave her a low rating on several of its legislative report cards.

He slammed Killea for the $9,000 in fines she was ordered to pay by the state Fair Political Practices Commission for her failure to record campaign contributions during her 1989 special election.

Upon taking office, Ellis said, he would attempt to remove Willie Brown as Assembly speaker, reform the state welfare system and cut the capital gains tax.

Ellis called for using the National Guard to stop the flow of drugs from other countries, sealing the U.S.-Mexico border and increasing penalties on people who sell drugs to children.

When he left the Senate in 1988, Ellis said he was exhausted and needed a break. He immediately took a gubernatorial appointment to the Agricultural Labor Relations Board.

In most of her advertisements and mailers, Killea was reluctant to criticize Ellis, but took exception to his repeated references to her $9,000 in political fines.

Killea sent a special mailer to constituents explaining that her husband and campaign treasurer, Jack, was found to have cancer at the time the campaign reports were due and that the contributions were simply overlooked.