Beilenson Takes Large Lead Over McClintock : 24th District: In a congressional race that offered voters one of the most stark ideological choices in the state, the veteran liberal appeared headed for victory over the young conservative.

Rep. Anthony C. Beilenson (D-Los Angeles) pulled ahead of Republican Assemblyman Tom McClintock of Thousand Oaks on Tuesday night in a tight race for a new congressional seat based in the western San Fernando Valley.

In partial returns, Beilenson held the edge in the 24th Congressional District, a swath of suburban communities stretching from Sherman Oaks to Malibu and north to Thousand Oaks.

“I’ve felt good about this race for the past few weeks,” said Beilenson, speaking from his Tarzana campaign headquarters, where he and about 60 supporters milled about waiting for updated vote results near midnight.

“Win, lose or draw, I believe we have offered the voters of this district an alternative to the past tax-and-spend policies” of Congress, said McClintock, shortly before he left a party at a supporter’s home to tend to a sick daughter.

The race gave 24th District voters one of the most stark ideological choices in the state this year: Beilenson, a respected veteran liberal, versus McClintock, a fiery young conservative.

In a series of debates throughout the district, the two men expressed dramatically different positions on abortion, federal budget policy, defense spending, national health care and other issues.

Beilenson, 60, is one of the few members of Congress who has not accepted campaign contributions from special-interest political action committees, or PACs, and he assailed McClintock repeatedly for doing so. In a year marked by increased attention to the influence of special interests, Beilenson’s camp hoped the PAC issue would prove decisive in the tight race.

According to legally required campaign finance reports, nearly 49% of McClintock’s funds between July 1 and late October came from PACs. During the campaign he acknowledged hiring a Virginia consultant who solicited more than 500 PACs on his behalf.

The closeness of the campaign made it a battleground between the national Democratic and Republican parties, which made thousands of dollars available to their respective nominees. Voter registration in the district is 46% Democratic and 40% Republican--close enough to be considered a tossup.

The contest was the toughest in years for the lanky, professorial Beilenson, a Harvard-educated lawyer who has served a total of 30 years in the state Legislature and Congress.

A member of the powerful Rules and Budget committees in Congress, the eight-term incumbent has long won praise for his intelligence and integrity.

In 1990, he was named one of the “20 smartest members” of Congress by Roll Call, a newspaper that covers Capitol Hill. U.S. News & World Report named him one of the “12 Straightest Arrows” in the House, saying his “integrity is beyond question.”

As a congressman, Beilenson authored legislation creating the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area. As a state senator in 1967, he also wrote a landmark law liberalizing California’s abortion laws.

For years, Beilenson represented Beverly Hills, Bel-Air and other silk stocking Westside precincts. But the state Supreme Court cut his district in half in this year’s reapportionment, forcing him to choose between running against a powerful Democratic colleague, Rep. Henry Waxman, in another Westside district or taking his chances in the newly created Valley-based district, which had no incumbent.

He chose the Valley district, setting the stage for the narrow contest with McClintock, a hard-charging conservative and prominent tax foe.

An intense-appearing UCLA graduate elected to the Assembly a decade ago at age 26, McClintock is closely identified with conservative and anti-tax causes. Human Events magazine named him one of the nation’s “Ten Young Conservative Leaders.”

In 1991, he gained national attention as the most vocal GOP critic of Gov. Pete Wilson’s proposed state tax increases, arguing that the state budget should be balanced with massive spending cuts instead.

An accomplished orator who laces his speeches with quotes from Churchill, Lincoln and Tolstoy, McClintock this year introduced legislation allowing condemned prisoners to be executed by lethal injection, a move designed to neutralize court arguments that the gas chamber constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.

Even before the fall campaign began, Beilenson generated controversy when he announced his support for a proposed constitutional amendment by conservative Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) to deny automatic U.S. citizenship to American-born children of illegal immigrants.

Liberals and civil rights advocates charged that Beilenson was pandering to anti-immigrant sentiment in the 24th District, an area distinctly more conservative than his old Westside turf.

The congressman denied the accusation, saying he has long opposed illegal immigration and worried that it will spawn a backlash leading to restrictions on legal immigrants.

Beilenson and McClintock each sought to portray the other as an extremist, hoping voters would agree.

In an effort to give their rival’s views the widest public exposure, the men agreed to a series of debates--nine in all, an unusually high number for a local race. Despite the candidates’ sharp differences, the debates had an almost genteel tone, as both men stuck to the issues and avoided personal attacks.

McClintock assailed Beilenson as a liberal tax-and-spender and friend of big government, repeatedly arguing that the congressman “never met a tax he didn’t like” and voted for federal regulations that hurt business.

Beilenson countered by emphasizing his rival’s antiabortion stance and low ratings from environmental and public education groups.

But he struck repeatedly at McClintock’s heavy dependence on PAC funds.

“I’m free because I don’t take money from these people,” he told McClintock during one debate. “Try it some time,” he urged McClintock, grinning. “It’s a very liberating experience.”

McClintock denied he was influenced by PACs and said some of his PAC contributions come from employee groups, rather than corporations.

Times staff writers Tracey Kaplan and Hugo Martin contributed to this story.