CALIFORNIA ELECTIONS : U.S. CONGRESS : At Least 16 New Faces Will Join State Delegation

California voters sent at least 16 new faces to Congress on Tuesday while making election night uneasy for several incumbents who struggled to fend off pesky challengers.

A dozen first-time House candidates, including four women and four minorities, appeared well on their way to victories in districts that were overwhelmingly Democratic or Republican, according to early returns.

Heavy voter turnout and Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton’s sweeping victory in California were expected to help Democrats in their quest to maintain a current seven-seat advantage in the state’s congressional delegation.

Rep. Vic Fazio (D-West Sacramento), regarded as the fractious delegation’s most powerful member, was in a dead heat with former state Sen. H.L. Richardson, a tenacious campaigner and gun owners’ advocate. With $750,000 in contributions and direct mail expertise, Richardson forced Fazio to spend more than $1.5 million in the reelection fight of his career.

Several longtime Democrats, among them Rep. Anthony C. Beilenson of the San Fernando Valley and Rep. George E. Brown Jr. of San Bernardino, also were considered vulnerable to an anti-incumbent electorate.

Assemblywoman Lucille Roybal-Allard, daughter of retiring Rep. Edward R. Roybal (D-Los Angeles), and Lynn Woolsey, a former welfare mother running for the Marin County seat that Rep. Barbara Boxer vacated to run for the Senate, were both expected to breeze to victory. Other Democratic newcomers considered prohibitive favorites were Compton Mayor Walter R. Tucker III and Assemblyman Xavier Becerra of Los Angeles.

Republican Mayor Jay Kim of Diamond Bar was expected to be the first Korean-American elected to Congress.

Tuesday’s election featured some of the most competitive contests for the state’s congressional delegation in decades. General elections for California House seats usually are one-sided affairs that result in nearly all incumbents returning to Washington.

But this is no normal year.

Several factors, among them reapportionment, the Year of the Woman and voter disenchantment with congressional scandals such as the House bank episode, have left several incumbents vulnerable.

Seven new seats were added to the state’s congressional delegation as part of the once-in-a-decade redistricting process. This increased the California total to 52 districts, the largest of any state in the nation’s history and 12% of the House. Eight more seats were left vacant by members who retired or ran for the Senate.

Republicans initially had hoped to take advantage of the new district lines--redrawn by a state Supreme Court-appointed panel of judges--to claim a majority of the 52 seats. But as the campaign wore on, the GOP’s chances of achieving that began fading along with President Bush’s popularity in California.

Instead, Democrats were counting on riding the long coattails of Clinton to help maintain the upper hand. They currently hold a 26-19 edge in the state delegation.

The Republican Party was hurt by a shortage of women running in a political year when they--along with outsiders and newcomers--were seen as having an edge against traditional candidates. The GOP fielded only two women candidates--Los Angeles City Councilwoman Joan Milke Flores in the 36th District and San Diego nurse Judy Jarvis in the 49th District.

By comparison, 17 Democratic women ran for Congress in California.

The state currently has three women House members, a number that was expected to increase to six and possibly as high as 10. The women considered heavy favorites were Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles), Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), Petaluma Vice Mayor Woolsey and Assemblywoman Roybal-Allard.

Two women were guaranteed to be elected as Flores and Jarvis were opposed by Democrats Jane Harman and Lynn Schenk.

Woolsey might have had a tough race on her hands, but her opponent, popular Republican Assemblyman Bill Filante, fell seriously ill with a brain tumor.

Flores, who survived a bruising 11-candidate Republican primary, originally had been expected to net an easy victory in the coastal 36th District. But Harman, a Washington attorney and onetime Carter White House official, pumped nearly $700,000 of her own money into the race, ultimately outspending Flores nearly two-to-one with hard-hitting punches that featured an unusual series of television campaign ads.

Other women mounting strong challenges included Patricia Malberg, a former community college teacher who opposed Rep. John T. Doolittle (R-Rocklin); Anita Perez Ferguson of Oxnard and Janet M. Gastil, who attacked Rep. Duncan L. Hunter (R-Coronado) for his 399 overdrafts at the House bank.

San Mateo County Supervisor Anna Eshoo declared victory in the race for the Silicon Valley seat vacated by Rep. Tom Campbell when he ran for the Republican Senate nomination. Eshoo, who becomes the first Democrat to represent the district in at least 40 years, beat fellow San Mateo County Supervisor Tom Huening, who conceded defeat.

In Santa Barbara, County Supervisor Gloria Ochoa found herself overmatched by multimillionaire Republican Michael Huffington, who has spent a record-shattering $4 million of his own money to capture the 36th District.

Just as House incumbents encountered difficulty across the country, several members of the California delegation were locked in tough contests.

First elected to the House in 1962, Brown was narrowly ahead in a neck-and-neck race with Dick Rutan, a political neophyte known for flying the Voyager aircraft around the world without refueling in 1986.

Five-term Rep. Richard H. Lehman (D-Sanger) faced a stiff challenge from Tal Cloud, 27, vice president of a paper conversion firm he runs with his mother.

Beilenson battled state Assemblyman Tom McClintock (R-Thousand Oaks) in a close race that gave voters a well-defined ideological choice between a respected, veteran liberal and an articulate, young conservative.

Unlike many campaigns, the Beilenson-McClintock face-off was remarkably free of personal attacks and featured a lengthy series of issue-oriented debates held throughout the district, which runs from Sherman Oaks to Malibu and north to Thousand Oaks.

Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley), a three-term incumbent, faced his toughest challenge in Perez Ferguson, an education consultant who lost her first battle for a House seat two years ago. After losing his densely Republican base of Thousand Oaks in redistricting, Gallegly faced the task of winning over voters in heavily Republican Oxnard, where he had never stumped before.