‘92 SAN GABRIEL ELECTIONS : CONGRESS : 4 Incumbents Cruise Back to Their Seats : Diamond Bar Mayor Jay C. Kim will join Reps. David Dreier, Matthew G. Martinez, Carlos J. Moorhead and Esteban E. Torres in the House.

Despite voter sentiment for term limits, four veteran San Gabriel Valley congressmen won reelection Tuesday.

They will be joined in Washington by a freshman representative from Diamond Bar who will be the first Korean-American in Congress.

Diamond Bar Mayor Jay C. Kim, a Republican running in a solid GOP district, beat two rivals easily with nearly 59% of the vote.

Kim said he will resign from the City Council this week and begin negotiations to sell his engineering business to avoid any conflicts of interest.

Even though California voters overwhelmingly approved Proposition 164--which restricts House members to three terms in office and Senate members to two--Reps. David Dreier (R-La Verne), Matthew G. Martinez (D-Monterey Park), Carlos J. Moorhead (R-Glendale) and Esteban E. Torres (D-Pico Rivera) all won reelection decisively.

The closest contest was in the 27th District where Moorhead, a 70-year-old veteran of 20 years in Congress, was held to under 49% of the vote by Democrat Doug Kahn, an Altadena businessman, and three minor party candidates.

Aided by reapportionment and a surge in Democratic registration, Kahn ran a spirited campaign to capture more than 40% of the vote.

Kahn, who vowed to run again in two years, said his only regret was that he did not get into this year’s race earlier. He started running 11 months ago, but should have been working six months before that to take on an entrenched incumbent, he said.

“I’ll be back,” Kahn said. “I’m running right now.”

Kahn said he spent more than $100,000 but could not keep pace with Moorhead’s expensive mailings and radio and television commercials.

Moorhead said he spent more than $400,000 on his campaign, although other estimates placed his expenditures much higher. The congressman said he had to run well ahead of President Bush in his district to win reelection.

“I’m sure (Bush) didn’t carry our district,” Moorhead said. “We were swimming against the trend.”

Dreier, the region’s other Republican incumbent, had an easier time. With 58% of the vote, he handily beat Democrat Al Wachtel, a professor at Pitzer College.

Wachtel said his campaign attracted many volunteers but not much money. He was overwhelmed in the last week by a heavy advertising push by Dreier, who said he spent $50,000 to $70,000 on mailers.

Dreier said the lesson of this year’s election for the Republican Party is to become more inclusive and not drive away voters with rhetoric that narrows the party’s base.

“I think the party will be able to get back to its roots,” he said, defining the “roots” as fiscal conservatism.

The area’s two Democratic incumbents, Martinez and Torres, scored even more lopsided victories than Kim and Dreier, each winning a sixth term with well over 60% of the vote.

Despite his easy victory, Martinez was angry about the campaign waged by his GOP opponent, San Gabriel businessman Reuben Franco, and by newspaper editorial endorsements that characterized his accomplishments in Washington as meager.

Fortunately, Martinez said, voters know his record is much better than depicted by the media.

Martinez said Franco ran a desperate campaign that spread misinformation generated by disgruntled former members of the congressman’s staff. Martinez said he maintained his policy during the campaign of never replying to personal charges, but now that the campaign is over, he is going to respond with an after-campaign mailer to voters.

The congressman said his first priority when he returns to Washington will be to work for passage of the family leave bill that Bush vetoed and President-elect Bill Clinton supports.

Despite his displeasure with the campaign, Martinez had reason to be twice as happy as usual Tuesday night. Not only did he win reelection, his daughter, Diane Martinez, won election to the Assembly.

“That’s the real joy in this thing, to see her do well,” Martinez said. “That’s the really bright spot on the horizon.”

Torres overcame a strong challenge from Republican businessman J. (Jay) Hernandez, who portrayed the incumbent as a typical tax-and-spend liberal who has been in office too long.

“I think the key is constituent service, playing by the rules, working hard and never letting it go to my head,” a jubilant Torres said Tuesday night during a celebration at the United Auto Workers Local 509 headquarters in Pico Rivera. “Oh,” he added. “And not bouncing checks.”