Plans of Filner, Schenk Intersect : Congress: Two new Democratic representatives say they will press for money to replace lost defense jobs.

With Bill Clinton scheduled to occupy the White House in January, the two Democrats newly elected to Congress from San Diego County said Wednesday they will press for federal dollars to replace the thousands of defense jobs that have been lost in the area with civilian jobs.

San Diego City Councilman Bob Filner and Port Commissioner Lynn Schenk, both Democrats, were still basking in their Election Day victories, but they had already plotted out a similar agenda for their first 100 days in Washington.

“Simply put, it’s jobs,” Filner said. “San Diego needs jobs. Lynn and I have good connections in the party, and we hope to use them to bring jobs and business investment to San Diego.”

Schenk is the first woman elected to Congress from San Diego County.

The election of Filner and Schenk means the county’s congressional delegation will now be made up of two Democrats and three Republicans. The Republicans, all incumbents, were returned to Washington on Tuesday.

GOP Rep. Duncan Hunter got a wake-up call of sorts from the voters in the 52nd District. The seven-term congressman beat his Democratic challenger Janet M. Gastil by 10 percentage points, 52% to 42%. But in his last two elections Hunter trounced his opponents by winning 73% and 74% of the vote in 1990 and 1988, respectively.

Gastil ran an aggressive campaign against Hunter, constantly hammering him with television and radio ads that criticized him for the 407 overdrafts totaling $129,225 that he wrote on his U.S. House bank account.

Schenk, who won in the 49th District, and Filner, who won in the 50th District, said they would work to make sure that San Diego is not left out of Clinton’s $50-billion reinvestment plan for America’s cities.

San Diego’s defense and aerospace industries have been hard-hit, both by the recession and the downsizing of the military. About 7,000 jobs have been lost in these industries over the past three years.

“The defense industry is very important to San Diego,” Schenk said. “We cannot allow the President and Congress to wipe out the industry here and not replace it with meaningful jobs in the civilian sector. . . . San Diego is an area where we can look to environmental technology as a future job-producing base.”

“Economic conversion to get the defense industry to move to domestic production is a top priority,” Filner said. “But the No. 1 priority for me will be to get our shipbuilding industry moving. I believe that if we can get Nassco (National Steel & Shipbuilding Co.) moving in the double-hull tanker market, we can turn the economy around in San Diego.”

The Nassco shipyard, which is in Filner’s district, is the only privately owned shipyard left on the West Coast. The company relies almost exclusively on Navy repair and shipbuilding contracts, but Nassco executives said they hope to capture some of the double-hull market.

A new federal law requires U.S. oil tankers to be converted to double hulls beginning next year.

Filner’s margin of victory was almost 2 to 1, 57% to 29%, over his Republican challenger, Tony Valencia. That is larger than the 16% registration edge that Democrats have in the district.

Schenk’s victory was not as certain. She won in a district where Republicans have a 4% registration edge, 43% to 39%. Schenk trailed during the early returns but rebounded and won the race by 10 percentage points over GOP challenger Judy Jarvis.

Hunter was unavailable for comment Wednesday. Campaign officials said he had decided to travel throughout the district to thank voters who returned him to office.

A bitter Gastil said she had not ruled out another challenge to the ultra-conservative Hunter in 1994. The former La Mesa school board member and orchard owner was still smarting from what she said were Hunter’s “sleazy campaign tactics.”

Gastil complained that Hunter misled voters when he alleged in his campaign literature that she supported a 10-cent-a-gallon gasoline tax and that she favored eliminating the military. Hunter’s ads also labeled her as a liberal who would eliminate jobs.

“He sent out a mailer saying that I wanted to eliminate the military,” Gastil said. “That was the first time it hit me like a ton of bricks that the man was telling outright lies. . . . I saw in the final days of the campaign a man desperately lying to save his job.”

“It’s too early to have definitive plans, but offhand, I would say that I will definitely challenge him again in 1994,” she added.