O’Connell Announces Senate Seat Candidacy : 18th District: The assemblyman is quickly endorsed by Gary K. Hart, his mentor and the man he hopes to replace.

Seeking to fill the seat of his political mentor, longtime Assemblyman Jack O’Connell on Tuesday announced his bid to replace Sen. Gary K. Hart in the state Senate.

“It’s going to be very difficult to follow someone of Gary’s stature,” O’Connell said in declaring his state Senate candidacy with Hart at his side. “I’ve learned a great deal from him.”

Hart immediately endorsed the 41-year-old Democrat from Carpinteria to take over the seat representing the 18th Senate District, which encompasses portions of western Ventura County and all of Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties.

“He is the logical person to succeed me,” said Hart, who announced last month that he will quit his office in 1994 to pursue other interests. He praised O’Connell for his work on education and environmental and economic issues. “I’m going to do all I can to see that he is elected.”

Hart acknowledged that he endorsed O’Connell to avoid a bruising Democratic primary in the district that favors Republican candidates. Democrats hold a very slight advantage over Republicans in registered voters, 43% to 41%. But Republican voters traditionally turn out on Election Day in higher numbers.

No other Democrats have formally announced intentions to run in the sprawling district that was created during 1992 redistricting. With the new boundaries, the district includes Ventura, Santa Paula, Ojai and much of the northern Ventura County as well as all of the other two counties.

O’Connell, who has never lost a campaign, said his biggest challenge will be getting his name known in northern Santa Barbara County and San Luis Obispo County. “We’ve got 100,000 in the bank,” he said.

O’Connell also vowed to continue his aggressive style of grass-roots campaigning, taking to the streets and knocking on voters’ doors in every city in the district.

So far, his only announced competitor is Republican Steve Mac Elvaine, a cattle rancher and former San Luis Obispo County supervisor. Mac Elvaine was the first to declare his intention to run about three weeks ago.

Other possible Republican candidates are Santa Barbara County Supervisor Mike Stoker, California Energy Commissioner Charles R. Imbrecht and Assemblywoman Andrea Seastrand (R-San Luis Obispo).

Seastrand had no comment on whether she would join the race, and Stoker and Imbrecht said they have not made a decision on their candidacies.

Since he was first elected in 1982, O’Connell has represented the 35th Assembly District, which now encompasses Ventura, Santa Paula and Ojai as well as much of Santa Barbara County.

In the past few years, O’Connell has been appointed by his colleagues to the position of speaker pro tem. In that job, he spends much of his time presiding over the Assembly when Speaker Willie Brown is preoccupied.

O’Connell said he did not believe his close association with Brown would be detrimental to his campaign in the Republican-leaning Senate district. “Willie Brown will not be in the Senate. The Willie Brown hit has never worked,” O’Connell said.

A former high school teacher, O’Connell has built a large following among Democrats and even many Republicans in his district by focusing on local issues.

Under voter-imposed term limits, O’Connell would be forced to retire from the Assembly in 1996. If he wins Hart’s seat, he would stay in the Legislature until 1998.

Gale Kaufman, who has run some of O’Connell’s campaigns before, will be in charge of O’Connell’s Senate race, and Hart will be the campaign’s honorary chairman.

O’Connell’s decision to run for the state Senate leaves his seat open for a host of expected candidates from Ventura and Santa Barbara counties.

Ventura Mayor Gregory L. Carson, a Republican, has expressed interest in making an Assembly bid. But he said Tuesday he is not ready to announce a decision.

“Now that the seat’s open, I’m really going to pursue my options,” Carson said. “I want to talk to people. I want to make sure that I have the support.”

Santa Barbara school board member Alan Ebenstein, who was O’Connell’s Republican challenger in 1992, said he intends to run, but has not formally announced his candidacy.

And Tim Campbell, a Santa Barbara business consultant, is another potential Republican candidate, who has yet to make a final decision.