Chu Plans to Join Race for State Assembly : Politics: Monterey Park councilwoman says a seat will be vacant because Diane Martinez intends to run for state Senate. But Martinez says she is undecided. : WEST SAN GABRIEL VALLEY

Monterey Park City Councilwoman Judy Chu has announced she will run for Diane Martinez’s 49th state Assembly District seat next year, even though an angry Martinez says she has not yet decided whether to run for state Senate.

The 24th District state Senate seat will be open because incumbent Art Torres plans to announce early next year that he is running for state insurance commissioner, a spokesman for Torres said last week.

Chu, a 40-year-old Chinese-American, said she is entering the race for the Assembly district that includes Rosemead, San Gabriel, Alhambra, Monterey Park and portions of East Los Angeles because Martinez told several city officials and local activists that she plans to run for Torres’ seat.

Martinez, a fellow Democrat, says that’s news to her. She denies ever expressing interest in the Senate race.

“This stinks. She (Chu) did not even telephone me to say she was going to make this announcement,” said Martinez (D-Rosemead), who was elected to her two-year term last November.

Martinez, a 40-year-old Latina and former president of the Garvey School District board of education, acknowledged that she has not ruled out running for Torres’ seat if he makes an official announcement that he is running for insurance commissioner. But she also wants to maintain the option of running for reelection to the Assembly.

Chu insists that Martinez has been campaigning for Torres’ seat for the past three months.

“She has been telling everyone from Sacramento to Los Angeles she was going to run for state Senate,” Chu said. “She told my husband she was going to run.”

Chu, a psychology professor at East Los Angeles College, added that at this point, she intends to challenge Martinez even if the incumbent fights to hold onto the Assembly seat.

Alhambra Mayor Barbara A. Messina, who is active in local Democratic politics, said she thinks it is unlikely that the two politicians would ultimately go head-to-head. But Messina said Chu should have delayed pressing her Assembly campaign until Martinez announced a Senate bid.

Martinez got into politics six years ago because she was outraged about cutbacks in gifted children’s programs at her daughter’s school. She was elected to the Garvey school board in 1987 and served two terms.

Political analysts say the 49th District may be fertile territory for an Asian-American representative. In the 1992 Assembly election, Sophie Wong, an Alhambra school board member running as a Republican, won 40% of the vote compared to Martinez’s 57% in the heavily Democratic district.

According to the 1990 U.S. Census, the growing Asian population makes up 25% of the district’s 370,000 residents, while Latinos are 55% of the population.

In Monterey Park, Asians outnumber Latinos 56% to 31%; in Alhambra, 37% of residents are Asian compared with 36% Latino. In Rosemead and San Gabriel, Latinos outnumber Asians, 50% to 33% and 36% to 32%, respectively.

Chu, who will serve as Monterey Park’s mayor for the second time next year, was first elected to the council in 1988. She campaigned on pledges to seek more local control over development and greater community participation in city government, said Jose Calderon, an assistant professor of sociology at Pitzer College who follows area politics.