Potential ’94 Opponents Emboldened to Challenge Moorhead

STARTING UP: Rep. Carlos J. Moorhead (R-Glendale) is a 21-year congressional veteran whose 27th District became less solidly Republican following reapportionment in 1992. With this shift, combined with the anti-incumbent tide, Moorhead saw his vote tally dip to 50% last year--even though he outspent his Democratic opponent by better than 4 to 1.

Although Moorhead still won by 22,000 votes, his slippage has apparently emboldened potential 1994 opponents. Elizabeth Michael, a former Republican county committeewoman from Eagle Rock, plans to announce her primary candidacy today. And Doug Kahn, the Altadena businessman who lost to Moorhead last year, is running for the Democratic nomination again.

Michael, 37, a small-business consultant, has run unsuccessfully for the state Assembly and Senate and the Los Angeles Community College District board. She says she is economically conservative but is a socially Libertarian supporter of gay and women’s rights. She is African-American and lives just outside the 27th District.

Michael and Kahn are teeing off early on a lawmaker who is the ranking Republican on the influential Energy and Commerce Committee and second-ranking on the Judiciary Committee.

“He’s basically a bought congressman, by his special-interest money,” Michael said of Moorhead. “He doesn’t use the power he has for the benefit of the district or the country.”

Responded Moorhead: “That’s just totally false. I would not have been elected as many times as I have been if that was true.” He pointed to his role on energy bills, court reform, protecting U.S. patents and copyrights abroad and uniting the fractious California delegation.

Kahn, 41, who owns a type-setting business, has never stopped running. He said he has raised $30,000 and traveled to Washington to seek support from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. He said he needs to raise far more than his total of $167,898 in 1992.

Kahn said Moorhead “doesn’t seem interested in doing the job. He follows the party leadership 99% of the time. That’s not the record of someone who’s representing a district.”

Congressional Quarterly found that Moorhead voted with Republican President Bush 86% of the time in 1992--tying him for the third highest figure among California Republicans.

“I’ve got a Republican district,” Moorhead replied. “My people have been Republican through the years. I’m not a tax-and-spend Democrat like Mr. Kahn.”

Moorhead, 71, predicted that his reelection next year will be “a lot easier. We don’t have a failed presidential campaign,” referring to Bush’s poor California showing. “I really think this will be a good year for Republicans.”

BREAKING UP: Los Angeles City Councilwoman Laura Chick has confirmed that she and her husband, Robert Chick, an insurance executive, have separated. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore,” the councilwoman said this week. “It has nothing to do with the difficulties of this job.”

Chick, 49, has thrown herself with extraordinary energy into the council post she took from incumbent Joy Picus during last spring’s election, prompting speculation that her hyperkinetic legislative pace was at least partly to blame for the separation.

Robert Chick is the $250,000-a-year president of Lawyer’s Mutual Insurance Co., a Burbank-based firm that provides malpractice insurance to attorneys, and he is no stranger to politics himself.

For nine years, he was a Mayor Tom Bradley appointee to the city’s powerful Airport Commission, resigning only last February, saying he wanted to avoid any appearance that he would use his commission job to help his wife’s emerging political career.

Nevertheless, Robert Chick became somewhat of a lightning rod during the campaign. Citing his ties to the Bradley Administration and the jet-setting ways of the airport commissioners, Picus tried to turn Robert Chick into a liability for his wife.

At several debates, Picus presented Robert Chick as Exhibit 1 to support her charge that Laura Chick was part of an elite downtown political crowd. She also blasted Chick’s stewardship of the airport itself. Replying to these attacks at one debate, Chick said: “Quite honestly, I’m incredibly proud of my husband.”

Robert Chick’s ties to the legal community and to City Hall were believed to be partly responsible for his wife’s ability to virtually match, dollar for dollar, Picus’ campaign fund raising.

TIMING IS EVERYTHING: A $7.50 egg timer has become the most powerful voice on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, brashly interrupting even the most important testimony. The ordinary kitchen device, purchased last month to discourage loquacious board members from exceeding a five-minute limit on comments, apparently has a mind of its own.

It went off again for the umpteenth time recently, underscoring a warning from Public Works Director Thomas A. Tidemanson about the increased risk of flooding in fire-ravaged areas.

“If we get rains like last year”--BRRINNNG--BRRINNNG--BRRINNNG--”we’re looking at another major disaster,” Tidemanson managed to say.

Board Chairman Edmund D. Edelman, the finicky timer’s handler, admitted he’s no James Beard. “You have to pass 15 minutes and then bring it back to five minutes,” he said, explaining what most cooks know about setting timers. The veteran politician then added a dash of spin control: “It’s a new thing, but I think it’s working well.”

NOT IN MY OFFICE: Earlier this year, the Capitol Hill Women’s Political Caucus urged lawmakers to adopt a written policy against sexual harassment. A total of 271 House members and 72 senators agreed to do so.

Among them were Valley-area Reps. Anthony C. Beilenson (D-Woodland Hills), Howard L. Berman (D-Panorama City), Howard P. (Buck) McKeon (R-Santa Clarita) and Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles).

Missing from the “honor roll” roster was Carlos Moorhead.

“I do not have a written office policy, but I have talked to my staff about the subject,” Moorhead said. He told them that “if anything disturbed them in any way they should come to me immediately and I’d put a stop to it.”

He emphasized: “I’m absolutely opposed to sexual harassment of any kind. I’d be appalled if there was any in the office.”

The Women’s Political Caucus told members that it “strongly believes that a written policy distributed to each member of your staff can protect you and your employees from misunderstandings about what sexual harassment is and why it occurs. More importantly, it can create a better working environment.”

Moorhead, whose staff is predominantly female, said he was not opposed to adopting a written policy but that “it’d almost be an insult” to his staff to do so.

“There are places that it’s necessary,” he said. “I don’t think it happens to be necessary with the people I have here.”

This column was reported by Times staff writers Alan C. Miller in Washington and John Schwada and Tracey Kaplan in Los Angeles.