ELECTIONS / DISTRICT 43 STATE ASSEMBLY : Deep-Pocketed Conservatives Back Rogan

Four Republican millionaires, who spent $2.2 million on GOP candidates and conservative causes in 1992, are now committed to help finance the campaign of Municipal Judge James Rogan as he seeks a Glendale-Burbank-based state Assembly seat.

“We’re prepared to back Rogan all the way,” said Danielle Madison, executive director of Allied Business PAC, a political action committee with a conservative, Christian fundamentalist agenda, established two years ago by state Sen. Rob Hurtt (R-Garden Grove) and now controlled by the four wealthy businessmen.

“Rogan is a wonderful candidate . . . and a family man,” said Madison, who added that Allied is prepared to help finance Rogan throughout the entire bewildering array of elections this year for the 43rd District assembly seat, formerly held by Pat Nolan.

Meanwhile, Rogan is running virtually neck and neck in fund raising with two other candidates in the May 3 election, according to campaign-finance reports filed Thursday.

Rogan, a Republican, has raised a total of $82,200; Julia Wu, a Republican and a trustee on the Los Angeles Community College Board, has raised $88,600, and Democrat Adam Schiff, a former federal prosecutor, has raised $84,600.

The purpose of the upcoming special election is to fill the vacancy created Feb. 18 by Nolan’s resignation after the veteran lawmaker pleaded guilty to one count of racketeering.

Seven candidates are running in the election. If any candidate gets more than 50% of the vote, he or she will immediately take over the seat. If none gets a majority, the top two vote-getters from each party will compete in a runoff June 28.

The special election is designed to fill the vacant seat until Dec. 5, when the current term expires.

Meanwhile, the procedure for choosing who will get the full two-year term that begins Dec. 5 is already in motion. The primary election to choose candidates for that race will take place June 7, with a runoff on Nov. 8.

In 1992, the Allied PAC and its four members spent $2,241,121 on campaigns up and down the state, according to a 1993 California Common Cause report that also identified Allied as the fourth-largest contributor to state legislative races that year. In 1993, the group spent $600,000 on six special elections, Madison said.

Allied gave $2,500 to the Rogan campaign while $1,000 was contributed by Hurtt, who founded the PAC, and another $1,000 by his wife, Nancy. Also contributing $1,000 each were PAC members Roland Hinz of Mission Hills, owner of Daisy/Hi-Torque Publications, which publishes motorcycle magazines, and Edward Atsinger of Camarillo, part owner of Salem Communications, a broadcasting company that owns more than a dozen Christian radio stations nationwide, including KKAL-AM in Glendale.

Fieldstead & Co., controlled by Robert Ahmanson, another Allied members, gave $1,000. Ahmanson is an heir to the Ahmanson Savings and Loan fortune.

Finally, $1,000 each was contributed by Ahmanson’s wife, Roberta, and Hinz’s wife, Lila.

The total from all these sources is $9,500.

The fourth member of the Allied Business PAC is Rich Riddle of Arcadia, owner of a manufacturing company. He had not contributed to the campaign as of Thursday.

The Allied group’s contributions represented slightly more than 10% of Rogan’s war chest of $82,200.

A California Common Cause report called Allied’s 1992 campaign-finance activities historic. Never before had an “ideological” group broken into the ranks of the state’s top 10 contributors, the report asserted. Allied-backed candidates are typically strong conservatives, often Christian fundamentalists.

Rogan himself, for example, opposes abortion rights and spousal benefits for gay couples and backs a voucher program to support private-school tuition. “But he’s not at the far end of the spectrum on any of these issues,” said Sheila McNichols, Rogan’s campaign manager.

Rogan said he was proud and grateful to have the support of the Allied group. “I’m just confused about how the so-called liberal lawyer Rogan got the support of the Allied when the conservative Republican Wu did not,” Rogan quipped Thursday.

Rogan was referring to a Wu campaign mailer that noted that Rogan had been a Democratic Party activist until the late 1980s, when he re-registered as a Republican. Her campaign literature called Rogan a “liberal lawyer” while characterizing herself as a “conservative Republican.”

Meanwhile, the campaign reports filed Thursday showed that Wu, who is one of the most prominent female Asian-American Republican officeholders in the state, has a strong fund-raising base in the Asian-American community.

Most of Schiff’s money has come from a $50,000 loan from his family.

Los Angeles Police Department Officer Peter Repovich, who is not running in the 43rd District special election but is a Republican candidate in the June 7 primary, was not required to file a campaign statement Thursday.

Repovich has raised more than $350,000 to run in the regular election race, $275,000 of it in a loan from a friend.