CAMPAIGN FOR THE 45TH ASSEMBLY DISTRICT : Front-Runners Stress Their Local Ties : Bill Mabie, chief aide to outgoing Assemblyman Richard Polanco, points to his experience and commitment to area projects and events.

At a recent community meeting in Lincoln Heights, Bill Mabie stood amid the largely Spanish-speaking crowd. Many in the audience were surprised when he began fielding questions in perfect Spanish.

The Democratic Assembly candidate is comfortable in many different settings. He has been a Peace Corps worker in Honduras, a deep-sea fisherman in Alaska and a legislative aide in Sacramento.

In his first attempt to win public office, the 32-year-old Mabie is one of two front-runners in the June 7 Democratic primary in Northeast Los Angeles’ 45th Assembly District. The winner is virtually assured of going to Sacramento after the November general election because 62% of the district’s registered voters are Democrats.

Mabie said his travels and diverse experiences have helped shape his views about himself and others: “Wherever you are in the world, people want the same things. You learn not about how different you are, but how much you have in common.”

Mabie is the chief of staff for the district’s current representative, Assemblyman Richard Polanco (D-Los Angeles), who is running for the state Senate.

Some Latino politicians are upset that Polanco has endorsed Mabie, who is white, for a seat that has been held by Latinos since 1972. But Mabie and many district residents say the candidates’ qualifications are the issue--not their ethnicity.

“I believe my abilities, my accomplishments and my commitment to representing the residents of this district are what matter most,” Mabie said.

As Polanco’s chief aide, Mabie helps identify problems that can be solved by the office and takes leadership on issues such as crime, economy and schools.

“No matter what we have asked of him, he has always responded quickly,” said the Rev. Juan Santillan, a respected community leader and priest at Our Lady of Help Christian Church in Lincoln Heights. “He cares a lot about the entire community.”

Santillan recalled how Mabie impressed residents at the March community meeting attended by officials from several city departments. Mabie was the only official able to address the audience in Spanish.

“He got an overwhelming applause,” Santillan said.

Mabie’s Spanish-language fluency comes from his 1985-87 Peace Corps stint in Honduras, where he managed and built fish hatcheries, among other projects.

It was a period of upheaval in Central America. The United States backed a right-wing government in a civil war in El Salvador and supported a Honduras-based rebel army that was fighting a leftist government in Nicaragua.

For nearly six months Mabie lived in a small town near the Honduras-Nicaragua border.

But after the fighting spilled into Honduras, he and other Peace Corps workers were reassigned to another part of the country.

“The U.S. government had more to do with inciting violence in Central America than extinguishing it,” Mabie said.

“It was a difficult time to serve because we were trying to deal goodwill while the U.S. and Honduran military were conducting maneuvers.”

Although he is running as a Democrat, Mabie was a registered Republican until about four years ago.

Registering with the GOP, he said, was a youthful reaction to having grown up in a Republican household in the eastern Los Angeles County city of Claremont.

Mabie said he does not believe that his Republican background is a campaign issue because he was never actively involved in the party.

“I think it would be a lot different if I had supported Republican candidates,” he said.

Mabie registered as a Democrat in spring, 1990, after working as a campaign volunteer for state Sen. Charles Calderon (D-Whittier) and several other Democratic candidates that primary season. “I took a look at who I was as a person. The party I fitted into was Democrat,” he said.

Mabie graduated from California State Polytechnic University at San Luis Obisbo in 1985 with a political science degree.

One professor remembers Mabie as active in protests against the nearby Diablo Canyon nuclear reactor. But unlike other student demonstrators, the professor recalled, Mabie was “not blinded by ideology.”

“There was a much more pragmatic focus to Bill, “ said Prof. John Culver, who taught Mabie in several political science classes. “I thought that showed a tremendous amount of maturity.”

During the spring and summer of 1984, Mabie left Cal Poly to work as a deckhand on a halibut fishing boat in Alaska to get experience for his Peace Corps application. He also worked in a cannery there, putting in 12-hour shifts on a “slime line,” where he gutted fish on a conveyor belt.

“It was pretty neat because you have people from all over the world doing it,” said Mabie, who met Israelis, Australians, Canadians and Eskimos during his Alaska experience.

Mabie moved to the 45th Assembly District in 1989, about a year before he began working for Polanco.

Mabie and his wife, who is expecting a baby in July, live in Highland Park.

On a recent evening, as he campaigned door-to-door near his home, he touted his involvement in organizing the local Christmas parade and heading the Highland Park Chamber of Commerce.

“I truly care about this area. I live here. I’m going to raise my kid here,” Mabie said. “That’s what I’m about.”

45th Assembly District

The district encompasses parts of Hollywood, Silver Lake, Mount Washington, Highland Park, Echo Park and Boyle Heights.

Demographics

White: 15%

Lation: 63%

Black: 2%

Asian: 19%

Party Registration

Democrat: 62%

Republican: 25%