Stinging Accusations Mark Race for Congress

Attack, counterattack, attack. Upstart challenger Valerie Romero is continuing her brutal assault on Rep. Jay Kim (R-Diamond Bar) for alleged violations of federal election laws as Tuesday’s primary nears.

Romero’s first mailer told voters they had been “betrayed” by Kim. The congressman struck back with his “lies, lies, lies” mailer, accusing Romero of misrepresenting his legal problems.

Now, Romero has answered with “The Two Faces of Congressman Jay Kim.” The mailer notes that Kim campaigned two years ago as a reform candidate. Since then, the FBI has seized campaign records from Kim, who is the target of a federal probe.

“The reason I got into the race, and the most important thing, is integrity,” Romero said in an interview this week.

Kim did not return calls, but Romero said she expects his campaign to fire another volley. The congressman has plenty of money to engage his best-financed and most-combative challenger.

Kim has raised $224,260 since the start of the year, nearly four times as much as Romero, according to finance disclosure statements.

Romero has raised $61,343 for her congressional bid. But she has been willing to go into debt with personal loans totaling $70,000 to give her campaign a boost, according to finance disclosure statements.

Until a couple of months ago, Romero, 30, was a political nobody. But she has emerged as the strongest of Kim’s four challengers with her stinging campaign. Romero has benefited from the help of her father, Richard (Dick) Romero, who owns a string of auto dealerships and is a local Republican fund-raiser who helped raise money for her candidacy. Romero is a vice president in her father’s business.

The other Republican challengers are Bob Kerns, Ronald L. Curtis and Todd Thakar.

Urban redeveloper Ed Tessier and attorney Richard L. Waldron are running in the Democratic primary.

But because of voter registration--48% Republican to 40% Democrat--Kim is expected to survive the general election if he wins the primary. That is, depending on the course of the investigation.

Last summer, Kim became the target of the federal probe into possible election, tax and labor law violations after The Times reported that he used about $480,000 from his engineering corporation to finance his 1992 campaign despite federal prohibitions. Kim has said that at most he is guilty of technical violations and that he, in effect, was using his own money.

The 41st District includes areas of Diamond Bar, Pomona, Walnut and Rowland Heights as well as parts of Orange and San Bernardino counties.

Meanwhile, in the 31st District, Rep. Matthew G. Martinez (D-Monterey Park) is facing a primary challenge from lawyer Bonifacio (Bonny) Garcia and two other candidates, Maria Escalante and David Romero.

Garcia is taking his second shot at the seven-term incumbent, who won two years ago with 57% of the vote, compared with Garcia’s 25%.

“There are two issues in this campaign: What has the incumbent done and what am I going to do,” said Garcia, 37.

Martinez did not return calls for comment.

Garcia is going for the jugular, hitting hard on Martinez’s seemingly inconsistent stance on regulating firearms, his recent positions on local Latino issues and his overall performance in Congress.

“Marty has strongly opposed the regulation of guns,” Garcia said in a recent interview. “He voted against the Brady bill . . . and now, with me breathing down his neck, he votes for the ban on semiautomatic weapons.”

Martinez was one of the Democrats who switched votes last month to pass the Clinton Administration’s ban on the sale of certain semiautomatic weapons.

Garcia takes a hard-line approach. He said the use of firearms needs to be regulated like driving a car. He is running cable television ads, touting that position in a district that is plagued by shootings.

Garcia also attacks Martinez for failing to support Latinos in the predominantly Latino district.

In 1991, for example, Martinez wrote to Bell Gardens voters urging them not to recall several white council members who had been criticized as insensitive to Latinos in the heavily Latino city. The recall was successful, resulting in the first Latino-majority council in the history of the city.

“This guy has been on the wrong side on every Latino issue over the last four years,” Garcia said.

And then there’s the issue of Martinez’s performance.

Garcia’s campaign distributed to 50,000 homes a brochure featuring a reprint of a 1993 Buzz magazine story labeling Martinez “one of the dumbest congressmen in Washington” and one of Los Angeles’ eight worst politicians.

The article quotes a former aide, who says pro-choice Martinez voted against spending Medicaid funds for abortions for victims of rape and incest because he wasn’t paying attention. Martinez voted the wrong way when he blindly followed the direction of a nearby congressman, the magazine said.

Martinez, who is running a low-key campaign, recently sent out a mailer in an attempt to defuse the attacks.

“It is always difficult for any person who holds public office to defend himself from attack,” said Martinez, who reported raising $42,110 this year for his campaign and has $69,369 on hand.

“On the other hand,” he said, “his or her opponent is someone who, in most cases, has not held public office and therefore has a distinct advantage--he or she has no record to attack and has displeased no one. He can make promises of great reforms . . . and so it goes.”

Garcia, who has spent $62,000 on his campaign, is an activist who has helped Spanish-speaking parents in El Monte when they were unhappy with the school board over the firing of a Latino superintendent. He also has helped raise money to improve a Watts-area Catholic school.

Garcia said that, if elected, he will concentrate on programs to increase education and employment in the recession-ravaged district.

He proposed establishing a federal economic disaster relief agency, which would come into regions where unemployment exceeds 7%. The agency would be similar to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which doled out millions of dollars in grants and loans after the recent Southern California fires and earthquake.

“The federal government should be committed to full employment,” Garcia said.

But according to pundits, Martinez probably will be able to weather the attacks from Garcia.

Martinez has the name recognition of a longtime incumbent. And his office also has a reputation for assisting constituents with routine concerns. In addition, Garcia is likely to lose some votes because of his position on one key issue--abortion. He opposes it; Martinez supports abortion rights. Democrats generally are pro-choice.

The 31st District includes all or part of Alhambra, Azusa, Baldwin Park, El Monte, South El Monte, Glendora, Industry, Irwindale, Monterey Park, Rosemead, San Gabriel, South San Gabriel, East San Gabriel, Temple City, West Covina, East Los Angeles and Los Angeles.

In the 27th District, Rep. Carlos J. Moorhead, (R-Glendale), the dean of California’s GOP congressional delegation, is seeking his 12th term. He faces poorly funded Elizabeth Michael, a former candidate for state Assembly, in the Republican primary.

The Democratic primary pits Doug Kahn, an Altadena print shop owner, against Daniel I. Hurst, a Burbank systems analyst, and Roger Kulpa, an accounting firm owner from Burbank.

Kahn, who is expected to win the Democratic primary, could give Moorhead a strong challenge in November. He received 40% of the vote in 1992 against the congressman. And the 27th District, which stretches from San Marino to Tujunga, has become more Democratic since reapportionment in 1992.

American Independent Party member Billy Gibbs of Glendale and Libertarian Dennis Decherd, a computer systems analyst from Pasadena, will also be on the ballot in November.

The other primaries in the San Gabriel Valley’s congressional districts are uncontested.

Holguin is a Times staff writer and Winton is a special correspondent for the San Gabriel Valley section.