Candidates Mine for Working-Class Votes : State Senate: In 24th District Democratic primary, Assemblywoman Hilda Solis touts her experience. But the pay raise of Solis and other lawmakers is Eugene Moses’ trump card.

Assemblywoman Hilda L. Solis (D-El Monte) and Eugene F. Moses, the former mayor of Azusa, are working the blue-collar crowd, looking for votes in the Democratic primary Tuesday for the state Senate’s 24th District.

“We have to work to have jobs here, to have better schools . . . to fight against gangs,” said Solis at a recent candidate forum. She then put her best cards on the table: “I have been in the Assembly two years and I have many friends.”

Moses sounded some of the same notes at the forum. He also tried to take some of the shine off Solis’ time in Sacramento, noting that she and other legislators are to receive a $19,500 pay raise on Jan. 1. It will boost their annual salaries to $72,000.

“The $20,000 for each of the senators and assembly people could buy you a library,” he said.

Some legislators said they will decline the raise in light of the state’s financial problems. Solis said she is still considering the issue, noting that the salaries were boosted by an independent citizens commission.

“This is a governor-appointed commission and it seems the decision was timed to be inconvenient” for legislators seeking reelection, Solis said in a recent interview.

Solis is favored to win the Democratic primary for the 24th District, which includes all or part of Alhambra, Arcadia, Azusa, Baldwin Park, El Monte, Hacienda Heights, Industry, Irwindale, La Puente, Monterey Park, Rosemead, San Gabriel, West Covina and La Habra.

Moses represents her biggest hurdle to the upper house. The other Democratic candidate, Joseph R. Chavez, a data processing supervisor, has never held public office and has little money to enter the fray.

The winner of the Democratic primary is expected to take the seat in November. Democrats account for 58% of the registered voters in the 24th District, compared with 29% for Republicans.

Moses, a councilman and mayor for 16 years, declared his intention to run for the district more than a year ago. The seat was created through the 1992 reapportionment and approximates the district represented by Sen. Art Torres (D-Los Angeles), who is running for state Insurance Commissioner.

Then came the bad news for Moses; Solis was entering the race.

The assemblywoman has a respectable legislative record, good name recognition and good fund-raising capacity.

A recent survey by the California Journal, a magazine on state politics, ranked Solis among the top half of Assembly members rated. “She’s steady, bright, hard-working and dependable,” according to the magazine.

Solis has raised $206,114 and spent $133,608 compared with Moses’ $91,758 in contributions and $90,761 in spending, according to the latest financial disclosure statements.

Latino political heavyweights, such as Los Angeles County Supervisor Gloria Molina, have endorsed Solis, 36, who also has strong support from various law enforcement officials and educators.

Ethnicity is another advantage for Solis, who is of Mexican and Nicaraguan decent and an advocate of immigrants’ rights. Latinos account for about 54% of registered Democrats in the district, according to her campaign.

Solis, like Moses, speaks of the need to create more jobs, improve education and reduce crime in the district.

But from there, the assemblywoman stresses her experience in the state Capitol. Solis, for example, authored legislation that made spousal rape an automatic felony punishable by up to eight years in state prison. The old law allowed someone convicted of spousal rape to be found guilty of a misdemeanor and serve time in county jail.

“I don’t think (Moses) has the level of understanding it takes to build legislative coalitions and work on legislative matters,” Solis said in a recent interview.

Moses, 60, is best known for his efforts as mayor to close the Azusa rock quarry at the base of the San Gabriel Mountains to curb air pollution. It was a losing battle.

A veteran of more than a decade of often contentious municipal politics, Moses left city government to run for state Senate.

The pay raise issue is his trump card. He figures taxpayers will take a dim view of the hike in an era of shrinking government and household budgets.

While going door-to-door in Hacienda Heights, Moses ran into a teacher who questioned how the legislators could accept a raise while schools suffer under continuing cutbacks.

“Twenty thousand isn’t right,” Moses agreed.

But no one asked Solis about the raise on a recent campaign walk. Most of the questions and comments centered on curbing crime.

The winner of the Democratic primary will face Republican Dave Boyer and Libertarian George Curtis Feger, who are running uncontested on June 7.

Times correspondent Richard Winton contributed to this article.