Sybert Leading GOP Fight to Face Beilenson in 24th : Race: In 41st Assembly District, Sheila Kuehl, Loyola law professor seeking to be first openly gay state legislator, was in front of five other Democratic contenders.

A former aide to Gov. Pete Wilson who bankrolled his campaign with $400,000 of his own money, and a feminist lawyer who highlighted her teen-age TV acting career in her campaign were leading in two of Tuesday’s most closely watched and competitive primaries in the San Fernando Valley.

In the hard-fought GOP primary for the 24th Congressional District seat, early election night returns showed Richard Sybert, 42, who was director of Wilson’s Office of Planning and Research, the front-runner in a field of five candidates seeking the right to run against U.S. Rep. Anthony Beilenson (D-Woodland Hills) in the Nov. 8 general election. Banking consultant Robert K. Hammer was running a close second.

Beilenson, seeking his 10th term, easily won Tuesday’s Democratic primary running against Scott Gaulke, a candidate affiliated with extremist Lyndon LaRouche. The 24th Congressional District includes the western San Fernando Valley and the Conejo Valley.

In another spirited race, preliminary returns showed Sheila Kuehl, 53, who played Zelda in the TV sitcom “The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis,” leading six candidates running in the Democratic primary for the 41st Assembly District seat. The 41st District includes the western San Fernando Valley, Conejo Valley, Malibu and the Westside.

The five Republicans in the 24th District primary covered the waterfront in ideology. But it was personal issues, not policy, that finally dominated the GOP contest.

Early on, several of his primary election foes sniped that Sybert, a Calabasas resident, was a carpetbagger unfamiliar with the San Fernando and Conejo valleys. Voter registration records showed that Sybert established his residency in the 24th District in late 1993, only months before he entered the race for Congress.

Questions also were raised about whether Sybert was the businessman he claimed to be. After years of practicing law and working in government, Sybert became president of a Santa Barbara-based toy design firm in late 1993.

Still, Sybert entered the race with a bang. First, he decisively established himself as the fund-raising champ by loaning his own campaign $430,000, and next he secured a formidable string of Republican Party endorsements.

Arrayed against Sybert were Hammer, a resident of Newbury Park, who vowed to use his two decades of business experience to clean up waste in Washington; Emery Shane, 36, of Agoura Hills, a commercial real estate broker, who contended to be the candidate with the deepest roots in the district; Mark Boos Benhard, 28, a media consultant and former congressional aide from Agoura Hills, who was backed by his former boss, William Dannemeyer, an ultraconservative Orange County politician, and Sang Korman, 56, a businessman and perennial congressional candidate.

As the finish line came into sight, Sybert overcame his foes with slick campaign mailers touting his credentials and endorsements. Finally, he topped off this barrage with two pieces of literature--one signed by retired L.A. Police Chief Ed Davis--that contended Hammer had failed to vote in several previous elections and that Shane had fibbed about how long he lived in the district. Shane closed out the campaign threatening to sue Sybert for libel.

The Democratic primary race for the 41st Assembly District seat was one of the area’s most competitive electoral contests. Triggering this race was the decision by the incumbent, state Assemblyman Terry B. Friedman (D-Brentwood) to seek a judgeship rather than reelection.

Each of the six candidates for this seat had war chests large enough to finance extensive campaigns. In fact, Democratic voters in the 41st District were hit by a blizzard of candidate mailings.

The Democratic candidates in the race ranged from Kuehl, a lesbian feminist from Santa Monica, to John Shallman, a business consultant from Encino who touted his ties to the Valley and to Mayor Richard Riordan, a Republican businessman.

Shallman kicked up some dust at the end with a last-minute hit piece that blasted four of his opponents as Westside lawyers and singled out the more colorful portions of the quartet’s views and personal history.

Waging the most expensive campaigns were the 53-year-old Kuehl, a professor at Loyola Law School; William Rothbard, 43, a Pacific Palisades attorney, and Edward Tabash, 43, a Malibu attorney.

Kuehl, who told Democratic Party activists that she hoped to become California’s first openly gay state legislator, spent more than $250,000 on her campaign while Rothbard and Tabash each spent more than $200,000.

Kuehl, the only woman in the race, pitched herself to voters as a feminist activist who was endorsed by U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer and Los Angeles County Supervisor Gloria Molina.

Rothbard, who sits on the board of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy and was endorsed by several law enforcement groups, touted himself as a tough-on-crime environmentalist. Tabash, a leader in the abortion rights movement and a civil libertarian who has espoused legalized prostitution, staked out an identity as the candidate with the toughest platform on illegal immigration.

Also running was 53-year-old Pacific Palisades attorney Roger Jon Diamond, 53, a longtime anti-smoking activist and leader of several crusades to block coastal oil drilling, who pledged to bring an environmental sensitivity to the Assembly if elected, and Pat McGuire, 43, a teacher and businessman from Tarzana, who said he would not take campaign contributions from special interests and would seek to reduce taxes on residential property.

Running in the GOP primary in the 41st Assembly District were Peter Eason, 39, a banker, and Michael Meehan, 28, a reserve deputy sheriff and law school student.

The district’s voter demographics are believed by most observers to heavily favor the election of a Democrat in November.

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** ADDITIONAL ELECTION STORIES, TABLES: A3, A14-A18

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** ADDITIONAL ELECTION STORIES, TABLES: A3, A14-A18