California Elections: ATTORNEY GENERAL : Rising Stars of Their Parties Trade Charges Over Crime

If this were Windsor, he’d be first in line of succession. Among friend and foe, Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren is considered the Republican prince in waiting, the man who by decade’s end could rise to become California’s governor, or a U.S. senator if he’d prefer.

But first this ascendant hope of GOP conservatives must go about the cumbersome process of getting reelected in November. It could prove testy.

Lungren’s opponent is Assemblyman Tom Umberg, a telegenic Democrat from Orange County who is widely regarded as one of his party’s promising newcomers on the statewide scene.

A former military prosecutor and assistant U.S. attorney, Umberg has more courtroom experience as a criminal litigator and could prove a worthy match for Lungren both in charisma and brains. A rarity among Democrats, Umberg is the only member of his party from Orange County holding state or federal elected office. Like Lungren, he is a death penalty supporter and backs the “three-strikes” criminal sentencing law.

With crime one of the hottest issues in the 1994 election, Lungren would seem to have a solid advantage as an incumbent Republican, the party typically perceived by voters to be tougher on law-and-order matters. A recent Times poll showed Lungren, 48, holding a 15-point lead among likely voters. He also has an edge in campaign cash heading into the race’s final weeks.

Umberg, however, is hopeful that he can run well in liberal strongholds in Los Angeles and the Bay Area while cutting into Lungren’s support in Orange County, which has historically provided an avalanche of Republican votes to push GOP candidates over the top in statewide contests.

The race could tighten in the coming weeks as Umberg, a 39-year-old political moderate little known by voters outside his Assembly district, rolls out a slate of hard-hitting television commercials. In debates and appearances on the campaign trail, the feisty challenger has already begun to pelt Lungren on several fronts.

He contends that the conservative incumbent has tilted at ideological windmills instead of handling important “nuts-and-bolts” issues of the job. More pointedly, Umberg charges that Lungren has “sold his office to the highest bidder” by compromising on cases involving campaign contributors.

So far, such broadsides have not gotten a huge rise from Lungren, who has promised to run on his record. In debates, Lungren has counterattacked by calling Umberg a protege of Willie Brown, the powerful Assembly Speaker from San Francisco, and labeling the challenger a greenhorn who would require “on-the-job training.”

On the TV front, the attorney general’s campaign is going for a well-packaged look: Lungren’s advertisements are being handled by a marketing company more seasoned at peddling products than politicians. The themes are bedrock, philosophical, almost Reaganesque. This race, after all, is not just about four more years in office; it’s also Lungren’s chance to lay the groundwork for bigger elections to come.

Lungren’s political prospects are little wonder given his background. His father was Richard Nixon’s physician on the campaign trail during the 1950s, and the former President became something of a mentor, providing occasional advice and encouragement. Lungren displayed an early taste for politics. At age 6, he began leafleting on behalf of a neighbor running for Congress in his hometown of Long Beach.

A devout Catholic and product of parochial schools, Lungren graduated cum laude from Notre Dame in 1968 and later got a law degree. In 1976, he made an unsuccessful run for Congress, but came back two years later to ride the crest of the Proposition 13 tax revolt into office.

In Washington, Lungren earned a reputation as a passionate yet pragmatic conservative and garnered a spot on U.S. News and World Report’s short list of politicians under 40 with national promise. His biggest legislative success was in helping win passage of the landmark immigration bill of 1986.

*

The next year, Gov. George Deukmejian picked Lungren as the nominee to fill the treasurer’s post left vacant by the death of Jesse Unruh. Democrats, fearing that the job would serve as a springboard for Lungren in the 1990 election, scuttled the nomination.

Lungren turned that defeat into victory. He ran for attorney general in 1990 and eked out a reed-thin win over San Francisco Dist. Atty. Arlo Smith.

As the state’s top cop, Lungren numbers among his top achievements the successful effort, in 1992, to see capital punishment carried out in California for the first time in a quarter of a century. His first term produced record drug seizures, prosecutions of companies for lead content in dinnerware and wine bottle caps, investigations into auto insurance fraud and an $8-million settlement with Sears auto repair shops.

He pushed the prosecution of former state schools chief Bill Honig on felony conflict-of-interest charges and has railed against what he calls the “culture of violence” perpetuated by video games, rap music and professional football.

If Lungren has prodded California’s conscience, Umberg dreams of saving the state’s teen-agers. Among the principal planks of his election challenge has been a promise to revamp the juvenile justice system, which Umberg believes is a culprit in the explosion of crimes committed by children. His wish list includes the creation of a network of rock-hard boot camps.

A native of Illinois, Umberg came to California to attend UCLA in the mid-’70s. He got a law degree, then served a five-year Army stint. He later joined the U.S. attorney’s office in Orange County, prosecuting cases involving white-collar crime, drugs and a well-publicized cross-burning incident.

Umberg jumped into politics in 1990 with an expensive, mud-slinging Assembly victory. In Sacramento, he impressed colleagues as a friendly, hard-working moderate and won reelection in 1992 with 60% of the vote after running another negative campaign.

The challenger is using the same tough campaign tactics this time, employing a broad brush to paint Lungren as a rigid, ideological conservative. He notes that Lungren is an abortion-rights opponent and campaigned for last year’s unsuccessful school voucher initiative, a stance that has put the attorney general on top of the enemies list of the California Teachers Assn.

Umberg has also hit on a personal note. While highlighting his own military credentials, the challenger has criticized Lungren for getting a medical deferment during the Vietnam War because of football knee injuries and major childhood kidney surgery. Later, however, the attorney general took up tae kwon do. Lungren counters that he has remained physically active to help strengthen his damaged knees.

Although crime in the state declined sharply in the first six months of 1994, Umberg cites statistics showing a rise of 2.1% since Lungren took office, with violent crime swelling by 7.8%. “People understand that they don’t feel as safe today as they did four years ago,” Umberg said.

He also criticizes Lungren for slashing Department of Justice divisions handling environmental enforcement and consumer protection. Umberg notes that the attorney general’s program to keep tabs on sex offenders can account for only one of four rapists and child molesters, and that fingerprint identification in the attorney general’s office is running 80 days behind schedule.

*

Umberg also charges that Lungren failed to adequately fund a statewide computerized database that might have helped law officers to early on snag Richard Allen Davis, who is charged with the Northern California kidnap and murder of young Polly Klaas.

The challenger’s harshest allegations involve Lungren’s decisions on cases that helped campaign contributors.

Umberg notes that Lungren’s deputies recommended a $3-million settlement in a case against the wine industry, but the attorney general dropped it to $900,000. Since 1990, Lungren has collected more than $68,000 in contributions from the wine industry. Umberg also argues that Lungren has used the power of his office to help Surety Insurance Company of the Pacific ($67,500 in contributions since 1990), Bank of America ($11,000 from the company and top employees), the California Manufacturers Assn. (more than $200,000 in campaign cash) and two Southern California utility companies that have given $29,000.

Lungren counters that each of his decisions was based on sound legal reasoning and, insharp contrast with Democratic predecessors, sprang from a philosophy that is not spitefully anti-business. In the wine industry case, Lungren said he felt that it was more important to get the vintners to stop using lead in the foil covering bottle tops than to press for the bigger monetary settlement.

“I don’t run across too many people in California who believe we ought to use the heavy hand of government when a more appropriate approach is required,” Lungren said.

He also suggested it is inevitable that a few cases involving contributors would be handled by his deputies.

“I have 55,000 active cases in this office, and we regulate about 70,000 charitable trusts,” Lungren said. “If I were to say that I wasn’t going to take contributions from an individual or business who has something to do with our office now or in the future, frankly I couldn’t run a campaign.”

As for the programs trimmed during his tenure, Lungren said the cuts were necessary amid the state’s harsh fiscal climate to ensure that his office continued to perform well its mandatory appellate work and other legal tasks. He also takes credit for slicing into management.

He said many issues cited by Umberg--including the delay in fingerprinting and lagging sex offender registration--are inherited problems that Lungren himself brought to light and is working to fix.

Lungren said he is proud of the stands that he has taken on issues both as a congressman and attorney general. “If he’s accusing me of being a Reagan Republican, I am,” Lungren said.