ELECTIONS / CONGRESSIONAL RACE : Ready Challenges Gallegly on Crime, Troops : Politics: Democrat probes opponent’s vulnerability on conservative issues, claims to be better able to protect local Navy bases.

Proud of his conservative credentials, U.S. Rep. Elton Gallegly faces an unusual challenge to his reelection this fall: His Democratic opponent attacks him for waffling on anti-crime legislation and refusing to support the commander in chief’s decision to send troops overseas.

The Simi Valley Republican even finds himself fending off questions on how he avoided the draft nearly 30 years ago.

The political onslaught comes from Kevin Ready, a twice-enlisted officer and former federal prosecutor, who now lives in Ventura and works as an attorney in Santa Barbara.

“Gallegly is a hypocrite,” Ready said, commenting on the congressman’s opposition to military intervention in Haiti. “In 1991, he was more than willing to risk American lives halfway around the world to restore a non-democratic monarchy and protect oil reserves. Now Gallegly doesn’t want to help restore democracy right off our coast.”

Gallegly defends his position on Haiti, saying President Clinton has failed to make a case that American interests are threatened by events in the tiny Caribbean country.

As for his opponent’s attacks, Gallegly is trying to ignore them. He said he plans to run a frugal reelection campaign against an opponent with little name recognition and almost no political cash.

“It is obvious he has nothing else to talk about,” said Gallegly, 50, who is seeking his fifth term in Congress. “Here’s a guy who is trying to double his salary and represent a bunch of people he doesn’t know. He’s lived here only a year. I think that’s sad.”

Actually, Kevin E. Ready Sr., 41, moved into a Ventura townhouse with his new wife and two sons from a previous marriage about two years ago. He lived briefly in Santa Barbara prior to that and holds a job as a senior deputy county counsel there.

Although Ready is relatively new to Ventura County, he has a long history of Democratic activism--and a brief flirtation with the Republican Party.

Twenty years ago in Colorado, he worked on Gary Hart’s first successful campaign for the U.S. Senate. He aided Sen. Frank Church’s bid for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1976. And in 1984, Ready ran unsuccessfully for a congressional seat in Iowa as a Democrat.

But Ready strayed from the Democratic Party in 1989, when he moved to El Centro to take a job in the Imperial County counsel’s office. He registered as a Republican and quickly accepted a position on the Imperial County Republican Central Committee.

“He seemed to be a nice young fellow,” said Harry Free, the GOP committee’s chairman in 1989. “And there was a vacancy at the time.”

Ready explains his switch this way: He was disillusioned by Democratic politics in Colorado and ventured into the Grand Old Party in search of answers.

He said he found none.

“I guess you could call me a born-again Democrat,” Ready said. “I had my 40 days in the wilderness and came back into the fold.”

For the most part, Ready’s views are mainstream Democratic, sharply contrasting with Gallegly’s conservative philosophy. The differences give voters a clear choice in the race.

Ready favors abortion rights for women. He supports universal health care for all Americans and strongly backs federal efforts to conserve natural habitats, such as the California Desert Protection Act.

Gallegly opposes abortion in nearly all cases, wants to keep the government out of the health-care business and voted against the Desert Protection Act and many other conservation measures.

On illegal immigration, Gallegly is one of the leading voices in Congress calling for doubling the nation’s border patrols, creating tamper-resistant “green cards” and prohibiting illegal immigrants from collecting welfare benefits.

He supports Proposition 187, which would deny health, education and welfare benefits to illegal immigrants, saying it would eliminate many of the “incentives” that prompt immigrants to breach American borders.

“It should send a message to Washington that they are not dealing with our immigration problem,” Gallegly said.

Ready, in contrast, opposes Proposition 187, calling it a sham by political opportunists that will do little more than promote divisive debate among Californians.

He said he supports “firm and fair” enforcement of existing laws and cracking down on businesses that knowingly employ illegal workers. He also wants to establish an officially sanctioned system to bring in foreign labor when needed.

“Gallegly’s theory is that if you are cruel enough for long enough, these people will finally give up and want to go home,” Ready said. He called the approach inhumane and unrealistic as long as jobs beckon workers across the border.

Gallegly is used to sparring with liberal opponents. But Ready, who calls himself a moderate, has knocked the congressman off balance by poking at what he sees as weaknesses in Gallegly’s traditional support of law enforcement and the armed forces.

Ready has repeatedly criticized Gallegly for flip-flopping on this summer’s major crime-fighting legislation. He accused the congressman of playing partisan politics by voting repeatedly against the $30-million anti-crime bill, then switching sides on the final vote when he realized its passage was imminent.

“Gallegly and other Republicans thought it more important to fight the Clinton Administration than to fight crime in the streets,” said Ready, who once worked as a federal prosecutor. “Virtually every police organization in California supported the crime bill.”

Gallegly defends his refusal to support the bill until the final vote, saying he was holding out for an improved version that would cut out “pork,” such as midnight basketball programs to get idle teen-agers off the street.

He said he also joined other Republicans in demanding tougher provisions on sexual molesters and limits on the number of convicted drug felons eligible for early prison release.

“The first crime bill was terrible,” Gallegly said. After some changes, he said, “I still wasn’t overwhelmed with it, but it was a better bill.”

In his reelection campaign, Gallegly is heavily promoting his endorsements from local and national law-enforcement officials. He recently expanded his push for endorsements to include a variety of military and veterans groups.

It is Gallegly’s lack of military service that has drawn the sharpest attacks from Ready, a decorated veteran who served as an officer in the Army and the Navy.

On April 4, 1964, the draft board classified 20-year-old Gallegly as available for military service, Selective Service System records show.

But the records also show Gallegly was classified as married at the time, nearly a year before his March 20, 1965, marriage to his first wife.

The discrepancy is significant because in those days married men were the last to be drafted among those considered fit for duty.

To gain married status, Gallegly would have had to notify the local draft board clerk that he was married, said Lewis Brodsky, spokesman for the Selective Service. Or, he said, the clerk could have made a mistake.

“Either is entirely plausible,” Brodsky said. “But without the records that back up the summaries, we cannot reconstruct if there was fraud involved or a mistake was made.”

The supporting documents, he said, have been destroyed.

The conflicting dates on Gallegly’s marital status, Ready said, “raises questions about his integrity and what went on back at that date.” Gallegly, said Ready, relied on the exemption “and didn’t go in the service because of it.”

In an interview, Gallegly said he was unaware of the discrepancy on his records until it was raised by a Times reporter two years ago. “There was certainly a bit of a shock,” Gallegly said.

The congressman said he had no idea how he came to be classified as married in 1964. “It wasn’t anything I had done that caused that to be done,” he said.

“I’ve always complied with the law, and I have done nothing to evade the draft,” Gallegly said. “I have never represented anything to the Selective Service that was not absolutely correct.”

In March, 1966, Gallegly sought and was awarded a deferment as an apprentice cabinetmaker, records show. About three months later, on June 2, 1966, he was reclassified with a deferment as a father, six months before the birth of his eldest son, Shawn.

Ready said he realizes he is challenging Gallegly over something that happened 30 years ago. But, he said, it bothers him that despite Gallegly’s own service record discrepancies, the congressman continues to be critical of President Clinton “for what he did in the 1960s.”

Further, Ready said his own 9 1/2 years of military experience put him in a better position to protect the county’s two Navy bases from ending up on next year’s list of bases slated for closure.

Ready said he participated in missile testing off Point Mugu during his stint as a naval officer. And with that kind of firsthand knowledge, he can effectively argue the importance of Point Mugu to the Pacific Fleet’s ongoing training and testing.

“The congressman is in an absolutely essential position to protect those bases,” Ready said. “And Gallegly doesn’t have the experience and the understanding to be a leader on the most important issue facing Ventura County.”

Gallegly counters with his own challenge to Ready: “Where has he been? I’ve been in the trenches on this issue since the beginning.”

The congressman said he is on the letterhead of a lobbying group established to defend the bases and has held numerous strategy meetings in his office.

“You don’t have to be a congressman to participate in the citizens group,” Gallegly said. “We could use his expertise, if it’s really there.”

Gallegly is running his second race in the 23rd Congressional District, which was redrawn two years ago to encompass Carpinteria and all of Ventura County, except most of Thousand Oaks.

The district is closely split along party lines, with about 43% of voters registered Democratic and 42% Republican.

In recognition of the nearly even split, neither Gallegly nor Ready mentioned their party affiliation in political mailers--although they detail their endorsements and views on an array of issues.

GOP registration efforts have narrowed the Democrats’ edge this year. Democrats now have 3,871 more registered voters than Republicans, compared to an advantage of 4,982 in 1992.

23rd Congressional District

Seeking his fifth term in Congress, Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) faces Democratic challenger Kevin Ready. Democrats have 43.5% of the district’s registered voters, a slight advantage over the Republican registration of 41.9%. The district includes Carpinteria and all of Ventura County except most of Thousand Oaks.

Elton Gallegly

Age: 50

Party: Republican

Occupation: congressman

Education: High school diploma; attended Los Angeles State College, 1962-63

Background: A resident of Simi Valley for 27 years, Gallegly was a real estate broker and small businessman before entering politics full-time. He was elected to the Simi Valley City Council in 1979 and was the city’s mayor from 1980 to 1986. Gallegly was first elected to Congress in 1986. He is the only non-lawyer on the House Judiciary Committee and also sits on the Foreign Affairs and Natural Resources committees.

Issues: An avowed conservative Republican, Gallegly favors cutting taxes and government spending, balancing the budget and fighting crime and drugs. He views himself as a leading member of Congress seeking to stanch the flow of immigrants by toughening immigration laws and strengthening border patrols. He has fought against increased government control over vitamins, herbs and other dietary supplements. He opposes abortion except in instances of rape or incest or when a pregnant woman’s life is threatened.

Kevin Ready

Age: 41

Party: Democrat

Occupation: attorney

Education: bachelor’s degree in government from the University of Maryland, Berlin campus; law degree from the University of Denver College of Law; Arabic and Russian language training in the Army

Background: Born in Iowa and raised in Colorado, Ready spent 9 1/2 years on active-duty military, first as an enlisted man with Army intelligence. Later, he signed up for a tour as a Naval officer and then as an Army officer and lawyer. As a civilian, he ran for Congress in Iowa in 1984 and helped launch a retail clothing chain. He relocated to Denver in 1985, worked briefly for an oil company, then practiced law before moving to California in 1989. He is now an attorney for Santa Barbara County and moved to Ventura two years ago when he purchased a townhouse.

Issues: Ready considers himself a moderate Democrat who wants to help business recover from the recession. If elected, he would push Congress to balance its budget and reform the nation’s health care system. He supports the right to an abortion, and favors steps to control global warming and protect the environment. On the local front, he says that protecting the county’s two Navy bases from closure would be his No. 1 priority.