Election ’94 : 38TH ASSEMBLY DISTRICT

Paula Boland (R-Granada Hills), 54, was first elected to the Assembly in 1990. The former owner of a real estate brokerage firm, Boland is married and has three children.

Democratic challenger Josh Arce, 19, is a UCLA sophomore who lives with his mother in Chatsworth.

The conventional view is that the San Fernando Valley is a GOP redoubt. But Boland is only one of two Valley Assemblymembers. Democrats control four other area Assembly seats. (Bill Hoge, who represents the Sunland-Tujunga area, is the Valley’s other GOP assemblymember).

After her 1992 reelection, Boland’s fought to dismantle the Los Angeles Unified School District, a behemoth widely scorned by her constituents. But her effort was stalled earlier this year by opposing teachers and African-American lawmakers.

On Jan. 17, Boland’s district was hit by the Northridge earthquake. The nation’s most costly natural disaster wreaked havoc on her constituents and on Boland herself, who could be found sleeping in a car after her Northridge home was rendered uninhabitable.

Despite the devastation, Boland stuck to her guns as a fiscal conservative and opposed a Democratic-sponsored plan to pay for a multi-billion dollar quake relief effort with a sales tax hike. She did vote to put Gov. Pete Wilson’s $2 billion bond-financed quake relief plan on the ballot but felt the federal government should pick up the lion’s share of the tab.

Boland has won adoption of measures to lift the statute of limitations on filing charges against persons who sexually molest minors and to give rape victims the right to review their assailants’ HIV test records.

This election may be Boland’s political swan song. If reelected as expected, term limits will force her out of the Assembly in 1996.

Arce, who tried (unsuccessfully) to get course credit at UCLA for his experience as a candidate, is a conservative Democrat who calls his campaign “a grass-roots alternative to the high-cost, cynical campaigns” of mainstream politicians.

The 38th District, which includes precincts in heavily Republican Simi Valley, is 46% Republican, 41% Democratic.

Also running is Green Party candidate Charles Wilken, a teacher from Northridge.