Divisive State Campaign Lurches Toward Finish

With more than $90 million spent and the jagged emotions of Californians over illegal immigration laid bare, the state’s nastiest and most contentious election contests in years will rumble to a close Tuesday.

More than 8.8 million Californians are expected to cast ballots, either in person Tuesday or by mail, electing or reelecting a U.S. senator, a governor and a host of lesser constitutional officers and determining the fate of several hard-fought propositions.

Chief among them is the controversial Proposition 187, the initiative that would deny public education and non-emergency health services to illegal immigrants. The measure has divided the state’s elected officials and candidates--largely along partisan lines--produced a raft of comment from national figures and provoked reaction among the state’s residents unseen since 1978’s groundbreaking Proposition 13.

But even that proposition, which sharply limited property taxes, did not carry the overwhelming emotional content of Proposition 187, which has prompted high school students and tens of thousands of other opponents to take to the streets, forced proponents to defend themselves against charges of racism and led both sides to conclude that the proposition’s immediate impact will be a rush to the courts to determine its constitutionality.

The proposition’s fate, and those of the scores of candidates on the ballot, rest in the hands of an electorate that is polarized and discontented, according to pollsters.

“Voters are in a mood to hear extremes this year,” said John Brennan, director of the Los Angeles Times Poll. “They are not in the mood to hear a nice message. They are in the mood to hear a nasty message. I hate to say they are angry. They are just ornery.”

Immigration--specifically the hiring of illegal immigrants--was the dominant focus for the final weeks in the close-fought election for U.S. Senate, which pits Democratic incumbent Dianne Feinstein against Republican challenger Mike Huffington. It is not at all clear as Election Day nears whether Proposition 187 will win or lose, or whether it will influence the outcome of the increasingly bitter governor’s race.

Polls taken in the last week before the election suggested that Republican Pete Wilson was holding on to a lead over his Democratic challenger, Kathleen Brown, and that backers of Proposition 187 were also winning narrowly.

Nevertheless, Brown was scrambling to use her opposition to the initiative to vault past incumbent Wilson, who over the past year has overcome a massive deficit in early polls.

Over the weekend, pollsters were nervously fingering their spreadsheets and campaigns were casting about to determine their standing. While Wilson had at least a bit of breathing space over Brown, polls in the Senate race had Feinstein and Huffington in a virtual dead heat. All of their handlers were whispering that the races would hinge on one overriding uncertainty: voter turnout.

Acting Secretary of State Tony Miller said he expected 60.2% of California voters to cast ballots on Tuesday. That would be a slight increase from the 58.6% who voted in the last governor’s race four years ago.

About 14.7 million Californians are eligible to vote Tuesday, 49% of them Democrats and 37% Republicans, with the rest belonging to minor parties. The figure was a record for a non-presidential election, easily eclipsing the mark of 13.5 million eligible voters in November, 1990. By contrast, 15.1 million were on the rolls for the 1992 presidential election.

Polling places will be open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday.

The races climax today and Monday with candidates and proposition partisans circling the state by car, bus, plane and virtually any sort of transportation system that can bring them into contact with voters. Those hiding out in their homes will get no respite, however, given the dawn-to-dusk television commercials that are expected to bombard voters in these last few days before the election.

Most of the staggering sums of money raised by candidates this election year has been spent on television, the major form of communication in this vast and varied state.

Before the last two weeks of spending was even counted, Wilson and Brown set a record in the amount of money raised in a race for governor--and they were expected to spend every last cent of it. In the last two years, Wilson collected $26.8 million and Brown $20.7 million. The sums do not include millions more spent after Oct. 22, when the financial filing period ended.

The duo’s combined running total of $47.5 million easily outdistanced the $45 million raised and spent by Wilson and his opponent, Feinstein, in the 1990 governor’s race.

The battle for Senate also set a record, with Huffington and Feinstein spending more than $38 million with more than a week to go before the election. Of that, Huffington spent more than $27 million of his own fortune, and Feinstein had loaned her campaign more than $2 million.

Having spent all that money, the candidates by Monday night will have little to do but sit back and worry over who comes to the polls--a fact of political life that the major political parties have spent $13 million trying to influence this year. Republicans estimate that their get-out-the-vote efforts will cost $4 million, while the Democratic Party plans to spend $9 million to urge its voters to the polls, according to party chairman Bill Press.

Press described the party’s effort as its most comprehensive ever, including 50 offices, 250 paid workers, more than 5,000 precinct captains and a blizzard of mail all focused on 1.2 million “occasional” Democratic voters.

Those are voters who, as Press put it, “are the ones that vote for President and never think it is worthwhile to vote for governor.”

To help remedy that, President Clinton flew into Los Angeles and Oakland, the heart of the two most Democratic areas in the state, for Friday and Saturday rallies intended to drum up support for party nominees.

Clinton Administration officials and other national Democrats were casting a wary eye at California, which is central to the often-beleaguered Clinton’s hopes for reelection in 1996. The President has been more popular in California than elsewhere in the nation, but his popularity has fallen during his presidency.

“(The year) 1994 is 1996 in California. It’s clear,” said Press.

Republican get-out-the-vote efforts were meant to target 10,000 of the state’s 25,169 precincts, according to party Chairman Tirso del Junco, and by the weekend included more than 3 million phone calls made from 1,200 telephone lines set up at party offices.

Like the Democrats, Republicans were assaulting potential voters with mail.

The GOP chairman, who has been involved in Republican politics for 30 years, said that his volunteers were being aided by optimism among the ranks. Across the nation, and in California, the political landscape has changed dramatically in the past two years. In 1992, Democrats were seen as the advocates of change and best suited to address pressing problems. Since then, polls have shown those factors swinging to the GOP side.

“I feel very good because you know how bad it was a year and a half ago,” Del Junco said. “When the party smells victory, it’s a lot easier to do what we are doing.”

Republican officials believe that their efforts will at least match those of Democrats because, although they are not spending as much money, they are using more volunteers. Traditionally, Republicans have had the edge in pre-election vote-getting efforts, a fact that Press has labored to change.

As the election neared, those in charge of get-out-the-vote efforts and the campaigns as well were trying to determine whether Proposition 187 would change the dynamics of the major races on Election Day.

Republicans, who generally support the initiative, argued that it was likely to increase voter turnout--but that the impact would be negligible.

“At least right now, it appears that it will turn out approximately the same number of supporters as opponents,” said Dan Schnur, the Wilson campaign spokesman.

According to Republican polls and other private surveys, supporters of the proposition were holding their own coming into the weekend, after having lost ground in the previous two weeks. But Democrats were hoping that their candidates would be propelled into office by the gusts of a late-developing tail wind against the proposition.

“The story of this election is 187,” said party Chairman Press.

State Treasurer Brown, 49, changed the focus of her campaign in the final two weeks to reflect her belief that the initiative would be defeated--and Wilson, a supporter, would go down with it. In travels across the state, she continued to hawk her economic plan but stepped up her criticism of Wilson’s position on Proposition 187 and defended her opposition as a morally correct view.

“It seems to me the test of leadership today is going to be the test of holding people together and fighting to rebuild an economy, a sense of community and to rebuild the sense of family,” she told students at Santa Maria High School last week. “And Proposition 187 tears it apart, takes it apart, and asks people to divide themselves up.”

Wilson, for his part, spent the last two weeks of the campaign contending that he was the best candidate on the important issues of crime and jobs. Crime, an issue that he has used to bludgeon Brown throughout the campaign, was the topic Thursday when 200 members of the group known as Memory of Victims Everywhere gathered in Hollywood to honor the 61-year-old governor for his crime-fighting efforts.

“We thank you for all the people who won’t be dead this year . . . because you cared enough,” said Collene Campbell, a leader of the crime victims movement. “We love you.”

The Senate race turned in its final days on Proposition 187 and the broader question of the candidates’ personal employment of illegal immigrants.

The big-spending Huffington campaign was rocked when, a few days after he endorsed the proposition, The Times reported that he and his wife had employed an illegal immigrant as a nanny for their children until last year--a violation of federal law and one that inspired catcalls from Democrats that the congressman was a hypocrite.

Then last week it was reported that in the early 1980s Feinstein had employed a Guatemalan woman whom Huffington contended was an illegal immigrant. In any case, the employment occurred when it was not against the law and only after, Feinstein said, she had been shown paperwork identifying the woman as a legal resident of the state. Feinstein opposes Proposition 187.

The publicity garnered by the Senate and governor’s races and some of the propositions has been so overwhelming that it has overshadowed contests for the other statewide offices, in which candidates have spent up to several million dollars but still languished in relative anonymity.

In the contest for lieutenant governor, Democrat Gray Davis is attempting to trade in two terms as state controller for the post of second-in-command. Standing in his way is Republican Cathie Wright, a state senator from Simi Valley.

Acting Secretary of State Tony Miller, who took over for longtime boss March Fong Eu when she left in February to become ambassador to Micronesia, is hoping to win the job outright. Running against him is a former Assembly Republican leader and current assemblyman, Bill Jones of Fresno.

The battle for attorney general has dissolved into a contest of angry denunciations between incumbent Republican Dan Lungren, who is seeking his second term, and Democratic Assemblyman Tom Umberg. Central to their most contentious spats have been an Umberg television commercial that suggests that Lungren’s policies contributed to the 1993 death of 12-year-old Petaluma resident Polly Klaas, who was kidnaped from her bedroom during a slumber party. Lungren heatedly denies any connection.

The race for state treasurer will determine whether March Fong Eu’s family maintains its hold on state office even after her departure. Her son Matt Fong, unlike Eu a Republican, gave up his seat on the State Board of Equalization to run for treasurer. The Democratic nominee is former party Chairman Phil Angelides of Sacramento.

For state controller, former Los Angeles city housing director Kathleen Connell, a Democrat, is running against former Republican assemblyman Tom McClintock of Rocklin in a race that has been notable for McClintock’s ads, which purport to have a flinty Scot relative of McClintock attesting to his cheapness.

Seeking to replace John Garamendi as insurance commissioner is fellow Democrat and longtime legislator Art Torres of Monterey Park. His opponent is Charles Quackenbush, a Republican from Cupertino.

For the nonpartisan office of superintendent of public instruction, Democrat Maureen DiMarco is running against another Democrat, Assemblywoman Delaine Eastin. Eastin has the backing of most of the Democratic hierarchy. Di Marco, the former president of the California School Boards Assn., is Republican Wilson’s secretary of child development and education.

Other propositions overshadowed by 187 include Proposition 184, which significantly lengthens criminal sentences and is, word for word, the same as a bill passed this year by the Legislature and signed by the governor.

Proposition 186 would create a universal health insurance program for state residents. Proposition 188, devised and funded largely by tobacco firms, would repeal all local smoking bans and institute one looser, statewide policy.

Proposition 181 would authorize $1 billion in bonds to finance rail services for Californians. Proposition 183 would increase the number of days in which a governor has to place a recall election on the ballot to 180 from the current level of no more than 80.

Proposition 185 would impose a 4% gas tax to finance mass transit and other transportation projects. Proposition 189 would change the state Constitution to clarify that judges can do what they are already authorized to do--deny bail to jailed, accused child molesters and rapists.

Proposition 190 would restructure the state Commission on Judicial Performance, which disciplines judges, by giving the public majority membership on the commission and requiring proceedings to be open.

Proposition 191 would convert the state’s 47 rural justice courts into municipal courts.

More Coverage

* SENATE RACE--Dianne Feinstein and Mike Huffington jabbed at each other as costly congressional race enters final round. A3

* GOVERNOR’S RACE--Kathleen Brown and Gov. Pete Wilson focused on President Clinton and immigration in fight for votes. A3

* HOT WATER--The normally quiet races for water boards are emerging as a new political battleground. B1

Additional stories: A25, A32, B1.

Political Scorecard

2 days to go before Californians go to the polls

THE GOVERNOR’S RACE

* What Happened Saturday: Democrat Kathleen Brown campaigned with President Clinton, sharing a phone linkup with him in the morning and attending an Oakland rally with him in the afternoon. Republican Gov. Pete Wilson and the GOP ticket traveled from Chico south through the San Joaquin Valley, castigating Brown and Clinton all the way.

* What’s Ahead: The Republican ticket will continue its travels, this time by bus, with stops in Riverside, Monrovia and Costa Mesa. Brown will hold rallies in San Diego and Sacramento, and will attend a No-on-Proposition 187 gathering at West Los Angeles United Methodist Church.

THE SENATE RACE

* What Happened Saturday: Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein spoke at get-out-the-vote rallies in West Hollywood, Santa Monica and Van Nuys. Republican Rep. Mike Huffington campaigned in Palm Springs, San Diego and Bakersfield.

* What’s Ahead: Huffington will appear with Wilson at a Monrovia rally in favor of the “three strikes” ballot proposition. Feinstein will campaign in San Luis Obispo and Pasadena.

NOTABLE QUOTES

“If there’s no money, I can’t buy the time.”

--Clint Reilly, Kathleen Brown’s campaign manager, commenting on the campaign’s absence from most television airwaves the weekend before the election.

“Clint Reilly should be tried for malpractice.”

--A senior White House aide, speaking anonymously and angrily about the Brown campaign manager, whom the official blamed for Brown’s strategy.

A LIGHTER NOTE

It seemed like a case of politics begetting strange bedfellows: According to a press release from the Kathleen Brown gubernatorial campaign, President Clinton and other Democrats were due to rally Saturday at a convention center honoring a former Republican secretary of state, the misspelled “Henry J. Kisinger Convention Center.” Actually, Democrats acknowledged later, it was the Henry Kaiser Convention Center.