When It Comes to Gambling Bills, Hoge Won’t Leave the Table

THE FLAG IS UP: If persistence is a virtue, then Republican Assemblyman Bill Hoge has something to boast about.

Once more, Hoge has authored a bill to aid the horse-racing industry, despite the heat he took last year because gambling interests contributed heavily to his campaign.

This year, Hoge is seeking a new law to exempt the resale of racehorses from sales tax. Eric Peterson, Hoge’s administrative assistant, says his boss is trying to eliminate a repetitive tax that currently must be paid each time a horse is sold.

Hoge’s latest proposal follows six bills he’s authored to benefit racehorse owners, racing associations and card clubs, which--along with a major Nevada casino--contributed $140,000 to his Assembly campaigns.

Hoge’s 44th Assembly District, which stretches from Sunland-Tujunga to Pasadena, nudges up against but does not include the Santa Anita Park racetrack. The insurance man-turned-Assemblyman has said in the past that his love of horse racing dates back to his youth, when his father bred and raced horses at Santa Anita.

Hoge’s newest bill quickly caught the eye--and the scorn--of California’s top advocate for campaign reform.

Ruth Holton, executive director of Common Cause, is holding the bill up as a classic example of legislation designed to benefit a specific industry--which happens to be a major campaign contributor.

“This is a smelly, smelly little special-interest bill,” Holton said, declaring Hoge “clueless” as to why it might raise questions about his loyalties.

She also points to Hoge’s elevation as second-in-command of the Assembly Governmental Organization Committee, the clearinghouse for gambling and racetrack legislation. “He gets a lot of money from the horse-racing interests and now he’s going to be vice chair of the GO committee,” Holton noted.

Before his election to a second term in November, Hoge came under fire from Democratic challenger Bruce Philpott for being a special friend of the gambling industry.

In his defense, Hoge said at least he was upfront about the source of his campaign funds. He accused Philpott of disguising the origin of his contributions by accepting Democratic Party funds.

Hoge points to his other legislation as proof that he is addressing broader topics. His bill package this year includes a measure to ensure that illegal immigrants don’t vote, another to remove barriers against crime victims’ families attending trial and one addressing restitution for crime victims.

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LONG-DISTANCE DETAINEE: This week brings a long road trip for former Assemblyman Pat Nolan, who is being moved from a federal prison in Dublin, Calif., to another minimum-security facility in Spokane, Wash.

The transfer of all 300 Dublin prisoners--including high-profile inmates Stacey Koon, former coastal commissioner Mark Nathanson and former lobbyist Clayton Jackson--follows the decision to turn the Northern California facility into a women’s prison.

Privately, some of Nolan’s friends and supporters are wondering if the Feds are punishing the feisty Glendale Republican by moving him hundreds of miles and two states away while some prisoners were transferred to California facilities at Lompoc and Boron.

The move makes it more difficult for Nolan’s wife, Gail, and three children to visit him from their home in Sacramento, just a 90-minute car ride from the Dublin federal prison camp east of Oakland.

Nolan has reportedly been worried about retaliation from federal authorities irritated by his outspokenness since his guilty plea to political-corruption charges a year ago.

Even though he willingly pleaded guilty to a single count of racketeering, saying he used his office to extort campaign contributions, Nolan has repeatedly suggested he was wrongfully prosecuted.

The plea he agreed to was a gamble to ensure that he would spend only 33 months--instead of up to eight years--in prison, he said.

Monica Wetzel, spokeswoman for the federal Bureau of Prisons, dismissed the notion that the decision to place Nolan as far away as Washington state might have been punitive.

“I can assure you that’s not our practice at all,” Wetzel said. “That’s a very unfair statement.”

But friends of Nolan’s point out that federal authorities do not take kindly to politicians maintaining high profiles from behind bars. Especially politicians like Nolan, who boasts a large following and many friends, several of whom are elected officials and have visited him at the prison.

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DRAGON DETERRED: Nothing is more irritating to Lea Purwin D’Agostino, a 17-year prosecutor, than to face a jury that is already stacked against her.

As a candidate for the 5th Los Angeles City Council District seat, that is what D’Agostino says she faced when she went to the National Women’s Political Caucus last week seeking an endorsement.

The caucus endorsed former school board member Roberta Weintraub instead.

The crux of the dispute centers on D’Agostino’s stand on abortion. She is a pro-choice candidate but has reservations about allowing teen-agers to get abortions without parental consent. The caucus is also pro-choice but does not believe parental consent is needed.

D’Agostino, who as a prosecutor was known as the “Dragon Lady,” is fuming because she met with the group and answered the members’ questions only to be told that she did not qualify for the group’s endorsement because of her stand on parental consent. Caucus members, she says, were not even allowed to vote for her.

“So far as I am concerned, the manner in which the leadership of your organization handled this matter is exactly the kind of politics-as-usual that I have sworn to shatter. The individuals who attended the endorsing meeting should have been able to do exactly what the juries I face in court are expected to do: examine all the evidence and then make up their own minds,” she said in an angry letter to the caucus leadership.

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PARTNERS, ROUND II: Never one to shy away from another uphill battle, Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sylmar) is about to launch his second attempt at getting a domestic-partners bill passed and signed into law.

Beating the odds last year, Katz ushered such a bill through the Assembly and then the Senate. It was killed when it landed on Gov. Pete Wilson’s desk. Wilson, as Katz views it, caved in to election year pressure and vetoed it.

But Katz is preparing to lead the charge again, starting with a Monday news conference in Los Angeles announcing the bill’s reintroduction. The measure allows unmarried couples who live together to register with the secretary of state, thereby ensuring hospital visitation rights, conservatorship rights and other legal benefits granted to married people.

Joining Katz will be AIDS activists, retirees, representatives of religious and medical groups, and gay and lesbian activists.

This year, Katz will have the benefit of added legislative support from co-author Assemblywoman Sheila Kuehl (D-Santa Monica), a powerful new voice in the Legislature on behalf of homosexuals.

Kuehl said she expects the bill will again garner enough votes to make it through the Assembly and Senate. Again, the governor will be the tough sell.

“It’s difficult for me to understand because whenever Gov. Wilson doesn’t like something having to do with gay or lesbian people, he says it’s bad for business,” Kuehl said. “He certainly seems to repeat it a lot--like a mantra--without thinking it through.”

Next Friday, Kuehl will take her own turn at holding a news conference to unveil a new bill benefiting gays and lesbians. The measure will propose adding sexual orientation to the non-discrimination sections of the state education code.

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THE BOOT BUNCH: Rep. Howard P. (Buck) McKeon wears cowboy boots with his tuxedo. He strides onto the floor of the House of Representatives with them. He has ostrich boots, crocodile boots, snake boots and anteater boots. In all, this Republican from Santa Clarita has between 15 and 20 different pairs.

The reason McKeon wears boots is pretty logical: His family business, Howard and Phil’s Western Wear, sells boots and other Western garb in 55 stores spanning three states. McKeon has worn boots as long as he can remember. He doesn’t even own dress shoes.

Now, in an act of political outreach, McKeon is rounding up House colleagues who also favor boots.

Boot wearers come in all political stripes but, in McKeon’s eyes, they have a lot in common--an affinity for the country’s Western heritage and the attitudes of self-reliance and individualism represented by the Old West.

No one is sure how many lawmakers may join McKeon’s boot caucus. But he has already identified House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Tex.), Rep. Pat Williams (D-Mont.), Rep. Matthew G. Martinez (D-Monterey Park) and Rep. Charles W. Stenholm (D-Tex.). He estimates there may be as many as 40 occasional boot wearers around.

In the coming weeks, McKeon is planning to hold a luncheon for House boot aficionados, a get-together aimed at bridging the political gap.

What will they talk about?

“All sorts of things,” McKeon said. “Boots.”

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OFFICE POLITICS: Poor Avak Keotahian. He gets no respect. He has become the Rodney Dangerfield of City Hall.

A longtime bureaucrat, Keotahian was assigned the thankless job of watching over the council district left vacant when Zev Yaroslavsky left the post in December to become the newest member of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.

He was given a skeleton staff to care for a district that stretches from Sherman Oaks to Brentwood.

As if his job were not trying enough, this week he and his staff were booted out of Yaroslavsky’s offices on the third floor of City Hall and shuffled off into a vacant conference room behind council chambers. The room is a clutter of boxes, cabinets, computer terminals and three messy desks, where Keotahian and his two staffers respond to calls for assistance and complaints from residents about various city services.

Keotahian had to move out of Yaroslavsky’s old digs because they are being painted and remodeled for Councilman Mike Hernandez, who is taking advantage of the more spacious environs. Once Hernandez relocates, Councilman Richard Alarcon will move into Hernandez’s old offices. When all that is done, Keotahian can settle into Alarcon’s offices.

Meanwhile, the only clue 5th District constituents have to find their temporary caretaker is a handwritten sign taped to Yaroslavsky’s old office door that says: “The 5th District has moved to Room 332.”

Craft reported from Sacramento, Martin from Los Angeles and Lacey from Washington, D.C.