Campaign Funds

* I have carefully avoided publicly commenting on the lingering legal and ethical questions hanging over my opponent in last November’s race in the 54th Assembly District. But after reading “Campaign Gifts” (letter, June 2), I am compelled to correct Assemblyman Steven Kuykendall on his characterizations of our race, which was decided by a mere 597 votes out of over 128,000 cast.

In the final weekend, several hundred thousand “hit-pieces” flooded mailboxes all across the 54th Assembly District. Deplorably, as with too many last-minute mailings in hot races, these pieces were not “issues-oriented material.” They were basically very personal character assaults or misrepresentations of my legislative record.

It was no shock that hit-pieces were used against me or that they were smears. The surprise was the volume of mail, since the records showed my opponent didn’t have much money going into the last weekend. As we now know, however, tobacco giant Philip Morris handed $125,000 to my opponent just four days before the election, conveniently too late to list the gift on public disclosure documents. And why was Philip Morris so generous to him? Well, my support of AB 13, an anti-smoking bill, and opposition to Proposition 188, did not endear me to big tobacco.

My opponent has said all along that he is “pragmatic,” which is why he took in the biggest single gift ever made in a state legislative election without making any effort to tell voters or the press until after election day. Had the press reported that big tobacco handed over that kind of money, perhaps the outcome of our race could have been very different.

BETTY KARNETTE

Long Beach