Boland Urged to Give Up Senate Bid : Politics: GOP leader, hoping to stem feud in the party, pressures assemblywoman to withdraw from race.

A rich and powerful GOP leader from Orange County is trying to avert a costly intra-party feud by dissuading state Assemblywoman Paula Boland (R-Granada Hills) from running against an Assembly colleague for an open Senate seat.

Leaning on Boland to withdraw is Rob Hurtt (R-Garden Grove), the Senate’s Republican leader and a man recently identified by California Common Cause, the nonprofit campaign finance watchdog, as one of the biggest financial angels for dozens of GOP candidates throughout the state.

As of Friday, however, the Boland camp was not budging. “We are not discussing withdrawing; we are not contemplating it,” said Scott Wilk, Boland’s chief of staff. Boland herself could not be reached for comment because she was attending to her husband, Lloyd, who was recovering from surgery.

Hurtt, a conservative who pulled off a surprise coup this summer to topple longtime GOP Senate leader Ken Maddy (R-Fresno), wants Boland to bow out of the race for the GOP nomination for the 21st District seat now held by Sen. Newt Russell (R-Glendale). Russell will be forced by term limits to step down in 1996 from the seat he has held since 1974.

Russell’s departure has touched off a succession scramble between Boland and Assemblyman Bill Hoge (R-Pasadena), and it has stimulated Democratic interest in the seat which includes Pasadena, La Canada-Flintridge, Sunland-Tujunga, Glendale and Burbank. Boland, in particular, has been eager to find a new political base since term limits will force her out of the Assembly next year.

If Boland were to step aside, it would allow Hoge to easily win the GOP nomination and save his financial resources to fight the Democratic nominee for the Russell seat in the November, 1996, general election, according to Hurtt’s press director Rob Stutzman.

Former federal prosecutor Adam Schiff, a Democrat, has thrown his hat into the 21st District race. Schiff ran unsuccessfully against state Assemblyman James Rogan (R-Glendale) in 1994.

Last weekend, the Hurtt camp commissioned a poll of 21st District GOP voters to determine whether Hoge or Boland has the most support.

“Paula shows up only in single digits,” Stutzman said of the poll. “Hoge has a huge lead and he’s the only one [of several possible GOP candidates tested in the poll] who is well into having double-digit support.”

Boland does not currently represent any part of the geographical area within the 21st Senate District, while Hoge represents the northern half of that district, making him a well-known local political commodity.

“Hoge is the clear front-runner,” Stutzman said.

“We Republicans don’t need to waste valuable resources fighting each other,” said Stutzman. Hurtt’s major push during the 1996 political season is to finally put the GOP in control of the state Legislature’s 40-member upper house.

But Wilk said the Boland camp is concerned that the poll may not have been as toughly objective as it could have been if the results were as reported by the Hurtt camp. “This could be self-serving,” Wilk said. He said the questionnaire was reviewed before hitting the streets by the Hoge camp. “It’s our understanding that the poll was done by Bill Hoge, for Bill Hoge,” Wilk said. “If we’d have written it, we could make Hoge come in third place.”

Last week, Hurtt was quoted as saying he believed Hoge was the stronger of the two candidates and was only using the poll to confirm that estimate.

Boland supporters also believe that the assemblywoman’s recent victory in her long crusade to ease the breakup of the Los Angeles Unified School District would help her with voters, as would her strong law and order credentials.

Meanwhile, in a campaign finance report filed this week, Hoge disclosed that he had only $4,700 in the bank to finance his Senate race. But the amount may not be important because Hurtt is capable of raising huge sums of money for those he backs. In the 1994 political season, Hurtt’s firm, Container Supply Co., contributed $1.2 million to candidates statewide. In addition, Allied Business PAC, a conservative political action committee that Hurtt set up, contributed $1.085 million to candidates.

As the new Senate leader and a man who is wealthy in his own right, Hurtt is seen as a potent ally for Hoge.

Still, Boland supporters privately say it may be a big mistake for the party to nominate Hoge because of his controversial ties to gambling interests.

While widely identified as a member of the religious right, Hoge has received tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from gambling interests. One of Hoge’s ex-wives also publicly alleged during his 1994 reelection campaign that he was a gambling addict; Hoge denied it.

Earlier this year, Hoge, a former insurance broker, became involved in a criminal investigation involving gaming interests. In that matter, Hoge claimed a prominent former state official, Michael Montgomery, tried to bribe him in an effort to win his support for legislation favorable to a San Francisco-area card club that Montgomery was representing. In July, the state attorney general’s office confirmed that it had turned over its inquiry of Montgomery, the former head of the state Fair Political Practices Commission, to the Sacramento district attorney.

Some have speculated that Hoge is hoping his involvement in the Montgomery investigation may help sanitize the large contributions he has received from gaming interests in the past.