Crowded Field Seeks Tucker’s Seat

Former Rep. Walter R. Tucker III’s resignation from Congress has let loose a swarm of would-be successors, turning his onetime district in south Los Angeles into a crowded political battlefield with a potentially awkward March 26 election.

Tucker’s departure, which followed his conviction on federal extortion charges in December, has left voters facing a knot of procedures in which they must cast ballots twice: once to select a candidate to finish out the remainder of Tucker’s term and once to tap a Democrat and a Republican to run for a full two-year term in the November general election.

With such peculiar circumstances surrounding the race, and with 11 Democrats jostling for position in the fragmented blue-collar district, candidates and local political observers foretell a brief but down to the wire contest.

“It’s a free-for-all,” says Long Beach-based political consultant Jeff Adler. “A lot of wild cards. I’m sure it’ll be a very amusing race, hotly contested and nasty.”

Embedded in the political calculus of the campaigns is Tucker’s personal struggle to save his legacy. An ordained minister and rising star from one of Compton’s prominent political families, Tucker has backed his wife, Robin, to take his place, offering an election day test of how much his family name is still worth. The two-term ex-congressman is to be sentenced March 18, eight days before voters go to the polls.

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The candidates charging full-tilt into the fray over a full two-year term include the best-known elected officials in the district, which covers Compton, Carson, Watts, Lynwood and parts of Long Beach. Early odds are on Assemblyman Willard H. Murray Jr. (D-Paramount) and Assemblywoman Juanita M. McDonald (D-Carson), because their state districts overlay a broad swath of the 37th Congressional District, a Democratic stronghold.

They enter the race with a voter base spread across different segments of southeast Los Angeles, but a crowd of Democratic local officials has also stepped into the ring, each with hopes of riding a wave of home-turf support to Capitol Hill.

Wrestling for votes in roughly the same enclave of voters in one patch of the district are Compton Mayor Omar Bradley, who replaced Tucker in that office; Lynwood Mayor Paul H. Richards, who mounted an unsuccessful bid for a state Senate seat in 1992, and long-serving Compton City Clerk Charles Davis, who enters the competition after a failed campaign for a seat on the state Board of Equalization.

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Add to the mix Tucker’s wife, a gospel singer and former Compton City Hall worker, who won the endorsement of her husband the day he announced his resignation from Congress.

Other hopefuls are M. Susan Carrillo, who serves on a county water replenishment board and is the only Latino candidate; Dale C. Tatum, a college professor, and Joyce Harris, a retired corporate manager. Republican Michael E. Votetee, a Signal Hill businessman, is unopposed to represent his party in the November election.

With the exception of Carrillo and Tatum, all the same Democrats are competing in the special election to name an immediate replacement for Tucker. Two other Democrats, health services salesman and civic activist Robert M. Sausedo and Lt. Murry J. Carter of the county Sheriff’s Department, also hope to fill out the current term, which officially expires in January. A handful of other aspirants failed to come up with the signatures necessary to enter.

With voters forced to scan such an extensive roster of candidates, name recognition clearly has become one of the keys to winning. But more important, pundits say, is success in mobilizing the vote.

While the candidates were confounded early on by the rules governing the special election, many now say their voters should have no problem figuring it out. At the very least, instructions on the ballots will direct voters to exercise their suffrage rights twice, a spokeswoman for the county assessor’s office said.

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In the regular primary, the highest vote-winner from each party will face off in November, and experts again say the successful Democrat is all but guaranteed victory. But in the special election, where only the Democrats have fielded candidates, the top vote-getter (with or without a majority) will take office immediately.

In a district with such low turnout and so many office-seekers scrambling for scant votes, that means even a small spurt of support could be enough to carry the winner to Washington.

“I think someone turning out 18 or 19% can take it,” says Davis.

With so few votes needed, some observers note, one of the lesser-known candidates could squeak by. Some also predict that the office-seekers pinning their hopes on loyalists in Compton will split the city’s vote, shifting the heaviest competition to other areas of the district, particularly neighborhoods with more white voters, who generally have a higher turnout. Such a shift would tilt the scales toward the more widely known state lawmakers, pundits say.

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Murray, who is being forced out of his seat by term limits, started campaigning last year and fired up his fund-raising apparatus as Tucker’s trial began. Charging out of the gate so far in advance may give Murray the edge in a campaign that most candidates say is a sprint, not a marathon, observers said.

“Early money tends to be extraordinarily important,” said Allen Hoffenbloom, a consultant and co-editor of a book tracking partisan matchups statewide.

A onetime chief of staff to former Rep. Mervyn M. Dymally, who flirted with joining the race, Murray has drawn attention recently for stepping up a state probe of cemetery management and for his continued support of the controversial state takeover of the ailing Compton school district.

He came under fire last year for his effort to bring a prison construction contract to Compton, and voters rejected the idea on a citywide referendum by an 87% to 13% margin. He also was one of 12 elected officials cited in a Fair Political Practices Commission list of “deadbeat” politicians who failed to pay back fines.

McDonald, who held off announcing her decision to run until after the trial, has had a quieter term in Sacramento, championing earthquake insurance reform and the state cemetery inquiry. Critics say the former school administrator is too distant and unaware of the district’s priorities, however.

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Both Murray and McDonald won their most recent elections handily, with 81% of the vote in each case, but neither had to face a real challenge. Murray’s opponent, a Republican, dropped out before the election. McDonald defeated a Libertarian candidate who spent only $1,000 on the campaign.

McDonald consultant Richie Ross said the candidates must focus on both the regular and special elections, but likened the shortened term at stake in the special contest to winning “Miss Congeniality. The prize is in winning the nomination and the privilege of having your name on the ballot for a long term in Congress.”