Campaign ’96 / CALIFORNIA : Special Election Takes on Special Significance : Big money is spurring campaigns of Sher and Shannon, who vie Tuesday for state Senate seat in a race seen as test of party strengths.

Powerful interests from Gov. Pete Wilson to environmental leaders are targeting a special election Tuesday in Northern California as a possible early tip-off of partisan strengths statewide going into the November general election.

In addition, environmentalists nationally are closely watching the outcome.

Though only a contest for a temporary seat in the state Senate from Silicon Valley, the race between veteran Democratic Assemblyman Byron Sher and a Republican neophyte, Patrick Shannon, holds crucial importance in the fight to control the California Legislature, leaders on all sides agree.

Campaigning is taking place throughout the sprawling district, running from just north of Palo Alto and the Stanford University campus south to an area taking in about a third of the city of San Jose, a high-tech industrial area where an estimated 25% of the registered voters have post-graduate college degrees.

State environmentalists are pouring unprecedented money and energy into the Sher campaign in an effort to keep an effective ally in office. Sher, a 16-year member of the Assembly and the author of numerous environmental protection laws, is being forced out of the lower house this year because of term limits.

State environmental groups have raised about $100,000 for the Sher campaign, according to Sam Schuchat, head of the California League of Conservation Voters.

“We’re seeing the biggest [environmental] effort ever mounted” in a California campaign, Schuchat said. “We typically give $3,000 to $5,000.”

Even in the expensive 1994 U.S. Senate race between Democrat Dianne Feinstein and Republican Mike Huffington, “the environmental community overall came up with only $89,000” for winner Feinstein, Schuchat said.

Groups such as the league and the Sierra Club have turned out 100 or more members at a time to walk precincts for Sher. Troops organized by the Democratic Party also have hit the streets for Sher, as have others for Shannon organized by the GOP.

Sher political consultant David Townsend calls it a district campaign of “house to house fighting.”

Shannon, a lawyer who has never held elective office, is nevertheless regarded as an attractive candidate who has the support of all key Republican leaders. Admirers note his four years of service to Wilson as a criminal justice system advisor and academic credentials, including degrees from Stanford, the London School of Economics and UC Berkeley’s Boalt Hall law school.

Phone calls, mailings, precinct walking and radio ads have bombarded voters, thanks to more than $1 million in cash or in-kind contributions made to Sher, and more than $500,000 for Shannon, according to state campaign records.

At immediate stake is a seat in the state Senate, but only until the end of the year. To win a full four-year term, Sher and Shannon must run again in November for the seat, vacated last year by Republican Tom Campbell, who was elected to Congress to fill out the term of Rep. Norman Y. Mineta (D-San Jose), who resigned.

Wilson is an active Shannon campaigner, holding fund-raisers and making personal phone calls to likely supporters. Senate Minority Leader Rob Hurtt (R-Garden Grove) called the contest “the race, the whole tamale . . . occupying 95% of my time” devoted to Tuesday’s elections.

Shannon is the obvious underdog, said Wilson Press Secretary Sean Walsh. But he won Wilson’s support because he showed promise as an aide and because he is seen as representing the GOP’s future.

His candidacy is “a bit of gamble,” said Walsh, “but our party has got to go after young attractive candidates and get them into the process to grow.” A Shannon victory on Tuesday, Walsh said, would “send a very strong signal going into November that the Republicans can take over the Senate.”

Among Democrats, Senate leader Bill Lockyer hopes for a Sher victory as a way to raise the number of Senate Democrats from 21 to 22 in the 40-member house. The cushion is important, said Lockyer, to help block “bad right-wing policy coming out of the Assembly.”

The district’s registration is fairly close, 45% Democrats and 38% Republicans.

Against Sher’s experience and position as emeritus law professor at Stanford University, Shannon is touted as the more “perfect fit” for the Senate district, which has been in moderate Republican hands for 12 years.

Contrasts between the two are unmistakable, but more physically than politically. A lanky 6-foot-7, smooth-faced and deep baritone in speech, Shannon, 31, looked out over a retirement community debate audience recently and intoned that he is “making a run at this tender age to represent a new breed in the Legislature.”

Sher, 68, short and bearded, spoke less sonorously, but with more specifics about problems needing legislative remedies, including high-handedness by HMOs. Noting he served as a mayor and city councilman before his election to the Assembly in 1980, Sher said that “the contrast between me and my opponent is that I have all this experience in local, regional and state government, and that makes the better legislator.”

On issues important in the district, both candidates are pro-choice and pro-environment. Despite the governor’s endorsement, Shannon says Wilson’s anti-affirmative action stand goes too far.

Sharper differences emerge, however, on such issues as crime and taxes. Shannon contends that Sher is too liberal and “soft on crime.” He calls Sher “Mr. Tax Man” for voting in favor of two dozen tax measures.

Sher counters by saying he supported tough crime measures. Of the tax measures he approved, Sher says half also had the support of Republicans, or Wilson himself.