Bowen Says GOP Targets Her Bills

A Democratic assemblywoman from Los Angeles has accused political rivals of sabotaging her legislative efforts just to make her look bad to voters in a district where she faces a tough reelection fight.

Debra Bowen of Marina del Rey, who is considered by GOP strategists ripe for defeat in November, said Republicans are using their superior numerical forces to kill off measures she has introduced, even those that Republicans would normally support.

The latest example, she said, was a maneuver this week by the Republican majority on an Assembly committee to vote down a Bowen bill to preserve the practice of allowing TV cameras in courtrooms. At the same time, she noted, the committee approved an almost identical bill offered by a Republican.

It was “very obvious . . . and disturbing,” said Bowen, that Republicans were “putting partisanship above policy” to mar her record as an effective lawmaker in an election year.

“I took it as an ominous sign that we are so deep into electoral politics that policy is off the radar screen,” she said.

The unseating of Bowen at the polls has “high priority. . . . She’s in the top category of targeted races” in which Republicans plan to pour money and other resources, said Gary Foster, spokesman for Assembly Speaker Curt Pringle (R-Garden Grove), who has a major say in where Republicans spend campaign dollars.

Bowen is considered vulnerable in her district where voter registration is 43% Democratic and 41% Republican. She has won twice in her beach cities region, but never against an opponent with the heavy GOP support promised to this year’s challenger, Torrance City Councilman Dan Walker, a moderate Republican considered her most formidable opponent.

On Wednesday, the Republican on the Assembly Judiciary Committee who first challenged Bowen said real differences separated her bill and a measure by Assemblyman Tom Woods (R-Shasta)--which the committee passed.

“Her bill was very vague compared to Woods’ bill,” said Assemblyman David Knowles (R-Placerville). As to blocking Bowen’s measure as a political ploy, “that honestly did not occur to me,” Knowles said.

To which Bowen replied: “Horse [manure].”

She said at one point Wednesday she offered to strip her bill of all but a line preventing the state Judicial Council or the courts from imposing an absolute camera ban--an identical aim of Woods’ bill.

Knowles said that if Bowen wanted credit for legislation upholding the right of cameras in courtrooms, she could sign on as a joint author to the Woods bill. Bowen said that was unacceptable.

Bowen said it was not the first time Republicans had ganged up against her on measures that they otherwise would have approved.

In recent actions by Republican-dominated committees, Bowen said, her bills to increase tax deductions for the self-employed to match those enjoyed by employers and to further restrict legislators from accepting gifts were defeated.

Both were Republican-type bills, Bowen said, the latter “drawn directly from [Republican House Speaker] Newt Gingrich’s congressional reforms.”

Bowen said any strategy trying to portray her as an ineffective lawmaker “would backfire.”