Legislators Already Have Sights Set on ’98 Races

Although they are a week away from wrapping up their reelection campaigns, Ventura County’s confident legislators are already considering their next political moves for the 1998 election and beyond.

Assemblyman Brooks Firestone (R-Los Olivos) has begun talking quietly about running for state superintendent of public instruction in 1998, when Supt. Delaine Eastin comes up for reelection.

The murmurs of his candidacy have prompted the Democratic superintendent to fret about a challenge from Firestone, wealthy grandson of the tire magnate and chairman of the Assembly’s Higher Education Committee. A spokeswoman said Eastin fully understands how the well-connected Firestone could raise vast amounts of political cash to finance a statewide race.

“She should be worried,” Firestone said in a recent interview.

“If California needs me as superintendent of schools, California is in trouble,” Firestone said. “The fact is that California is in trouble.”

The assemblyman said everyone complains about the eroding quality of California’s public schools, but no one accepts responsibility and then pushes hard for major solutions.

“I’m very interested in education issues and very concerned about the future of California,” Firestone said. “The idea of electing a business type, like myself, as superintendent--someone with an open mind and without an ax to grind or preconceived ideology or political bent--is interesting. . . . I’d want to get things done.”

Firestone, 60, is not the only state lawmaker representing Ventura County with eyes on a bigger prize.

State Sen. Cathie Wright (R-Simi Valley) said she is intrigued about running for state controller, California’s chief fiscal officer and bookkeeper.

She anticipates that the seat will be available in 1998--which would be in the middle of her next Senate term--when Controller Kathleen Connell, a Democrat, is expected to plunge into the race for governor to replace Pete Wilson.

“One thing about sitting in an odd-numbered seat,” the senator said, “I have an opportunity to run for state office without losing my seat.”

Two years ago, Wright mounted a statewide campaign for lieutenant governor. She raised $800,000 and collected about 3.4 million votes, but it was not enough. Democratic Lt. Gov. Gray Davis won handily.

Wright said she has no interest in another bid for lieutenant governor. Nor would she want to jump back into the Assembly when term limits force her from the state Senate in 2000. She served in the Assembly from 1980 to 1992.

“When people voted for term limits, they didn’t vote for us to swing back and forth,” she said. Wright represents the 19th Senate District that encompasses most of Ventura County and portions of the San Fernando and Santa Clarita valleys.

But the former Simi Valley City Council member said she cannot imagine retiring at the end of her term, even though she will be 71 years old.

“I couldn’t sit around day after day,” she said, “I’d go crazy.”

So, Wright said she is looking at a potential race for state controller or as an elected member of the State Board of Equalization, a powerful five-member board that hears income tax appeals and oversees the collection of business taxes.

“I like numbers,” Wright said, “and those jobs deal with numbers. I’m a number cruncher.”

Assemblyman Nao Takasugi (R-Oxnard) is mulling over an array of options for 1998, when voter-imposed term limits will force him from the Assembly where he represents a district stretching from Port Hueneme to Moorpark and Thousand Oaks.

The 74-year-old former grocer and Oxnard mayor has no intention of retiring either.

“If the governor said, ‘I’ve got a nice appointment for you,’ I’d consider that,” Takasugi said.

The assemblyman forecasts numerous opportunities, many of them coming from the same voter-approved initiative that will require him to abandon his current seat.

“With term limits, it’s going to be constant musical chairs,” Takasugi said. “There is going to be a lot of new faces in new chairs.”

Takasugi also has his eyes on the Board of Equalization, particularly if board member Dean Andal runs for state controller, to replace Connell when she tries for the governor’s mansion.

“I don’t know what doors may be opening in 1998,” he said. “Politics is a game of being at the right place at the right time.”

Meanwhile, several Republican candidates are gathering to run as Takasugi’s replacement.

Thousand Oaks residents Alan Guggenheim, a communication testing-equipment manufacturer; Mike Berger, a Moorpark middle-school principal, and Tony Strickland, a GOP strategist and campaign manager, are all interested in competing for Takasugi’s 37th Assembly District seat in 1998.

And Tom McClintock, who rep resented Thousand Oaks in the Assembly for a decade, is attempting a comeback in the adjacent 38th Assembly District, which represents Simi Valley and Fillmore, as well as portions of the Santa Clarita and San Fernando valleys.

If McClintock succeeds, he plans to stay put until 2000 when Wright’s state Senate seat becomes available.

McClintock, 40, has been out of public office for four years, sidelined by unsuccessful campaigns for Congress in 1992 and for state controller in 1994.

McClintock said he has no interest in running for Congress again. Since his ill-fated bid, he said he has realized that his true calling--as well as his expertise--is in state government.

As for another bid for state controller, McClintock said he has thought about it long enough to reach this conclusion: “Hell no.”

In contrast to some of his colleagues, state Sen. Jack O’Connell (D-San Luis Obispo) said he is wholly content at staying put in his seat, which represents Ventura, Santa Paula, Ojai and Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties.

Democratic Party leaders approach him every two years about running for Congress, suggesting that he would offer the party its best chance of bouncing Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) from office, or taking the Republican-held seat based in Santa Barbara.

O’Connell, 45, said he is flattered by the party’s entreaties, but has turned them down. “I’m very happy in Sacramento,” he said.

Two years remain on O’Connell’s first term in the state Senate, and under term limits he is eligible for another four-year term after that.

“I would fully expect to run for reelection in 1998,” he said.