In Legislative Races, Tobacco Is a Hotter Issue Than Ever

Tobacco is being used as an issue in California legislative campaigns like never before, with several candidates pummeling their foes for taking tobacco money and casting pro-tobacco votes.

Some politicians who took tobacco donations in the past are on the defensive, and some are shunning such contributions now.

“What do you call a nurse who takes money from the tobacco companies?” one mailer asks. Open up the brochure, and there’s a drawing of Joe Camel in a nurse’s uniform. “Tricia Hunter. The Tobacco Nurse.”

Democrat Howard Wayne is sending this attack as part of his campaign against Republican Hunter for a San Diego-area Assembly seat. When she was in the Assembly in the 1980s and early 1990s, Hunter took roughly $6,500 from tobacco concerns.

That sum is paltry by California standards. But as she tries to reclaim a seat in the lower house, Hunter says, she won’t be taking a dime more.

“Absolutely not worth the hit,” she says.

Tobacco long has been an issue in California, the first state to approve a tobacco tax for anti-cigarette advertising. That was in 1988. California also led the nation in imposing smoking bans, and overwhelmingly rejected a tobacco industry-sponsored initiative in 1994.

But candidates for California state office, and some for congressional seats, are using the issue with greater frequency in this campaign.

Pollsters, consultants and politicians cite several reasons: President Clinton has placed tobacco at the fore nationally, calling for increased regulation. At the same time, more state and local governments have sued tobacco firms to recoup the cost of treating tobacco-related illness.

Experts say that a candidate’s acceptance of tobacco money, or an elected official’s votes for tobacco bills, probably won’t be enough to sway an election. But when tobacco is raised as part of a cluster of issues, voters may begin to question a politician’s independence.

Indeed, some candidates are telling voters that they accept no money from tobacco, the gun lobby or the oil industry.

“It creates a general atmosphere that you’re beholden to special interests,” said state Senate President Pro Tem Bill Lockyer, who is overseeing Democratic campaigns for the upper house.

So far, tobacco is a significant issue in four of the hottest five races for the state Senate. For the most part, Democrats are using the issue against Republicans. But some Republicans are assailing Democrats who take tobacco money.

In a coastal Senate race, Assemblyman Bruce McPherson (R-Santa Cruz) is preparing to send mailers citing tobacco donations accepted by his opponent, former Assemblyman Rusty Areias of Los Banos.

“It is part of a whole package,” said McPherson, citing his refusal to take oil industry money.

All this is not to say that tobacco firms aren’t major players in the election. Philip Morris, the world’s largest cigarette firm, poured more than $300,000 into California campaigns in the first half of the year.

The New York conglomerate has given $217,000 to legislative leaders, including $55,000 each to Lockyer and Senate Republican Leader Rob Hurtt of Garden Grove.

“Every campaign is under-funded,” Lockyer said, explaining why he takes tobacco money. “I recognize that it sets me up for some future political hit. But it’s my job as the financier of the campaigns, as the Democratic leader of the Senate, to try to maximize the amount of resources in campaigns.”

As legislative leaders go, Lockyer takes relatively small sums of tobacco money. Republican Speaker Curt Pringle of Garden Grove, by contrast, has accepted more than $102,000 from the tobacco industry this year.

Assembly Democratic Leader Richard Katz of Sylmar has not taken tobacco money on behalf of Democrats running for the lower house. However, other Assembly Democrats have taken tobacco money, including at least one potential successor to Katz, Assemblyman Cruz Bustamante of Fresno.

Even more cigarette money undoubtedly will flow into state races during the final week of the campaign, if 1994 is any indication.

On the day before the 1994 election, Philip Morris shipped $125,000 to one Assembly candidate, Republican Steve Kuykendall of Rancho Palos Verdes, giving Kuykendall the money he needed to pay for political mailers against his incumbent opponent. Kuykendall won the Assembly seat.

This year, Kuykendall’s foe, Democrat Gerrie Schipske, is running a campaign built almost exclusively around the $125,000 donation Kuykendall took two years ago. Among her campaign props, Schipske hands out pill bottles, filled with “Tobacco Cash Withdrawal Pills.” The pills are jellybeans.

“WARNING,” the pill bottle label says. “Taking $125,000 from Philip Morris during 1994 campaign without telling voters will result in loss of your Assembly seat in 1996.”

“Why don’t you campaign on something the public is interested in?” Kuykendall says to his foe. He points to what he sees as the main issues in the Long Beach-area district: jobs, crime and education, not tobacco.

“It has caused a lot of heartburn, I must say that,” Kuykendall said of the donation. He added that he has no plans to take more tobacco money this year. “There is no need to go back. Just the aggravation it causes, why put up with it?”

Among the other races in which the tobacco issue is a factor;

* In the campaign for a state Senate seat in the Long Beach area, Democrat Betty Karnett, who was unseated by Kuykendall in 1994, is devoting much of her mail campaign to tobacco donations accepted by her opponent, Assemblyman Phil Hawkins (R-Bellflower), and pro-tobacco votes Hawkins has made.

* Democrat Adam Schiff, running for a Pasadena-area Senate seat, cites tobacco company money accepted by his opponent, Republican Assemblywoman Paula Boland of Granada Hills. Boland responded by accusing Schiff of hypocrisy because he has taken money from Democratic leaders who have taken tobacco money.

* The tone is getting personal in the hard-fought Senate campaign between Assemblyman Richard Rainey (R-Walnut Creek) and Democrat Jeff Smith, a physician and Contra Costa County supervisor.

“The only way he is going to be able to win is to tear down my reputation,” Rainey said in an interview.

Smith opened with a volley of mailers, including one signed by a lung cancer patient Smith had treated, citing Rainey’s acceptance of $3,750 in tobacco money, and votes against anti-tobacco bills.

Rainey responded with a letter signed by his daughter, Gina, pointing out that her mother, Rainey’s first wife, died of breast cancer in 1986. Accusing Smith of an especially low blow, the letter declared, “No election is worth wining if it means sacrificing common decency.”

Given the anti-tobacco messages in several campaigns, the Legislature that returns to Sacramento could be willing to take steps to further limit cigarettes, some observers say. At a minimum, lawmakers who have made an issue of tobacco will find it hard to vote for pro-tobacco legislation.

“It’s a clear message to tobacco companies: I’m not one of their votes in Sacramento,” McPherson said. “If they want a vote, go someplace else.”