Freshmen Congressmen Leading

The San Fernando Valley’s two rookie congressmen, targeted by their rival parties and shadowed by the controversy surrounding President Clinton’s possible impeachment, took early leads in their reelection bids Tuesday.

As the first wave of election results trickled in, mostly absentee ballots, Reps. James Rogan (R-Glendale) and Brad Sherman (D-Sherman Oaks) remained quietly upbeat and their challengers continued to express an optimism that permeates most campaigns early on election night.

“I have never expected to win big,” Rogan said from his Glendale campaign headquarters. “A huge win for us would be 51% or 52%.”

Rogan was leading with 58.5% of the vote to Democrat Barry Gordon’s 39.4% late Tuesday.

In early returns, Sherman was leading Republican Randy Hoffman by 11%. Those votes came mainly from Ventura County and absentee ballots--two areas where Sherman’s camp expected to lose, prompting them to view the early returns as a harbinger of success.

Sherman described himself as “cautiously optimistic.”

The Rogan race attracted national attention as a possible bellwether to voters’ reaction to the Clinton scandal and the Republican-controlled Congress’ push for impeachment, but Rogan insisted his campaign was based more on his own integrity and effectiveness in Congress.

During the campaign, Gordon, an actor from Pasadena, accused Rogan of joining a partisan vendetta to bring down the Clinton presidency. Rogan voted in favor of the GOP proposal to launch an impeachment inquiry, and he is a member of the House Judiciary Committee, which will conduct the investigation.

“My life as a congressman doesn’t revolve around these issues,” said Rogan, a former prosecutor and Municipal Court judge. “I wasn’t elected to . . . look into the president’s personal life.’

The 27th Congressional District includes Pasadena, Glendale, Burbank and communities wedged between the Verdugo and San Gabriel mountains.

Rogan voted in favor of the GOP impeachment proposal and advised House Speaker Newt Gingrich on how the House should act on independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr’s report accusing the president of perjury and obstruction of justice.

Rogan has maintained Congress has an obligation to investigate the allegations against Clinton, but also said the president must be afforded a “presumption of innocence” if Congress expects the public to believe the process is fair and just. Rogan tried to steer the focus of the campaign to other issues, emphasizing the accomplishments of the GOP-led Congress--with delivery of a balanced budget for the first time in three decades and tax relief for families topping his list.

Rogan switched to more bruising tactics in the final week of the campaign, sending a mailer criticizing Gordon’s shaky personal finances over the past 15 years, including four tax liens and a bankruptcy filing.

Gordon cast Rogan as a far-right Republican closely aligned with Gingrich, a position Gordon said is “out of sync” with voters. Gordon’s campaign mail ripped Rogan’s positions against abortion rights and a ban on assault weapons.

The finale was much more vicious in the race for the 24th Congressional District, which pitted Sherman against Hoffman, a millionaire high-tech businessman from Thousand Oaks. The district includes Sherman Oaks, Woodland Hills, Malibu, Calabasas and Thousand Oaks.

“If these results hold,” Sherman said of his early lead, “it will be extremely difficult for Newt Gingrich to come out and recruit another millionaire to run against me.”

Sherman said he believes voters were responding to his positive mailers, stressing his record on the environment and education, unlike Hoffman, who Sherman said relied mainly on his wealth.

“You cannot go into a race saying my primary advantage is personal wealth,” Sherman said. “It’s not whether you have money, but whether you have a history of involvement with your community and your country.”

The two candidates, who both held themselves out as fiscal conservatives and social moderates, flooded Valley mailboxes with a stream of sometimes nasty charges and countercharges. In the final days, Hoffman even criticized Sherman for voting in favor of a limited impeachment inquiry of the president.

Hoffman’s campaign also accused Sherman of helping Russia and China sell nuclear-missile technology to Iran, and Sherman accused Hoffman’s company of supplying military equipment to Arab enemies of Israel.

The Republican Party considered Sherman, a freshman and former member of the state Board of Equalization, one of the most vulnerable Democrats in Congress. The GOP flew in some of the party’s top muscle to help raise money for Hoffman--former presidential nominee Bob Dole, former Vice President Dan Quayle and House Majority Leader Dick Armey. Actress Heather Locklear headlined a Hoffman fund-raiser in Westlake Village.

Hoffman, worth between $2 million and $7 million, pumped nearly $900,000 of his money into the campaign. He stepped down as president of Magellan Systems Inc., a high-tech San Dimas company that makes personal satellite navigation systems, to run for office.

In other congressional races, the incumbents appeared to have the advantage.

Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon was expected to easily be reelected to a fourth term. For the first time the Santa Clarita Republican faced no major party opposition.

And Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Mission Hills) faced a similar situation. After fighting off San Fernando Mayor Raul Godinez, a Democrat, in the primary, Berman faced three alternative-party candidates Tuesday.

McKeon was cruising in early returns with 76.9% of the vote. Berman, who has served 16 years, was leading with 83.3% of the vote.

In the race for the state Senate, absentee ballots returns showed Los Angeles City Councilman Richard Alarcon leading with 57% of the vote, outpacing Republican Ollie McCaulley’s 35%.

“I remember when I first ran for council and my opponent announced victory after the absentee ballots were counted,” Alarcon said. “I won’t make that same mistake, but I will say we’re encouraged due to the fact that we didn’t launch an absentee ballot campaign. I’m expecting the margin will grow, and I’m very pleased with the first results.”

Alarcon’s apparent win Tuesday came after a bitter primary battle with fellow Democrat Richard Katz. It was a contest marked by charges of race-baiting, a recount and lawsuits.

On the opposite end of the campaign spectrum, Assemblyman Tom McClintock (R-Northridge) faced no challengers Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Assemblyman Bob Hertzberg (D-Sherman Oaks) led with 66%. Assemblyman Tony Cardenas (D-Sylmar) had a comfortable lead with 82%, and Assemblywoman Sheila Kuehl (D-Santa Monica), speaker pro tem, led her reelection bid with 58%.

Democratic Assemblyman Scott Wildman of Los Angeles had 56% in the 43rd Assembly District to put him ahead of Republican challenger Peter Repovich, a police officer. Repovich’s hopes of reclaiming the Assembly seat for his party were dashed when it was revealed he had been disciplined for sexually harassing a female officer and for picking up a handcuffed shoplifting suspect by the hair.

And in the 44th Assembly District, Assemblyman Jack Scott (D-Pasadena) led his Republican challenger, Ken LaCorte, by 4% in early returns. The hard-fought race pitted the well-financed incumbent against LaCorte, who received last-minute help from backers of Indian gaming in the form of political mailers that were valued at tens of thousands of dollars.

Scott’s campaign predicted the incumbent would win by as many as 15 percentage points. Scott told a crowd of 300 supporters at the Pasadena Hilton, “I’m very confident of a victory tonight.”

While the controversial issue of Valley secession from Los Angeles wasn’t on Tuesday’s ballot, it was close by. Petitioners from Valley VOTE, the group leading the drive for a study and possible vote on the issue, stationed themselves at polling sites to collect signatures.

“We expect to get another 6,000 to 10,000 signatures,” Valley VOTE President Jeff Brain said.

*

Times staff writers Andrew Blankstein, Jeff Leeds, Antonio Olivo and Martha L. Willman contributed to this story.