Opposites Attack in Race for State Attorney General

Democrat Bill Lockyer, running for state attorney general, strongly supports an expanded ban on assault weapons. Republican foe Dave Stirling opposes gun control, instead calling for tougher penalties against criminals who use guns.

Stirling, chief deputy to outgoing Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren, has doubts that the office he aspires to lead can win California’s lawsuit against the tobacco industry. State Sen. Lockyer vows to aggressively pursue the multibillion-dollar claim against tobacco.

As Lockyer and Stirling wage a rough and tumble campaign for what is regarded as the second most powerful statewide office, one fact is clear: They couldn’t be further apart on many of the issues they would directly confront if elected.

Although races for governor and U.S. Senate dominate political talk, whoever is elected attorney general Nov. 3 stands to have more influence on some of the hottest issues of the day than any state official except the state’s chief executive.

California’s attorney general, who oversees 5,000 employees, enforces the state’s laws involving everything from weapons restrictions to pollution control, discrimination, the death penalty, and consumer fraud. The office has been a steppingstone to higher posts. Three governors--Earl Warren, Edmund G. “Pat” Brown Sr. and George Deukmejian--first held the attorney general’s job, and several others, Lungren included, have won their party’s gubernatorial nomination.

Stirling and Lockyer have already been Sacramento denizens for more than two decades.

Lockyer, 57, emerged as the leader of the Senate, a post he held for four years ending earlier this year. As president pro tem of the upper house, he was the most powerful Democrat in the capital, taking the lead in negotiating state budgets and wielding the authority to kill virtually any piece of legislation that came through the Senate. Term limits are forcing him to leave the Legislature.

Stirling, 58, a former assemblyman from Whittier and Superior Court judge, has spent the 1990s as Lungren’s chief aide. In that post, Stirling has run the day-to-day operations and taken a major role in many of the office’s policy decisions. He has been on leave for the past year to run his own campaign.

Trading Allegations

As the election nears, the candidates have sharply attacked each other’s legal backgrounds.

Lockyer accuses Stirling of having defended “rapists” when he was in private law practice in Whittier.

Stirling acknowledges that he represented a variety of clients as a private attorney in the 1970s, including criminal defendants, and retorts that Lockyer has never even tried a case.

Lockyer, who earned his law degree from McGeorge Law School at night while he was in the Legislature, points out that attorneys general rarely, if ever, make court appearances. That is left to career deputies.

Lockyer adds that his years as Senate leader give him the policy and administrative background to run the Department of Justice. With crime a major part of the attorney general’s post--he oversees a state police force of agents who investigate major drug and organized crime--Stirling is stressing law and order themes. He vows to follow in Lungren’s footsteps by pushing for tougher criminal sentences, and focusing on representing county prosecutors in death penalty appeals.

Stirling, who was raised in Louisiana and moved west after finishing law school at Tulane University, labels Lockyer, who grew up in the East Bay, a “1960s Bay Area liberal.” He has even tried to score points by criticizing Lockyer for saying that a question put to him on a radio talk show about whether he has used illegal drugs while in public office was inappropriate.

Lockyer shrugs off the attack, saying that he does not use or condone the use of drugs and would vigorously enforce all laws against drugs. He also points out that he has supported capital punishment throughout his career. Unlike Stirling, Lockyer says he would aggressively enforce laws against pollution, consumer fraud and civil rights violations.

Lockyer is focusing his campaign on gun control, accusing Stirling of being “to the right” of Lungren on the issue.

In a stand that helped him win Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan’s endorsement, Lockyer vows to enforce the state’s existing restrictions on assault weapons, and push hard for stronger laws against the military-style guns.

“Assault weapons kill cops. They kill kids,” Lockyer said. “There are a lot of excuses given about why an effective job wasn’t done in enforcing this law. I will enforce it.”

Stirling, who is endorsed by the National Rifle Assn., counters: “Any kind of ban of weapons is primarily dealing with fiction.”

Stirling instead advocates tough laws such as the so-called 10-20-life measure, a statute he advocated as Lungren’s chief deputy that imposes progressively longer sentences on felons who carry, fire or wound people with guns.

Tobacco Suit

Lungren’s successor will arrive with an in-basket stacked high. Tobacco probably will top the pile. A year ago, Lungren sued the tobacco industry, demanding reimbursement for state medical costs for caring for smokers who are indigent, and seeking penalties for a variety of other alleged misdeeds, ranging from fraud to antitrust violations.

Unless California’s lawsuit against the tobacco industry is settled by year’s end, the next attorney general will immediately face decisions about one of the most sweeping civil suits California has ever brought, one that could bring the state $25 billion or more.

“The best settlement negotiation is to prepare for trial,” Lockyer said. “The behavior of tobacco companies was so egregious, jurors will be outraged.”

Lockyer, like Stirling, is taking no tobacco industry contributions in this campaign. In recent years, Lockyer has become one of the Legislature’s strongest tobacco foes, though during the 20-year period ending in 1996, Lockyer took $175,000 for various campaigns from tobacco sources, according to one analysis.

Stirling has questions about the wisdom of suing cigarette makers. The lawsuit, he said, “doesn’t promote the idea of personal responsibility.”

“If you’re going to partake of a product that has a possible health problem,” he said, “you are assuming the risk.”

Stirling noted that a trial court judge has thrown out part of California’s case--that tobacco companies should pay the state’s medical bills for caring for indigents.

Lungren is appealing that ruling. Even if that decision is reversed, Stirling said, the state will probably have a hard time proving that it suffered financial damages. California does not keep records of specific Medi-Cal recipients who have tobacco-related disease.

Instead, state lawyers plan to use statistical evidence to estimate the number of Medi-Cal recipients who have tobacco-related disease. Stirling balks at that concept.

“I’ll never take a case to court that forms some statistical figure, and then an expert comes in and tries to make a case to the jury as to why that should be the figure,” said Stirling, though he added that he would not preclude taking the tobacco case to trial.

The use of statistics is common in complex litigation. Other states suing big tobacco are using statistics, said law professor Richard Daynard of Northeastern University in Boston, an expert on lawsuits brought by more than three dozen states against the tobacco industry.

“There is no other conceivable way of demonstrating the state’s loss in a multibillion-dollar case,” Daynard said, predicting that Stirling’s comments could aid the industry. “It suggests that you’re going to get a cheap settlement.”

Although Stirling is critical of the state’s lawsuit, he is attacking Lockyer on tobacco. He criticizes Lockyer for carrying 1987 legislation that overhauled the civil justice system. Gov. Deukmejian, who is one of Stirling’s strongest backers, signed the bill into law.

That law, a compromise between attorneys and various business groups, included a provision granting immunity to the tobacco industry from some lawsuits brought by individual smokers. Lockyer has said he viewed the clause as a throwaway line that business groups wanted and that it simply restated existing law.

A decade later, however, Lungren cited that line in refusing to join other states in suing tobacco firms. The suit was brought only after the Legislature repealed the immunity last summer.

Other states with almost identical statutes sued earlier than California. Texas, which has the same wording in its civil code, sued the tobacco industry in 1996 and has settled its case for $17.3 billion. But a trial judge in Sacramento cited the 1987 law as a reason for dismissing part of the state’s case.

To help win next week’s election, Stirling hopes his ballot title--chief deputy attorney-general--will sway undecided voters. “It’s very important, no question about it. . . . That’s OK with me. I’m not a household name.” To win the right to use his full title, which is longer than the usual three-word maximum, Stirling won a court ruling.

The Spending Gap

Lockyer’s advantage is money. He has outspent Stirling by $5.4 million to $1.4 million, and leads in recent polls. Lockyer’s television ads attack Stirling over court actions he took as Lungren’s aide, siding with a person convicted of possessing an illegal assault weapon. Stirling urged the high court to reverse the conviction--a position Lungren rescinded last year.

To finance his campaign, Lockyer, long an ally of organized labor and lawyers who represent plaintiffs in civil cases, relies heavily on labor unions and trial lawyers. Together, lawyers and unions have given Lockyer $1.5 million since the primary.

Lockyer has also drawn on relationships struck up during his 25 years in the Legislature. E&J; Gallo has given him $100,000 this year. Zenith Insurance Co. has given him $85,000.

Stirling has tapped gambling interests, raising $890,000 this year primarily from Indian tribes fighting for the right to run casinos as they see fit. The attorney general oversees a unit that regulates gambling in California.

Stirling has received significant money from farmers--more than $200,000. During the 1980s, as the Deukmejian-appointed head of the Agricultural Labor Relations Board, he reversed many of its previous pro-labor stands. His one large labor contribution has come from the union representing state prison guards--$50,000.

Finally, Stirling has tapped conservatives, including Orange County savings and loan heir Howard Ahmanson. Ahmanson, who primarily finances anti-abortion candidates, is among Stirling’s largest single donors at $160,000.

Lockyer supports abortion rights. Stirling said he would bar abortions after the first 45 days of pregnancy, except in instances of rape, incest or threat to the woman’s life. Stirling says his position “provides for a woman’s right to choose, but calls for a certain responsibility.”

“I don’t know that we can eliminate the entire concept of Roe vs. Wade in one moment,” Stirling said.

Such logic is questioned by abortion rights advocates, who say most of the procedures are performed in the third month of pregnancy.

“A lot of women don’t even know they’re pregnant at 45 days,” said Katherine Kneer of Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California. The state attorney general has some authority over abortion. Lungren has filed written briefs in appellate courts urging limits on late-term abortions and supporting parents’ right to have a say over whether their daughters can have an abortion.

Even as Stirling accepts Ahmanson’s money, he also has taken $30,000 from Dr. Edward Allred, who controls several clinics in California where abortions are performed.

Allred, who donates the money through Los Alamitos Race Course, which he owns, said he has never discussed abortion with Stirling. He is most interested in gambling-related issues, he said.

“Go figure,” Stirling said. “I’m honest. I try to say what my position is. It may not be 100% what anyone wants. I’m not trying to take positions that are cute. They all understand my position.”

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Profile: Bill Lockyer

Lockyer is a state senator from Hayward, who has been involved in Democratic politics for all of his adult life. He was elected to the state Assembly in 1973, and the state Senate in 1982.

* Age: 57

* Residence: Hayward

* Education: BA, University of California, Berkeley, 1965; McGeorge Law School, 1986

* Career highlights: Lockyer was Senate president pro tem for four years ending earlier this year. In that post, he was the most powerful Democrat in state government, taking a leading role in negotiating annual state budgets, making hundreds of appointments, and exercising power to kill any bill. Lockyer is the author of major legislation aimed at overhauling the civil justice system, establishing a new regulatory scheme for gambling, providing state payment for county costs of operating courts, and speeding the capital punishment process. He got his law degree by attending McGeorge for 7 1/2 years at night while he was in the Legislature.

* Family: Single, divorced twice. Adult daughter from his first marriage.

* Quote: “A better case can be made to expand the essential services that go on in the Department of Justice. I’d like to see civil rights enforcement expanded. I’d like to see environmental and consumer protection expanded. I don’t see it as a choice. The Attorney should do everything possible to do carry out the criminal and civil responsibilities.”

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Profile: Dave Stirling

Stirling grew up in Morgan City, La. He is chief deputy to Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren, but has been on leave for more than a year to campaign. Stirling had a general law practice in Whittier and La Habra in the 1970s, then was elected to the state Assembly in 1976, serving until 1982, when he ran unsuccessfully for state Attorney General. In 1982, Gov. George Deukmejian appointed him to head the Agricultural Labor Relations Board, and later to the Superior Court in Sacramento. He left the bench to become Lungren’s chief deputy when Lungren was elected Attorney General in 1990.

* Age: 58

* Residence: Walnut Grove

* Education: BA, Principia College in Illinois, 1962; Tulane University law school, 1965.

* Career highlights: As chief deputy to Lungren, Stirling took a hand in writing the three-strikes sentence law and the 10-20-Life law that adds prison time for felons who use guns. As general counsel to the ALRB in the 1980s, Stirling was instrumental in reversing pro-labor positions.

* Family: Married to Susanne Stirling, a vice president at the California Chamber of Commerce. One daughter, age 5; two grown sons from a previous marriage.

* Quote: “What we must do is deal with people who use guns in the commission of a crime--that’s 10-20-life. It deals with people who use guns in commission of a crime, not telling law-abiding citizens that they can’t a certain type of weapon.”