Democratic Challenger Slams Rogan Over Education Issues

Taking a page out of the Democratic Party’s playbook, congressional hopeful Barry Gordon ripped into Republican incumbent Rep. James Rogan (R-Glendale) on Monday for supporting private school vouchers and voting against President Clinton’s budget proposal for 100,000 new teachers.

Gordon announced his education platform on the front steps of Daniel Webster Elementary School, and pointed to the peeling paint on the facade to show how underfunded local schools have been, in part, he said, because of the hostility of a Republican Congress.

The Democrat dismissed speculation that voters may be too distracted by the scandal involving Clinton to focus on policy debate in the local congressional race. Special prosecutor Kenneth W. Starr, in his report to Congress, accused the president of perjury and abusing his presidential powers, which Starr said were grounds for impeachment.

Rogan is a member of the House Judiciary Committee, which will be the first in Congress to consider censure or impeachment.

“Jim Rogan would like to be running against Bill Clinton, but he’s not,” Gordon said. “He’s running against Barry Gordon.

Gordon, former president of the Screen Actors Guild, hopes to unseat the Republican in the November general election for the 27th Congressional District, which includes Glendale, Pasadena, Tujunga and Sunland.

The Rogan campaign called Gordon’s comments misleading, and said the freshman Republican congressman has a strong voting record on education.

“He agrees with Barry that our schools need to be fixed, but he wants them fixed on a local level,” said Rogan campaign director Jeff Lennan.

As a state Assemblyman, Rogan also supported efforts to reduce class sizes for students up to the third grade, and in Congress pushed for reading programs and “tax-free savings accounts” for parents to set aside money for their children’s education.

Neither the Republicans nor Democrats can claim the district as their own. Voters have elected a Republican to Congress for the past 24 years, yet Clinton won the district handily in 1992 and 1996.

The partisan flux diminishes any security Rogan may have as an incumbent, Gordon said. Voters consider education policy to be the paramount political issue, he said, and it offers the best illustration of how the candidates differ.

Gordon said he would have voted in favor of Clinton’s 1998 budget proposal, which included $12.4 billion to help local school districts train 100,000 new teachers and reduce class sizes during the next seven years. Rogan joined the GOP majority that voted against the president’s budget.

Gordon said he supports enacting national standards for academic performance, which would include a controversial nationwide test. The Democrat also opposes Republican proposals for school vouchers, which would set aside public funds for students attending private and religious schools.

“In his first two years in Congress, Congressman Rogan has had numerous opportunities to take some action toward improving the state of our educational system and he has failed miserably,” Gordon said.

During the 1996 Democratic primary, Gordon narrowly lost to businessman Doug Kahn, who later lost to Rogan in the general election.