Conservatives Rule Antelope Valley Politics

For the past 20 years, change has been sweeping through the Antelope Valley like a high desert wind.

The population has grown fivefold, including an influx of blacks and Latinos. Fast roads now link the cities of Palmdale and Lancaster to L.A.’s urban core 70 miles away. Retail growth is surging with Costcos and Carl’s Jr.’s popping up on land once home to Joshua trees.

But one aspect of life in the Antelope Valley hasn’t changed--the political scene. The area remains the most staunchly conservative region in L.A. County, political observers say.

Witness Kevin W. Carney, the sheriff’s sergeant elected Nov. 2 to the Palmdale City Council--four days after he was arrested on suspicion of molesting a 14-year-old girl.

Charges have not been filed against Carney, who maintains his innocence. An arraignment is scheduled Monday, but the district attorney’s office said it will request a continuance.

Carney, an outspoken conservative, used his tough-on-crime, pro-school prayer views to tap into a well-organized network of church groups, right-wing activists and Republican businessmen. That support helped him build a bank of 410 critical absentee votes before his arrest. He won by 97 votes.

His closest opponent, Sandy Corrales, a registered Democrat, collected 169 absentee ballots.

Carney went into the election popular in his own right. He served on the high school board, and as a sheriff’s sergeant he embodied the spirit of law and order that attracted many residents to the High Desert.

But many Antelope Valley politicians, both friends and foes of Carney’s, said the conservative groups that endorsed him and helped pay for his campaign wield enormous clout in the region.

“How else would an accused child molester get elected?” asked Jim Ledford, mayor of Palmdale and a self-described moderate Republican. “The far right controls everything here. They’ve made nonpartisan elections partisan. They are better financed and better organized than anybody else. That’s how it’s always been.”

Ledford is in the tight circle of middle-aged, Republican white men who run the Antelope Valley. Others in the power grid are Assemblyman George Runner (R-Lancaster), who founded a church school, and William “Pete” Knight (R-Palmdale), a very conservative state senator who is leading the charge against same-sex marriage.

“In politics, there’s a big clique up here and it needs to get weeded out,” said Palmdale resident Bob Rogers.

One of the most powerful political organizations in the old guard is the Antelope Valley Republican Assembly, according to Republicans and Democrats. A conservative group formed in 1977, it backs candidates who are traditionally anti-tax, anti-gun control and anti-abortion. Its president, Wayne Woodhall, is a retired aerospace engineer turned emu rancher.

Woodhall sees himself as typical of many Antelope Valley residents: He came to get away from the lack of values of “down there,” as he calls Los Angeles. He believes creationism should be taught in school and calls the laws of physics “God’s laws.”

Those views were echoed in 1995 when seven political candidates, including Carney, who was then running for a school board seat, supported what they called the “Contract With Antelope Valley Families.”

Similar to the Republican Party’s “Contract With America,” the Antelope Valley tenets opposed teaching about sexual orientation and multiculturalism and supported campuswide moments of silence.

Carney won his race that year for a seat on the Antelope Valley Union High School District, continuing the conservative majority that ran the board for years.

Back then, Carney was backed by the Republican Assembly. He’s a member of the group and won its endorsement for the City Council race this year.

Twelve of the 18 candidates supported by the conservative Assembly won their seats. Among the six key local elected bodies, including city councils and school boards, all but two are controlled by a majority of either Republican Assembly members or candidates endorsed by the group.

“If you’re not endorsed by AVRA, the chances of you winning an election are slim,” said Corrales, who lost.

Carney, who is 48, married and has three adult children, walked precincts for candidate Richard Nixon as a teenager. After graduating from Chatsworth High in 1969, he earned a political science degree from Cal State Northridge. He has lived in Georgia, Alaska and Ghana and has a knack for languages, speaking French, Spanish, German and Italian.

“I make no bones about being conservative. Whether you are liberal or conservative, family issues and values are the root of community,” he said. “I know there are Democrats who vote for me. I make no apologies for who I am and what I am.”

He is equally resolute about the October molestation allegations by a 14-year-old girl, a family friend.

“I am not guilty of anything,” Carney said.

For Carney, the case serves as a painful flashback. In March 1997, he was accused of inappropriately touching two young girls. Two months later, after the district attorney did not file charges, Carney ran for mayor. He lost the November 1997 election.

Carney and his allies took to a cable television show and publicly accused Diana Beard-Williams, an outspoken, liberal black Democrat of being behind the accusations that led to Carney’s arrest.

Beard-Williams, who publishes the Antelope Valley Political Chronicles, a newsletter that frequently targets the Christian right, denied she had any part in the case.

Officials in the Sheriff’s Department and the district attorney’s office deny that the accusations against Carney are politically motivated. They arrested him, a spokeswoman said, after the 14-year-old girl told detectives that Carney molested her.

Palmdale’s registered Democrats slightly outnumber Republicans by 42% to 40% for the first time in 15 years. In Lancaster, Republicans still outnumber Democrats by about 10%.

Yet, of the 50-plus candidates seeking office this month, only three endorsed by the Democratic Club of the High Desert won.

That frustrates Democrats because the voter base has been growing in directions that should be helping Democrats win seats.

From 1980 to 1999, Palmdale’s population exploded by 878% and

Lancaster’s rose by nearly 171%, according to data from the Census Bureau and the state Finance Department. The fasting-growing groups are blacks and Latinos.

Today, Palmdale is 7% black and 28% Latino, and Lancaster is 8% black and 23% Latino, according to county estimates.

Any shift away from the Republican Assembly power base won’t happen overnight because its tight network of businesses and churches is deeply entrenched, said Donald Ranish, a political science instructor at Antelope Valley Community College.

The strongest church group is the opaquely named Community Impact Committee, a group led by pastors who rally behind conservative candidates, putting together slate mailers and passing out fliers at Sunday services.

Local Republican businessmen amplify the clout by contributing generously to church-backed candidates such as Carney.

As a councilman, Carney told campaign supporters he is eager to work with his counterparts in Lancaster. He also said he wants to push for a Palmdale hospital and more deputies. And, in concert with the conservative groups who supported him, Carney said he plans to block any additional low-income housing in the area.