Friendly Foes Meet in 1st Debate

Assembly members Sheila Kuehl and Wally Knox had their first face-to-face Thursday in their winner-take-all Democratic primary race to represent the southwest San Fernando Valley and Westside in the state Senate, and the initial question from the audience could not have been more apt:

So, what do the both of you think about term limits?

Kuehl (D-Santa Monica) and Knox (D-Los Angeles) consider each other friends. Both admit their views and voting records are nearly identical.

But both are facing the hook in the Assembly next year due to term limits. So they are squaring off against one another to replace outgoing state Sen. Tom Hayden in a high-stakes primary battle next March where the loser could face political extinction.

Desperate as their political predicament may be, anyone who expected vitriol and mudslinging from Kuehl and Knox at the Warner Center business breakfast for the Los Angeles Jewish Home for the Aging would have been deeply disappointed.

Perhaps their strongest critiques, in fact, were aimed not at each other, but at the voter-approved term limits law they say pitted them against each other in the first place.

Though both were quick to assert they understood the voters’ disdain for career politicians, they outlined the consequences of the musical chairs term limits have wrought.

Knox joked that he considered it a major coup to chair the Assembly’s tax and revenue committee two years running, noting that in the private sector, few bosses would consider shifting an employee’s duties so fast.

Kuehl was considerably more blunt, saying term limits had “done a great disservice to the people of California,” turning the Legislature into a “high school” where special interests have more clout than ever and everyone is angling for the same popular roles before graduation.

“Every year, people are running for student body president, and the juniors are always running,” Kuehl said. “And the freshmen don’t know where the buildings are.”

Asked to outline their differences, Kuehl and Knox seemed at a loss for words.

“I can’t think of anything we’ve done differently,” Knox said. “I’m sure that once we look at the voting records closely, we’ll find something.”

When the moderator introduced both as Harvard law school graduates, Knox set the record straight: actually, he had only obtained an undergraduate degree from Harvard.

Though they were subtle, some slight differences the candidates plan to highlight did become apparent.

Kuehl talked about how she not only played a role in Sacramento pushing her own legislation, but was active in Assembly leadership, helping negotiate the Democrats’ HMO reform package.

Knox talked about being tough on crime--a strategy that helped separate him from the Democratic pack during his initial Assembly run--and pointed as an example to his bill preventing a person from buying more than one gun per month.

“We have the potential to cut crime,” Knox said, “to cut the proliferation of deadly weapons on our streets.”

Both candidates also dropped the names of their biggest political supporters, with Kuehl mentioning she has been endorsed by Gov. Gray Davis, who maintains a residence in the district, and Knox citing the strong support he has received from Mayor Richard Riordan.

But the lingering message the ambitious politicians seemed to impart in their initial showdown of the campaign season was that if they didn’t have to for survival, they wouldn’t be there at all.

“It’s very difficult to be in this awkward position,” Kuehl told the audience, “but here we are.”