Women in Race Bring Gender Issues to Fore

Put a few outspoken women in the mix, and the talk turns to women.

In the 44th Assembly District, where three of six mainstream candidates in the March 7 primary are women, the campaign rhetoric is noticeably different from that in districts where male office-seekers are the majority.

Whether the topic is schools, health care or crime, all the candidates in this race frequently inject the perspectives of working women and single mothers.

It’s not that there are more women, more single moms or more double-income households in the district, which comprises Pasadena, La Canada Flintridge, Altadena, Sunland, Tujunga and parts of Glendale.

But with a critical mass of female candidates in the race, they have managed to put women’s issues on the front burner and draw men into the dialogue too.

“For that to happen requires that one candidate be able to talk firsthand about it,” said San Fernando Valley-based political observer Larry Levine. “Look around. You don’t see many single moms running for office.”

There seems to be no shortage of them here.

Democrat Diana Peterson-More, a businesswoman and single mother, has highlighted her identification with working mothers from her earliest appearances, proposing creative education and day-care solutions that would offer child care at community-based schools from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m.

Now Democrat Carol Liu and Republican Susan Carpenter-McMillan are trying to take advantage of the single-mother label too.

Liu, who is now married, said in a recent interview that she was a single mom when she was working in Northern California schools.

And Carpenter-McMillan, best known as a spokeswoman for President Clinton’s accuser Paula Jones but also a conservative activist on women’s issues for years, tossed out that she too has been a single mother since she separated from her husband two years ago.

Maybe they would have talked about it anyway, but the “woman thing” seems to have jumped the gender divide and had an effect on Democrat Barry Gordon and Republican Robert Wagner as well.

Gordon said his record on women’s issues is good--and he has locked up the bulk of Democratic and labor endorsements.

Peterson-More announced Thursday that she had the endorsements of four major women’s groups: the National Women’s Political Caucus of California, California Confederation of Business and Professional Women, California NOW and Women’s Political Committee, a Westside group.

Even Republican Wagner--a septuagenarian wine consultant--rattles off statistics about working women and mentions frequently that he is the son of a single mother who toiled in a factory to support her five children.

Both primaries will be important: Incumbent Jack Scott (D-Altadena) is seeking higher office, leaving the Democratic field open, and the district is a target for Republicans because they had not lost an election there for decades--until Scott’s victory in 1996.

Of the 265,576 registered voters in the district, 45% are Democrats, 37% Republicans.

Californians can cast ballots for any candidate in the primary, but only the votes of party members earn nominating delegates for presidential candidates.

Gordon, Liu and Peterson-More are fighting it out for the Democratic nomination in what observers say could be a close race.

In the Republican contest, Wagner and moderate GOP recruit Damian Jones are running against Carpenter-McMillan, who has been endorsed by the conservative Liberty Caucus, which bucked its own party leadership to support her.

Libertarian candidate Jerry Douglas is running unopposed.

Observers say that the Democrats may have an edge in November but that the election is not locked up.

“It depends on who the Democrat is and who the Republican is,” said GOP consultant Allan Hoffenblum. “It also depends on the top of the ticket and the presidential race. It’s a tough one.”

Democrats Gordon and Liu have hefty campaign chests, and both have hired high-powered political consultants familiar with the area.

Liu, a veteran La Canada Flintridge mayor, led in fund-raising at the end of the last reporting period with $313,000, of which $200,000 is personal loans.

Gordon was a close second with $256,000, which includes $40,000 in personal loans. “I’m very close to reaching my money goal of about $390,000,” he said this week.

Liu, 58, the daughter of a fourth-generation Californian and an immigrant father from Beijing, was a public school teacher and administrator in Northern California for 17 years. Her husband, Mike Peevey, is a former president of Southern California Edison.

Identifying her top priority as education, she said she has the educational and fiscal experience to reform California’s schools.

“It’s been a long, steady slide, and now we are here and the public is ready to fix it,” she said. “We may never have another shot at this, with the economy so good.”

California needs to recruit, train and retrain teachers, Liu said. She called for the state surplus to be used for programs that improve education, such as attracting top graduates from the University of California system to teaching jobs.

An actor, attorney and former president of the Screen Actors Guild, Gordon is already well known in the district from his near-miss congressional bid against James Rogan (R-Glendale) in 1998.

Gordon, 51, said his top priorities are education, health care and public safety. To help offset working mothers’ need for child care, he has proposed making preschool more widely available and introducing full-day kindergarten. He said he hopes to expand access to programs such as Healthy Families, a government-funded medical plan for the working poor, and reduce the number of uninsured among working-class families and the elderly. He also said he wants to strengthen gun-control laws.

Peterson-More, 49, has less money--she has raised $124,000, of which $45,000 is personal loans--and less campaign exposure, but she has a message that seems to be catching on.

An attorney and former executive with Southern California Edison who has lived in the area since 1975, she has run several businesses and worked as a volunteer on child-care and women’s programs. She is also a past co-president of the National Women’s Political Caucus of Pasadena.

She said her priorities are education, balanced growth, health care, transportation and gun control.

In addition to making schools the hub of local communities with child care and continuing education for adults, Peterson-More said she supports charter schools. She said money for educational reform should come from the budget surplus, state tobacco funds and slashing administration costs.

She is different from her competitors, Peterson-More said, because she is a moderate and beholden to no one.

“I’m independent,” she said, adding that Gordon has raised significant funding from outside the community and that Liu has received money from her husband. “If I am elected, I will not be up in Sacramento having drinks at the Hyatt.”

Among the Republicans, Carpenter-McMillan leads in fund-raising with close to $100,000--about half of which is loans, according to her treasurer--but observers question whether she can attract more moderate Republicans in this Democratic-leaning district.

The former TV commentator, though best known for the Jones case, has dedicated herself to women’s and abused children’s concerns.

Carpenter-McMillan, 51, said her top issue is education, adding that she favors merit pay for teachers and smaller classrooms, especially for high schools. She said she believes that parents should be able to send their children to the schools of their choice.

She also said educational reform should come from trimming the fat out of the bureaucracy.

“There is so much pork, so much misuse of money, that throwing money after a bad system is foolish,” she said. “Let’s do away with the limousines of bureaucrats.”

Damian Jones, 29, was born out of politics. The young public affairs executive worked on the Bush-Quayle campaign and the successful gubernatorial effort of Pete Wilson, who has endorsed him. In the Wilson administration, Jones worked with the California Department of Corporations.

He said his top issues are education and public safety, adding that everyone in the school system should be accountable, not just students. “If students can get suspended and expelled, why can’t anyone else be held accountable?” he asked.

He said he favors vouchers for children in poorly performing inner city schools.

Wagner, 77, is a former South Pasadena councilman who has served as a senior citizens’ representative for 12 years. He said he will not accept money from insurance firms, oil companies or health maintenance organizations.

He has raised about $5,000, about half of which is in the form of loans. If elected he will donate his $99,000 Assembly salary to schools, senior centers and libraries, he said.

Wagner said his top issues are education and transportation. He proposed providing college education free to people who teach in inner city or rural schools.