Democratic TV Ad Targets Rogan

In its first foray into a congressional race this year, the California Democratic Party today will put up a cable-television ad casting Rep. James E. Rogan (R-Glendale) as an obstacle in the fight against classroom overcrowding.

The Rogan campaign responded by accusing the Democrats of “breathless dishonesty,” saying he has voted repeatedly to hire new teachers to reduce class size.

The commercial signals the beginning of an expected flood of outside money into the high-stakes race between Rogan and his challenger, state Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank).

The candidates have raised more than $5.7 million for what is the most expensive congressional race this year in California.

But in one of the key national contests that will determine whether Democrats or Republicans control the House, the major parties and outside groups are expected to dump huge sums of their own into ads targeting voters in the swing district covering Glendale, Burbank, Pasadena and adjacent areas. The opening volley came last month when the League of Conservation Voters ran a newspaper ad attacking Rogan’s environmental record.

Party leaders say the race is a top priority.

“I expect to do whatever is legally permissible in order to get Jim Rogan out of Congress,” state Democratic Party Chairman Art Torres said.

Torres said the TV ad was an effort to counter Rogan’s depiction of himself as a champion of education.

“We’re not going to let far-right Republicans portray themselves as moderates when they’re not,” Torres said.

The ad says Rogan voted five times against hiring 100,000 new teachers for public schools.

“Call Jim Rogan,” the narrator says. “Tell him to start voting for new, qualified teachers and smaller class size.”

Jim Nygren, Rogan’s campaign consultant, called the ad misleading. He said Rogan has voted in Congress to hire 120,000 new teachers, and also supported class-size reductions when he was in the state Assembly.

“It would be nice if they got their facts straight,” Nygren said. “I guess ‘breathless dishonesty’ would be the words that come to mind.”

If Rogan voted against any bills to hire new teachers, it was because of unrelated provisions, such as “pork-barrel spending,” Nygren said.

Democrats declined to say how much they were spending on the ad. But Rogan’s campaign said a survey of local cable stations found the Democratic Party had bought at least $58,000 worth of time, while the Schiff campaign spent $96,000 to run another new commercial also starting today.