Primary Results Show Valley Voters Still Lean to Right

San Fernando Valley voters again showed their fiscally conservative stripes Tuesday, but were less supportive of Republican front-runner George W. Bush and more supportive of Democratic Vice President Al Gore than voters statewide.

Valley voters also were slightly less willing than those statewide to support the proposition to prohibit gay marriages, an analysis of complete, unofficial returns showed.

And, with doors opened by term limits, several relatively new faces won their party nominations for state legislative seats in the Valley, with ethnic minorities, women and wealthy candidates among the big winners. At the same time, traditional powerful interests suffered major defeats.

A bellwether measure was Proposition 26, which would have lowered the vote required to approve school bonds from two-thirds to a simple majority.

Statewide, 51.2% of voters opposed the measure, while in the Valley, birthplace of the anti-tax Proposition 13, the latest measure was opposed by 58.8% of voters. That was no surprise to some, who said the Valley has traditionally been more right of center than California as a whole.

“The Valley is a little more active participating in elections than other parts of the city, and the Valley is a place where voters tend to be more moderate and conservative in views,” said Richard Lichtenstein, a political consultant.

Larry Berg said more was at work in the Valley’s strong support for Gore.

Berg, former head of USC’s Unruh Institute of Politics, noted that Gore has spent a lot of time in the Valley in recent years.

A breakdown of votes by Los Angeles City Council districts, released by the county Registrar of Voters, indicates Gore had much more support in the Valley than Bush.

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Statewide, 34.5% of voters in the open primary supported Gore, 28.3% supported Bush and 23.3 backed Republican John McCain.

In the four council districts that make up most of the Valley portion of Los Angeles, Gore received 40% of the vote, Bush, 22.9%, and McCain 20.2%.

Perhaps the most controversial state ballot measure was Proposition 22, which restricted the state’s recognition of marriage to unions between a man and a woman.

That measure was supported by 58.9% of Valley residents, just a few percentage points below the statewide vote.

There were other trends:

* Strong victories, including some upsets, by women including La Canada Flintridge Mayor Carol Liu, Agoura Hills founder Fran Pavley and Assemblywoman Sheila Kuehl (D-Santa Monica), in each case defeating high-profile male opponents.

“I think it’s definitely our turn,” said Helen Grieco, state president of the National Organization for Women, who credited term limits for giving women more opportunities to move into state legislative seats.

* The normally strong hand of Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan, a Republican, failed to help Democratic candidates including S. David Freeman, Amanda Susskind and Wally Knox. Riordan did support city commissioner Keith Stuart Richman, who won his Republican primary in the more conservative 38th Assembly District.

“The mayor had a rough night,” said political consultant Rick Taylor.

* The Democratic primary victory of Liu in the 44th Assembly District excited Asian American leaders because it may have set the stage for the first Chinese American from Southern California to be elected to the state Legislature. Paul Zee won the Republican primary in the 21st Senate District, but faces longer odds to capture that predominantly Democratic district in November.

* The growing Armenian American vote in the West Valley’s 43rd District was out in force, but split between two candidates with mixed results. Republican Craig Henry Missakian of Glendale won his primary, but Democrat Paul Krekorian fell short against the labor backed candidacy of Dario Frommer, a former appointments secretary of Gov. Gray Davis.

* Money from wealthy candidates continued to be a major factor in races. Richman and Liu each put about $400,000 of their own money into their contests, helping to eclipse the spending of their opponents.

“We’re really getting to see some new faces,” said Berg, the former Unruh Institute chief.

Term limits have forced the old guard from state offices, giving relative newcomers a chance, he said.

One beneficiary has been women, said Grieco, of NOW.

“We started with the year of the woman in 1992 and we are seeing that it is more than a one-year trend,” Grieco said.

Kuehl, who beat fellow Assembly member Wally Knox in the 23rd Senate District primary, said voters weigh many factors, “although they may prefer women when they see candidates who are very well matched up.”

Pavley, a founder of Agoura Hills who serves on the state Coastal Commission, surprised many people by besting utility manager S. David Freeman of Santa Monica in the Democratic primary of the 41st Assembly District.

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One of Freeman’s supporters groused about how liberal the district had become.

“A man just can’t get elected in a liberal district anymore,” said one campaigner, who asked not to be identified.

“That’s just sour grapes,” retorted Kuehl, saying Pavley ran a better campaign and had more local experience to draw on.

“The fact is, women never run unless they have a strong resume,” she said. “They don’t just wake up one morning and say ‘I want to be an Assembly member.’ It’s part of recovering from past discrimination. We don’t have the same kind of confidence.”

Berg said the remarkable thing about the Pavley victory was that she bested four high-profile candidates from Santa Monica.

“The Valley vote in that race is really what elected Ms. Pavley,” said Berg, a longtime friend of Freeman’s.

While Riordan did not formally endorse Freeman, the candidate used a testimonial from Riordan in many mailings.

Riordan also backed Knox and Susskind, who lost to Paul Koretz in the 42nd Assembly District.

“He was zero help there, zero help for Susskind,” Lichtenstein said.

Added Berg, “I guess among Democrats, Mayor Riordan doesn’t carry a lot of weight.”

Tuesday’s election also marked the emergence of new groups of political leaders.

Voter registration indicates Liu has a good chance in November of becoming the first Chinese American from Southern California to follow in the footsteps of Northern Californian March Fong Eu, according to Don Nakanishi, director of the Asian American Studies Center at UCLA.

That is exciting to many in the community, including Stewart Kwoh, executive director of the Asian Pacific American Legal Center of Los Angeles.

“I do think it is significant,” Kwoh said. “For the vast majority of Asian American candidates for state office, the major part of the electorate has not been Asian American so they have had to cross over racially in appealing to voters.”

The election also marked in important stage in the growth of the Armenian American electorate, with two candidates running strongly in the 43rd Assembly District.

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About 15,000 people with Armenian names are registered to vote in the district, according to Krekorian, who worked hard to rally them around his candidacy.

Krekorian lost by a small margin in the Democratic primary to Frommer, who had strong support from labor and Latino leaders. Latino voters outnumber Armenians in the district, officials said.

But Krekorian said he would have won if it had not been for the Republican candidacy of attorney Craig Missakian of Glendale.

“We did empower Armenian Americans for the first time, but we lost some of the vote in the open primary to the Republican,” Krekorian said. “Had he not been in the race, we would have won.”

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RESULTS, RELATED STORIES: A1, A3, A20-23, B6-7.