Combative Race Emerges in Harbor Area

Los Angeles Councilman Rudy Svorinich Jr. sees his chances of winning the 54th Assembly District election in football terms, a nod to the rough character of that close contest in Long Beach and the South Bay.

“We’ll both get to each other’s five yard line by ourselves,” the Republican Svorinich said of his bid against one-term Democratic incumbent Alan Lowenthal (D-Long Beach).

“But you need the guy at the top of the ticket to get you to the goal.” The presidential candidate “has to be your fullback.”

While Svorinich hopes George W. Bush will carry him to victory, nothing in politics has ever been certain in this unusually diverse area whose Assembly seat has switched between Republicans and Democrats three times since 1992.

The district, with a slight Democratic edge in voter registration, is among the most strategically important in Southern California because of the bustling ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles. It ranges from the poor sections of Wilmington to San Pedro’s union homes to the ocean-side mansions along the Palos Verdes Peninsula.

Although President Clinton won easily here in 1996, voters in the area that is 11% Latino, 6% African American and 5% Asian American sent Republican Congressman Steven T. Kuykendall (R-Rancho Palos Verdes) to the Assembly that year.

Such unpredictability is why Republicans and Democrats have poured major resources into this race, which also includes Libertarian Dale Ogden. As a result, it has taken on some of the intensity of a big football game, as Svorinich, 40, tries to come from behind on Tuesday.

One recent independent poll showed Lowenthal up by 18 points, with 20% of the area’s nearly 205,000 voters undecided.

Svorinich, a former paint store owner from San Pedro, has served seven years on the Los Angeles City Council and faces a term limit end to his tenure next year. His Assembly race is backed heavily by Republican Party leaders hoping for renewed political leverage over economic, traffic and environmental concerns that accompany the world’s third-largest port complex.

The $2.4-billion Alameda Corridor Transportation Project, now under construction to facilitate shipments between the ports and downtown Los Angeles, will draw even more focus to the area, which is expected to double in economic activity by 2020.

With more than a third of his $700,000 in contributions coming from the state party and individual Republican legislators, Svorinich has hit Lowenthal with ads that portray the Democrat as too liberal for the largely socially conservative district, and too linked with downtown Long Beach’s business elite.

Meanwhile, Lowenthal--a 59-year-old clinical psychologist and former Long Beach councilman when elected to the Assembly in 1998--boasts of a record that includes successful fights against pollution near the harbors while he pushes a strategy for sorely needed economic development along the waterfront.

He is credited by local leaders with drafting a state law last year that expedites the covering of petroleum coke piles near the harbors, long an environmental nuisance in the community that Svorinich also worked to address.

Lowenthal supports Long Beach’s controversial Queensway Bay redevelopment project, including the Aquarium of the Pacific and an unbuilt entertainment and retail complex that has been stalled because of financial problems.

Because of the ports, “this area is the center for economic development and international trade in the region,” Lowenthal said. Yet, environmental and tourism issues also need to be addressed because “we sometimes don’t view ourselves as a coastal community [with regional appeal] the way other beach communities do.”

During his last term, he persuaded the state to eliminate a 50-cent toll on the Vincent Thomas Bridge and secured funds to clean up storm water entering the harbors.

For this campaign, Lowenthal has raised about $800,000, most of that from labor unions, party leaders and political action committees of government employees.

Svorinich charges that Lowenthal is overly concerned with helping downtown Long Beach at the expense of other economically depressed areas--like Wilmington and San Pedro, which Lowenthal denies.

Svorinich draws most of his support from such Peninsula communities as Rolling Hills and Palos Verdes Estates, while his hometown San Pedro remains open to both candidates.

He was accused by former aides in 1994 of illegally accepting unreported campaign contributions, but later was cleared of misconduct by the Los Angeles Ethics Commission.

A movement to secede from Los Angeles is burgeoning in San Pedro and Wilmington. Svorinich has supported a study of the idea, but his stance might not be enough for him to take those neighborhoods.

Among his first priorities in the Assembly, Svorinich said, would be to form community advisory councils--composed of local leaders in business, health, education and other areas--that would help devise local and regional improvements in the district.

He also intends to draft legislation that would mandate a minimum 10- to 30-year sentence for anyone convicted of a crime if it involves a gun.

Mainly, Svorinich paints himself as a former small businessman who is more in touch with “mainstream taxpayers” in the district than Lowenthal is. His efforts to prove that have caused Lowenthal to cry foul.

Some Svorinich ads, put out by supporters, describe Lowenthal as an “abnormal psychologist,” whose record is out of sync with an area that tends to be conservative on some social issues, such as tougher crime measures and gay marriage.

Referring to Lowenthal’s support of outlawing discrimination against gays and lesbians, one ad characterizes the Democrat as saying: “Do you believe cross-dressers need protection? You bet your fur-lined booties they do.”

“I think my record speaks for itself,” Lowenthal said. He described his stance on most issues as “centrist,” saying he represents most area voters in his desire for “an inclusionary society.”

Svorinich made no apologies for the ads, saying that Lowenthal has wrongly tried to portray him as opposed to harbor redevelopment. “It’s as fair as what he’s called me in his mailers,” he said.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Election Coverage * D.A. DEBATES -- Gil Garcetti and Steve Cooley bring to an end their marathon series. B2

* VOTER FATIGUE -- Campaign literature from hotly contested races engulfs Glendale residents. B2

* DUELING MEASURES -- Two growth-control ballot issues in Newport Beach have attracted statewide notice. B10