Simon and Jones Promise to Protect Local Tax Revenues

Bill Simon Jr. and Bill Jones pledged to protect local tax dollars from raids by state government Thursday as they continued to nip at the front-runner’s heels in California’s race for the GOP gubernatorial nomination.

While Richard Riordan, the former Los Angeles mayor, spent the day raising money, his two foes addressed a gathering of county supervisors here and sparred over which of them is the true conservative choice.

Simon, buoyed by his recent surge in the polls, repeated a vow not to raise taxes and highlighted his endorsement by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn. and another taxpayer rights group. The wealthy Los Angeles business investor also noted that he is backed by some of the state’s most conservative legislators.

Secretary of State Jones, trailing in recent voter surveys and in fund-raising, pledged for the first time that he, too, would refuse to raise taxes to deal with the state’s anticipated $12.5-billion budget shortfall.

Jones, the most seasoned politician in the group, also dismissed a new Times poll that shows him finishing last in the March 5 primary.

“One poll does not make an election,” he said. “There are five weeks to go, and our focus right now is not to peak too soon.”

Despite Riordan’s double-digit lead, analysts say he remains vulnerable if a rival can attract enough conservative voters and if turnout is relatively low--a good possibility given the unusually early date of the election.

Jones says he will attract the support he needs once voters realize he is a veteran who has put together coalitions he needed to win two statewide elections. That message, he said, will ultimately get through, even though he hasn’t raised enough money to spread it most effectively--through television ads.

“I have proven I have the universe of voters I require to win,” Jones said. “Mr. Simon can write checks for any amount he chooses ... but you can’t raise a record, and it’ll take a record to beat Gray Davis.”

Jones and Simon made their remarks to reporters after appearing before the County Supervisors Assn. of California. Despite their efforts to draw distinctions between themselves politically, their speeches to the group were remarkably similar in tone.

Both lambasted Gov. Davis for failing to help cities and counties regain billions in property-tax revenue that was taken from their coffers during the recession of the early 1990s and used by the state to help fund schools.

“Sacramento is forever promising and forever shortchanging local government,” Simon said. Davis, he added, should have tackled the thorny problem of local government finances when the state was enjoying a budget surplus.

Jones was an assemblyman at the time the funds were shifted, and supported the move as a “temporary fix” to help the state through the tough economic period.

He faulted Davis for not “keeping the state’s promise” to restore the money and for ongoing “budget shenanigans” that could further harm local governments.

A spokesman for the Davis campaign, Roger Salazar, said the GOP candidates “don’t know what they’re talking about.”

“The state has been very good in providing cities and counties a lot of the funding they need for infrastructure, public safety and other programs,” Salazar said.

“And the governor has pledged that we will not get through this economic downturn on the backs of local governments.”

County supervisors said that the two Republican speakers seemed attentive to their problems and covered all of the obvious issues, but that neither bowled them over with creative ideas.

“They hit all the buttons--bang, bang, bang,” Humboldt County Supervisor Roger Rodoni said. “But remember, we’ve been robbed. You just never know what these guys will do once they get in.”

Riordan attended private fund-raisers Thursday in Los Angeles, Newport Beach and San Diego. He has had no public appearances since Tuesday and will have none for the next week, according to Ron Hartwig, his campaign manager.

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Times staff writer Michael Finnegan contributed to this report.