Battle Shapes Up in Latino District

It is California’s newest congressional district, an oddly shaped swath of southeast Los Angeles County created to boost Latino clout in Washington.

And while little doubt exists that a Latino will win the House seat in the mostly working-class district, the March 5 primary race is a tight, three-way battle providing suspense in a season full of yawners.

The 39th Congressional District race has drawn national interest as Orange County Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Santa Ana)--a proven Democratic fund-raiser--throws her weight behind her sister, Linda, a union official and attorney.

Aiming to bust up what would be the first congressional sister team in history are South Gate Councilman Hector De La Torre and state Assemblywoman Sally Havice (D-Cerritos), both of whom have drawn support from key Latino leaders.

The campaign has turned nasty in recent weeks, with Linda Sanchez criticized for receiving funds from a Playboy magazine executive, Havice fending off accusations of being a tax scofflaw, and De La Torre angrily countering charges that he is a product of South Gate’s raucous politics.

Havice and De La Torre have demanded that Sanchez pull negative cable ads that debuted earlier this month. The Sanchez campaign has refused.

“Hector has to get used to taking some of the heat,” said Bill Wachob, Sanchez’s political consultant, in rejecting a written request from De La Torre supporters to remove the ads.

De La Torre and Havice say the personal attacks are a sign of desperation by a candidate who has no experience in public office.

“This is all a smoke screen on [Sanchez’s] part to hide the fact that she has no roots in the community and the plain fact that, if it wasn’t for her sister, she’d be a second- or third-tier candidate in this race,” De La Torre said.

Most Latino leaders--local and national--are staying out of the fray. Though they are split on endorsements, they appear unwilling to spill political blood when a Latino Democrat is virtually assured of winning in November.

What’s left is a race generating more personal animosity than campaign funding or high-level intraparty squabbles.

“More money is going to partisan battles,” said Jaime Regalado, executive director of the Edmund G. Brown Institute of Public Affairs at Cal State L.A. “The feeling is that it’s a Democratic lock, so it’s only a personality contest now.”

With California gaining a House seat last year, Democratic leaders created the district to strengthen Latino representation in Washington, where Latinos hold 12% of the state’s House seats.

The U-shaped district spans the spectrum of Latino demographics, from the immigrant gateway neighborhoods of South Gate and Lynwood to the suburban enclaves of Whittier and La Mirada, home to many long-established Latinos.

The district also includes the cities of Lakewood, Cerritos, Artesia, and Hawaiian Gardens, which are home to many white and Asian American voters.

Vying in the Republican primary are Tim Escobar, a businessman, and Richard Owens, an energy conversation consultant. But analysts give the Republican winner little chance in November: Latinos constitute 61% of the population and Democrats hold a 55% to 28% edge over Republicans in registered voters.

The Democratic primary race has drawn six contenders, with Havice, Sanchez and De La Torre moving far ahead, according to polls.

Others running for the seat are ABC school board member Cecy Groom; Helen M. Rahder, a former Whittier City Council member; and Ken Graham, a political science professor.

Sanchez holds a big lead in raising funds, thanks in part to help from her sister, who has been tapping her Washington connections. Through the end of last year, Sanchez had raised $154,899 to De La Torre’s $69,336, according to the most recent campaign finance information. Havice had raised $34,158.

Big sister Loretta’s help returns a favor to Linda, who as a campaign worker helped Loretta first get elected to Congress in 1996, and then reelected in 1998.

The sixth of seven children born to immigrant parents, 32-year-old Linda Sanchez worked as a civil rights attorney before taking her current post as executive secretary-treasurer for the Orange County Central Labor Council.

If Linda Sanchez is elected, she and her sister would become the first sisters to serve simultaneously in the House of Representatives.

Sanchez has received endorsements from women’s groups and several members of Congress, including Reps. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) and Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco). Loretta Sanchez often joins Linda on door-to-door visits, lending her considerable clout to the campaign.

“I’ve burned a lot of shoe leather in her races,” said Linda, “and it’s her turn now.”

One place Sanchez has been focusing attention is South Gate, the district’s biggest city and a De La Torre stronghold.

De La Torre, 34, is one of four generations of De La Torres living in the heavily Latino community. A former teacher, he worked several years in Washington as a legislative aide and Labor Department official.

He moved back to South Gate in 1996, where he became a councilman, and won reelection in a now-infamous race that included another candidate named Hector De La Torre. The rival’s campaign is considered by many to have been an effort to confuse voters, and De La Torre’s large margin of victory signaled to many his growing political clout.

De La Torre, a father of three, touts his experience in Washington and local politics. His backers include Reps. Hilda L. Solis (D-La Puente) and Joe Baca (D-Rialto).

In the only feud between Latino leaders to flare up in public, Rep. Sanchez has said that Solis endorsed De La Torre to appease some of her campaign contributors. Solis says she supports De La Torre because he is the most qualified candidate.

Like De La Torre, Havice is a survivor of many political battles. She held back strong Republican challenges while twice being elected to represent the 56th Assembly District, which includes Lakewood, Cerritos and Artesia.

A former English professor and a grandmother of nine, she has focused on environmental and school safety issues. She boasts of her legislative attendance record, saying she has been called the Cal Ripken of the state Assembly.

The Democratic candidates do not differ much on key national issues. They back gun control and abortion rights, and list education reform among their priorities.

Without a hot-button issue to battle over, the campaign has degenerated in recent weeks into personal attacks, most of them fired from the Sanchez camp.

Earlier this month the Sanchez campaign began running cable spots criticizing Havice for allegedly not paying her homeowner’s dues and property taxes.

Havice denied the accusations at a candidates’ forum in Lakewood, accusing Sanchez of running a “Newt Gingrich-style” campaign.

Havice said she has always paid the dues and taxes, but that some payments may have been late in the 25 years she has lived in her Cerritos home.

“Late doesn’t mean you don’t pay,” said Havice, who said the negative campaigning will backfire on Sanchez.

“People in this area are smart enough to figure it out,” Havice said. “They’re not going to be fooled.”

Sanchez also attacked De La Torre in an ad suggesting that the councilman is corrupt because he received money during a city campaign from a trash hauler that underpaid the city $1.5 million in franchise fees.

But De La Torre said he voted against extending the firm’s contract, evidence that he provided no favors. His record is so clean, he said, that his last campaign featured an endorsement from Loretta Sanchez.

“If I’m so corrupt, why did [Linda’s] sister endorse me?” he asked.

The Sanchez ad seems aimed at lumping De La Torre in with several ongoing criminal corruption probes in the city. De La Torre, in fact, has been commended by prosecutors as a corruption fighter.

Sanchez stands by the ad, saying that De La Torre’s actions in his last campaign raise questions about his ethics.

Nasty campaigning aside, the heated race is seen as a good thing by observers of Latino politics.

Many see it as a sign of an evolving political maturity, pitting several real contenders instead of candidates handpicked by a small group of elected leaders and political insiders.

“It’s a step toward maturity,” said Fernando Guerra, a Loyola Marymount University professor.

“One measure of political growth is that you have a fairly healthy competition and the leaders in the Latino community are not lock, stock and barrel behind any one of them.”