Eager to Watch the State’s Money

For self-described cheapskate Tom McClintock, campaigning for state controller a second time is familiar territory, including a recycling of the same television ads he aired in 1994. He hopes, however, the outcome this time will be dramatically reversed. His ads won a prize, but the Republican candidate narrowly lost the election.

For multimillionaire Steve Westly, a “philanthropist [self-employed],” Democratic activist and former executive of the online auction company EBay, running for controller is a first bid for public office.

But for two veterans, Democrat Johan Klehs and Republican Dean Andal, who are termed out as members of the tax-collecting State Board of Equalization, the controller’s post offers another opportunity to extend their government service careers.

In one of Tuesday’s most crowded primary races, 10 candidates are seeking their party’s nomination to succeed Controller Kathleen Connell as the state’s chief check writer, custodian of offshore oil lands and watchdog of state spending. The Democrat is termed out after eight years.

The controller, who is paid $140,000 a year, also is a member of the Board of Equalization and the Franchise Tax Board. The controller additionally is an overseer of multibillion-dollar investments of the public employee and teacher retirement systems, the largest pension programs of their kind in the country.

To hear the candidates tell it, the controller is positioned to lead the sweep against government waste, get into the business of economic development, and act as a check and balance against alleged excesses of the governor and Legislature.

“I rank it as the most influential job behind the governor and attorney general,” said Republican contender Andal, a retired assemblyman termed out as an eight-year member of the equalization board.

Andal, 42, is running against fellow conservative state Sen. McClintock of Thousand Oaks for the GOP nomination. McClintock, whose Senate seat is not up for election this year, narrowly lost to Connell in 1994.

Also in the GOP race are Nancy Beecham of El Cajon, a nurse and business owner, and W. Snow Hume of Los Angeles, a certified public accountant.

On the Democratic side, Klehs of San Leandro, a member of the equalization board and a former assemblyman, faces Westly, the retired EBay executive and a longtime party activist.

Westly, 46, who has put about $3.2 million of his money into the campaign and raised another $1.5 million from contributors, said he believes voters want a controller with experience in business and government. He was a member of the U.S. Department of Energy during the Carter administration and has served as deputy director of economic development for San Jose.

“I’m the only person in this race with both a business background and government experience,” Westly said.

Klehs, 50, who specialized in tax and revenue issues as a legislator and waded deeper into tax administration as a member of the equalization board, said the controller’s office is no place for on-the-job training.

“I have a record of 20 years in public finance,” Klehs said. “My opponent is someone who made all his money at EBay in stock options in three years.”

Meantime, McClintock, 46, whose libertarian philosophy is to the right of Andal and most other Republicans in Sacramento, is making his second run for controller, calling himself a proven opponent of taxes.

In 1987, McClintock co-wrote a law that rebated billions of dollars in over-collections to taxpayers. More recently, he was a prime force in eliminating the “car tax” on motor vehicles and refunding a $300 fee that out-of-state motorists had to pay for a virtually nonexistent smog abatement program when they registered their cars in California. The program was ruled unconstitutional.

But Andal has challenged McClintock’s credentials as a tax fighter, an action that embarrassed one of Andal’s key big-name supporters, the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn. In response, it sent McClintock a letter praising him as an “outstanding champion” of the taxpayer and repudiating the notion that he is anything but an “unwavering ally” of the taxpayer.

Although McClintock can come across as intense and dour, in commercials he makes fun of himself as a cheapskate of Scottish ancestry. In a recycling of the same humorous ads McClintock aired in the 1994 campaign, a so-called cousin “Angus McClintock” pitches the candidate as a tightwad: “How tight is he? He’s as tight as a bullfrog’s behind, and that, me friends, is watertight.”

Tom McClintock, heavily outspent by Connell in the 1994 general election, lost the race. But the 15-second Angus McClintock spots went on to win a creativity award from the American Assn. of Political Consultants.

Other candidates in Tuesday’s primary include Ernest F. Vance of the American Independent Party; J. Carlos Aguirre of the Natural Law Party; and David Delano Blanco and Laura Wells of the Green Party.