Legislator’s Visibility, Foe’s Money May Yield Close Race

One candidate is a driven career politician without many friends. The other is a wealthy businessman who is using his own money to help bankroll his first run for public office. If the race sounds familiar, it’s not. The candidates aren’t running for governor; they want to be state controller -- at least for now.

The politician is not Gov. Gray Davis. Rather, he is one of the Legislature’s most outspoken conservatives, state Sen. Tom McClintock (R-Thousand Oaks), who, like Davis, was first elected to the Assembly in 1982.

Democrat Steve Westly is the multimillionaire, having made his fortune in the stock of one of the Silicon Valley’s most successful start-ups, EBay. Unlike Bill Simon Jr., the other wealthy businessman seeking statewide office, Westly has voted routinely, readily opens his tax returns to inspection and has deep roots in California politics.

Democrats have held the post of controller for 28 years. If money decides elections, Democrats will hold it again. Westly had $3.3 million in cash as of Sept. 30, and is spending $1.3 million a week on television ads through election day, while McClintock had $277,000. As legislators go, however, McClintock is well-known. If he can raise money for TV time, the contest may be the year’s most competitive so-called down-ballot race.

At minimum, it features one of Sacramento’s sharper- tongued characters in McClintock against someone who, though new to most voters, is mentioned as a future candidate for higher office. Both are 46, married, have two children and have been politically active since their college days. Beyond that, they are markedly different, clashing on philosophy and on how they would approach the duties of the post they seek.

The controller is probably best known as the official who signs state checks. He or she also can refuse to sign checks, to the dismay of governors. Outgoing Controller Kathleen Connell incurred Davis’ wrath, for example, by moving to block an $88.5-million payment in 2000 to attorneys in a lawsuit settled by the administration, and by refusing to pay a $910 bill for Japanese food ordered by state electricity buyers during the energy crisis.

Given that past controllers have made their names by clashing with governors, both this year’s candidates are running in part against the unpopular governor, accusing him and the Legislature of allowing government to grow too fast and fueling the $24-billion deficit that budget negotiators faced earlier this year. McClintock accuses Davis of being “one of the most incompetent and corrupt individuals who ever served in that office.”

Among the darts McClintock flings Westly’s way: Westly has described himself as being part of Davis’ team. From 1999 to 2001, Westly donated $36,350 to Davis’ reelection effort, though he gave the governor no money in 2002. Westly says he would be bipartisan and scoffs at the notion that he is a Davis sycophant.

“Gray endorsed my primary opponent,” Westly says of State Board of Equalization member Johan Klehs. “I have no difficulty saying [Davis] was way too slow in responding to the energy crisis.... I view myself as completely independent. He doesn’t view me as part of his team.”

In addition to serving as a fiscal watchdog by auditing state spending, the controller sits on 50 boards, including the Franchise Tax Board and Board of Equalization, which oversee state tax collections and policy, and the State Lands Commission, which has oversight of offshore oil drilling.

Seizing on McClintock’s votes against environmentalist-backed bills, Westly says his foe favors more offshore drilling. McClintock denies it.

“Shutting down existing wells would drive the price through the roof,” the senator said. “I do not believe [offshore drilling] should be shut down. I don’t believe it should be expanded.”

Controllers sit on boards that govern the massive California Public Employees Retirement System and the State Teachers’ Retirement System. Past controllers cast votes on whether to sell off tobacco stocks and holdings in apartheid-era South Africa.

McClintock opposes using the funds for social ends, saying decisions should be based on rate of return and whether the investment is solid. Westly advocates using the funds to become “major figures on a national stage” to help bring about corporate responsibility.

After receiving a political science degree from UCLA, McClintock got his start in politics by working for former state Sen. Ed Davis. McClintock won an Assembly seat at age 26, lost a run for Congress and failed in a run for controller in 1994, falling to Connell by fewer than 170,000 votes out of nearly 7.5 million cast. He returned to the Assembly in 1996 and won his state Senate seat in 2000.

McClintock has forged a reputation as a maverick within the GOP, if not a loner. He was among the harshest critics of Republican Chuck Quackenbush, who resigned as state insurance commissioner amid scandal in 2000. McClintock regularly attacked spending proposals by Republican Govs. George Deukmejian and Pete Wilson. The former governors endorsed his primary foe, Board of Equalization member Dean Andal.

Westly, a Stanford graduate, started out working for the late Rep. Leo Ryan (D-San Mateo), who was assassinated in 1978 while investigating the People’s Temple cult in Guyana. Westly later received a master’s in business administration from Stanford, worked in a variety of businesses and government posts, and stayed involved in Democratic politics. Described in a 1989 newspaper story as a “mop-topped, 32-year-old investment banker,” Westly challenged former Gov. Jerry Brown to become state Democratic Party chairman and lost, having been outspent 3 to 1.

Westly joined the upstart Internet auction firm EBay in 1997, back when it had 23 employees. EBay stock made him a wealthy man. Although he is not obligated to release his tax returns, Westly opened the last three years’ documents.

By doing so, he undercut a potential issue for McClintock. Westly’s returns show that he had adjusted gross income of $13.6 million in 2001, $63.3 million in 2000, the year he left EBay to embark on his campaign, and $40.6 million in 1999. He paid almost $33 million in state and federal income taxes during those three years. He and his wife also created a family foundation and made $6.6 million in charitable donations.

McClintock’s tax returns show that he and his wife make ends meet on a public official’s salary, with $114,600 in adjusted gross income. McClintock prepares his own tax returns.

Westly has spent $5.3 million on his campaign and tapped donors for an additional $5 million. Public employee unions are among his biggest donors. The California State Employees Assn. gave him $100,000; the California Teachers Assn. donated $131,000; and the California Correctional Peace Officers Assn., which represents state prison guards, contributed $35,000.

McClintock was the only lawmaker this year who voted against granting a pay increase of as much as 37% to prison officers, spread over the next five years. Westly said he is not bothered by the raise, adding: “These guys have the toughest job in the world.”

Westly and McClintock say they oppose new taxes. Both say government has grown too fast. But among their many differences, McClintock opposes the school construction and low-income housing bonds on the Nov. 5 ballot, and will oppose a $9.9-billion bond measure on the 2004 ballot to build a bullet train. Westly supports each measure.

Westly favors abortion rights; McClintock opposes abortion and state funding of abortions for poor women. He criticizes Westly for saying early in the campaign that he would block government payments to hospitals that fail to provide abortions. Westly has since backed off that statement.

McClintock’s status as an outsider, albeit one who has spent 20 years in and around elective office, is reflected in who has not donated to his campaign. He has received no money from moneyed interests with a stake in state issues, other than a combined $4,000 from tobacco giants Philip Morris U.S.A. and R.J. Reynolds, and a modest $27,000 from three Indian tribes that operate casinos.

McClintock’s biggest donors are conservative financiers, including Howard Ahmanson Jr., the Orange County heir to the Home Savings & Loan fortune, who has helped bankroll many conservative candidates during the last decade. Ahmanson gave McClintock $80,000. Nonunion contractors also have been significant donors.

McClintock shrugs off the lack of money from Sacramento insiders. Public employees and others who depend on California’s $99-billion budget are part of the “spending lobby,” he says. And as he sees it: “I ask questions they don’t want asked, let alone have answered.”