Capps in Tough Fight to Keep Seat

In a year of redrawn political boundaries that favor incumbents, Rep. Lois Capps (D-Santa Barbara) starts with a clear edge over Oxnard businesswoman Beth Rogers, her Republican opponent in the Nov. 5 election.

Registered Democrats hold a 12% advantage over Republicans in the narrow congressional district that stretches from the bluffs of San Luis Obispo to Oxnard’s fertile plains.

Capps, 64, a two-term incumbent, has raised $1.34 million to win over 325,000 potential voters. She launched her campaign with a high-brow Hope Ranch fund-raiser starring the Democratic Party’s cheerleader-in-chief, former President Clinton.

Yet, political strategists say an upset is not out of the question. And that is largely because Capps’ competitor is smart -- and rich.

Beth Rogers, 56, who comes from a fourth-generation Ventura County farming family, has proved she can raise a lot of money too.

Rogers has more than matched Capps’ fund-raising with $1.44 million, though about half is from her own bank account.

In campaign appearances, Rogers has impressed audiences with her command of issues. She speaks fluent Spanish, a benefit with the growing number of local Latino residents.

Forty-two percent of the 23rd Congressional District is Latino.

Her conservative stance on taxes and moderate social beliefs make her an attractive candidate for the old-line Republicans in Santa Maria’s ranches and Santa Barbara’s tony hillsides, strategists say.

“Lois is facing, without a doubt, the strongest Republican she has ever faced,” said Allan Hoffenblum, a GOP strategist and publisher of the “California Target Book,” which tracks candidates in state and federal races.

“It’s one heck of a competitive race, because Rogers is actually spending the money. She’s raised over $1 million and she’s all over TV and radio,” he said.

So far, the Democrats aren’t too concerned.

Most of the party’s money and attention in California are focused on the tight race for an open Modesto congressional seat being vacated by Democratic Rep. Gary Condit.

Kim Rubey, a spokeswoman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in Washington, D.C., said Capps has a strong moderate record that will bring victory next month.

“We think she’s in good shape,” Rubey said.

A school nurse for 30 years, Capps assumed office for the first time five years ago after her congressman husband died of a heart attack.

Rogers, a no-nonsense businesswoman who runs her family’s sod farm near Camarillo, is mounting her first candidacy after years of working behind the scenes to elect moderate Republican women.

Both women have endured personal tragedies that shaped their lives.

Capps’ husband, Walter, a popular professor of religious studies at UC Santa Barbara, died just a few months into his first term.

Capps was thrust into the position of making funeral plans at the same time she was deciding whether to run for his seat.

She won in a special election in March 1998. Two years later, her oldest daughter, Lisa, a psychology professor at UC Berkeley, died of lung cancer at 35.

Those painful losses renewed her commitment to public service, Capps said.

“I see my job as helping people make things work,” she said.

Rogers’ first husband died from cancer, leaving her with two young children. That forced her to become “completely practical,” Rogers said.

She jumped into the family’s ranching business, remarried, earned a master’s degree in business administration and took over Pacific Sod, which employs 200 people.

Doctoral studies in anthropology took her to Mexico, where she became fluent in Spanish, Rogers said.

She and her husband, Richard, raised as foster parents the son of one of their Salvadoran workers.

Both candidates tilt toward a moderate political philosophy focused on such social issues as improving education, controlling health care costs, preserving Social Security and protecting the environment. But they differ in the details.

Capps does not support public funding of private schools through vouchers and said she never will. Rogers says they may be necessary to help students stuck in failing public schools.

Capps obtained a one-year moratorium on new oil drilling off the Central Coast and seeks a permanent ban on the leases.

Rogers opposes drilling, too, but said the offshore leases should be bought out by the government.

As for forest drilling, Rogers said she prefers to explore alternative energy sources and that the federal government should pay for the research.

Capps opposes the Bush administration’s review of the National Environmental Policy Act, the landmark 1969 legislation that paved the way for environmental scrutiny of federal projects; Rogers says the 33-year-old law has become unwieldy and “needs to be looked at.”

In a recent debate, the candidates offered starkly different views on the Bush administration’s call for a possible preemptive strike against Iraq to remove its leader, Saddam Hussein.

Capps, who voted to deny the president that authority earlier this month, said unilateral military action would be premature and potentially dangerous.

Rogers said she would have voted in favor of the Bush resolution, calling Hussein a “proven aggressor,” but prefers that the administration work with the United Nations.

Rogers’ campaign manager, Bob Tapella, said it was a difficult issue for the candidate because her 21-year-old son, Davis, is in the Air Force and could be called to action.

In the most recent fund-raising period, Capps raised $75,000 and had $635,890 in cash for the final days of the campaign.

Organized labor has been her biggest financial supporter, giving her $127,000 as of Sept. 30.

She also received sizable contributions from health care, communication and insurance interests and hundreds of checks from wealthy Santa Barbara supporters.

Finance reports show that Rogers is spending nearly every dollar that flows in.

She collected $48,000 during the first two weeks of October and lent herself $100,000. She has pumped $726,000 of her own money into the campaign so far.

With the election nine days away, Rogers had just $66,600 left.

A third candidate for the seat is Libertarian James Hill, 49, of Oceano, who inspects pressure pipes at the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant near San Luis Obispo. He is running on a platform of reducing government interference in people’s lives.

Hill says citizens are already overtaxed and over-regulated. If elected, he would work to limit the influence of special interests in government and close the U.S. Department of Education.

Hill’s entire campaign will cost less than $5,000, he said.

“Everyone should try it at least once,” he said. “It’s been an educational experience.”

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In the Running in District 23

LOIS CAPPS

Age: 64

Residence: Santa Barbara

Occupation: U.S. congresswoman

Education: Bachelor’s degree in nursing from Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Wash.; master’s in religion from Yale University; master’s in education from UC Santa Barbara.

Background: Former public school nurse in the Santa Barbara School District; former director of the Santa Barbara County Teenage Pregnancy and Parenting Project and the Child Enrichment Center; former part-time instructor for Early Childhood Education at Santa Barbara City College.

Personal: Widow of Rep. Walter Capps, to whom she was married for 37 years; mother to two grown children and the late Lisa Capps.

JAMES HILL

Age: 49

Residence: Oceano

Occupation: Inspects pipes at Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant

Education: Associate’s degree in economics from West Valley College in San Jose; completing a bachelor’s degree in engineering technology from Excelsior College in New York.

Background: Former member of advisory committee to Cal Occupational Safety and Health Administration; former treasurer/president of Northern Pacific Railway Historical Society.

Personal: Married to Lin, a dental office manger, for one year. Four grown children.

BETH ROGERS

Age: 57

Residence: Carpinteria

Occupation: Owner of Pacific Sod near Camarillo.

Education: Bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees in anthropology from UCLA; master’s of business administration from UCLA; graduate studies at the National School of Anthropology and History in Mexico City.

Background: Former board member of California Chamber of Commerce; former board member of Council for a Green Environment; advisory board member of Price Center for Entrepreneurship, UCLA Anderson School; founder/past president of Organization of Women Executives; founder of the Seneca Network; former member of California Regional Water Quality Control Board; former member of Environmental Affairs Commission for Los Angeles.

Personal: Married to Richard for 25 years, and mother to five grown children; fluent Spanish speaker.