LA Times Covers 42nd District Race

Received a nice mention today in the Los Angeles Times' coverage of the 42nd District race.

Please see below....

Candidates Spar for Seats of Democratic Legislators

From the Los Angeles Times
CALIFORNIA ELECTIONS

By Deborah Schoch
Times Staff Writer
May 25, 2006

A number of Los Angeles County Democrats are leaving the state Legislature this year, sparking keen interest in who will succeed them in districts stretching from Long Beach to Whittier to the San Fernando Valley.

Two veteran Assembly members hoping to succeed Sen. Debra Bowen are questioning each other's environmental credentials and campaign donors in a district that follows the coast from Wilmington to the Westside.

To succeed Assemblyman Paul Koretz, a health clinic director is sparring with a former Los Angeles city budget chairman in a wealthy district encompassing Beverly Hills, West Hollywood and Sherman Oaks.

And two legislators who oversee banking and prisons are targeting each other's records as they vie to fill Sen. Martha Escutia's seat on the county's eastern front.

Some Republicans and third-party candidates are running in these heavily Democratic districts, most with nominal campaigns. Many of these candidates appear not to have raised significant campaign money. One, Republican David Lee Anstrom of Torrance, says he is homeless and lives mostly in his car.

In the June 6 primary, registered Democrats must vote for Democratic candidates, Republicans for Republicans. Those not registered with a political party can vote for a Democrat, a Republican or an American Independent candidate by requesting the party's ballot at the polling place.

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Senate District 28

Voters in Bowen's district range from the very poor to the very rich. Half are white, 29% are Latino and 12% are Asian. The district is 47% Democratic and 29% Republican.

Democrats Jenny Oropeza and George Nakano are sparring to represent the long, mostly narrow district, which starts near the ports and refineries, and reaches north to Venice and West Los Angeles.

Both have made much of their environmental records — Nakano in fighting ocean pollution and protecting wetlands, Oropeza in working to clean the air around local ports.

Nakano, 70, of Torrance, represented the South Bay in the Assembly for three terms. A retired teacher and school administrator, he served 14 years on the Torrance City Council before heading to Sacramento.

As a councilman, Nakano helped the city bring a landmark suit against Mobil Oil that improved safety at the accident-plagued local refinery. He later wrote successful state bills to regulate wastewater and prevent cruise ships from dumping hazardous waste.

Oropeza, 48, worked as a political aide and campaigner, and served six years on the Long Beach school board and six years on the City Council before her election to the Assembly in 2000.

She said that having liver cancer led to her interest in reducing port pollution. A clean-air bill she introduced recently passed the Assembly, and she says to critics who fault her for not taking on pollution earlier, "I admittedly did not have a passion like I do now."

Oropeza criticizes Nakano for taking money from insurance companies and then failing to support insurance reforms after the 2003 wildfires. Nakano says that, unlike Oropeza, he has not accepted oil company money.

Oropeza's house is in a tiny piece of the district that juts east into Long Beach, and some critics note that she sat on the panel that approved new district lines. She acknowledges that she lobbied to have her home in the district, saying she wanted to represent its voters.

Two Republicans are running. Anstrom, 50, wants to ban dangerous pesticides, use of mercury in tooth fillings and fluoridated water. Cherryl Liddle, 49, of Redondo Beach, the former co-owner of a medical personnel agency, is highlighting the need for affordable healthcare.

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Assembly District 42

Another tempestuous race is underway in Brentwood, Beverly Hills, West Hollywood and Sherman Oaks, as Mike Feuer and Abbe Land seek Koretz's seat in a largely white district that includes some of California's wealthiest neighborhoods.

The district is 54% Democratic and 20% Republican.

A former Los Angeles city councilman, Feuer, 48, spent eight years as executive director of Los Angeles' Bet Tzedek, providing free help to the poor and elderly.

He was elected to the council in 1995 and left in 2001 to run unsuccessfully for city attorney. He is currently an attorney at Morrison & Foerster.

Land, 50, was development director at the Los Angeles Free Clinic, which offers free medical care to the needy. She became co-executive director in 2003.

Active in the drive to create West Hollywood, she was a city councilwoman from 1986 to 1997 and returned to the council in 2003.

Both candidates vow to work for healthcare reform. Land says her clinic work makes her uniquely suited.

Feuer says that at Bet Tzedek, he helped needy people get healthcare and that on the City Council, he worked to strengthen paramedic services.

Both also tout their civic experience. Feuer said that as chairman of the City Council's Budget Committee, he oversaw a $5-billion budget that was roughly 100 times larger than the $50-million West Hollywood budget. Land countered that "size is relative" and that she has helped get city budgets passed since 1986.

Five other candidates are running, including Democrat Cynthia Toussaint, 45, of Valley Village, a healthcare activist who has a chronic pain disease called reflex sympathetic dystrophy. Campaigning from a wheelchair, she promises to work for medical reforms because "I've lived it. I know what it's like not to get healthcare."

The other Democrats are Eric M. Fine, 42, of Beverly Hills, a property manager who wants to legalize marijuana and lower taxes, and Mark Gonzaga, 44, of West Hollywood, producer of a cable television talk show who supports improved education, animal welfare and more access to healthcare.

On the Republican ballot, Clark Baker, 48, of Los Angeles, a writer and retired LAPD officer, wants stronger border protection and education money assigned to each student to attend public, charter or private schools.

Steven Mark Sion, 43, an attorney from West Hollywood, said that he would propose a bill to break up large school districts and create smaller ones and that he supports incentives to promote alternative fuels.

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