California Elections : High-Tech Republicans Mobilize to Oust Conservative GOP Congressman Konnyu

MENLO PARK, Calif. —  In the dry foothills above Stanford University, a complex of wood-shingled offices set amid pines and green lawns is the center, symbolically and financially, of an unusual move by wealthy entrepreneurs to oust a fellow Republican from Congress on June 7.

The campus-like complex, known as 3000 Sand Hill Road, is home to more venture capitalists than anywhere else in Northern California. In the world of high technology, the address is known as the place to find generous investors willing to take a risk on new ideas.

This spring the Sand Hill Road group is betting on an effort to topple Rep. Ernest Konnyu, a Hungarian emigre and staunch anti-Communist, after one term in Congress. Konnyu belongs to the same party as most of the investors, and he worked for a Silicon Valley electronics firm before going into politics. But there’s a clash of style at work that transcends politics.

Konnyu’s 12th District is second only to a congressional district in Connecticut in the academic level of its voters. The hillside towns around Stanford are distinctly intellectual, and the Republicans there boast proudly of their independence from the Reagan line and the party’s more conservative voices. It is the home district of former Rep. Paul N. (Pete) McCloskey, the maverick Republican who tried to thwart the reelection of Richard Nixon in 1972.

Konnyu hails not from the high-tech community around Stanford but from Saratoga, a suburban city near San Jose. His most loyal supporters live there and in the flatland towns reaching south all the way to Gilroy--conservatives who can’t afford to send their children to Stanford or to live in the nearby hills.

The Sand Hill Road crowd and Republican leaders in Silicon Valley backed Konnyu when he ran two years ago as a state assemblyman known for his conservative dogma and a crusade to enact the state workfare law. But Konnyu was replacing moderate Rep. Ed Zschau, a product of the high-tech world, and the relationship never grew close.

Then last summer, Konnyu, in office less than a year, stumbled into a series of controversies over his attitudes toward women. He was accused by aides of sexual harassment and was quoted making public references to the size of women’s breasts.

Soon after, Konnyu’s former supporters in high-tech industries threw their money and influence behind Tom Campbell, a 35-year-old Stanford economist and law professor who began political life by voting for George McGovern and then worked in the White House briefly at the start of the Reagan era.

More Money Raised

Campbell has raised $135,000 more than Konnyu, much of it from venture capitalists with offices at Sand Hill Road, and Zschau, who left Congress in 1986 to run for the U.S. Senate. Campbell also has the backing of David Packard, co-founder of Hewlett-Packard Co. and adviser to many GOP presidents, and a long list of other big names in electronics and computers.

“Ed Zschau was in close contact with us,” said John A. Sculley, chairman of Apple Computer, at a news conference for Campbell. “In the five years I’ve been here I’ve never even met Ernie Konnyu. . . . We at Apple Computer do not feel well-represented.”

Both camps have veered away from the issues and become involved in exchanges that exposed their underlying differences in style, and even a dislike for each other.

McCloskey has called Konnyu an “embarrassment,” and Sculley, asked if he agreed, demurred only slightly. “If our conversation surrounds ‘Is he an embarrassment,’ then something is wrong,” Sculley said. Speaking of other high-tech corporate leaders, Zschau said, “They don’t see him (Konnyu) as someone who commands tremendous respect in Washington.”

Complaints From Women

Konnyu was involved in a loud dispute in a Washington restaurant in 1987 after the chief lobbyist for E. F. Hutton, Polly Minor, said he touched her knee during lunch. A female aide, who has left the staff, said Konnyu made her move a name tag because he said it covered up her breast. Konnyu was later quoted in the San Jose Mercury as saying, “She is not exactly heavily stacked, OK?”

Another ex-aide told the Mercury last year that Konnyu kept telling her to dress more femininely and spend time with him after office hours. Konnyu has repeatedly denied all the charges.

Campbell has not touched directly on the allegations, but he has held two press conferences on women’s issues that appeared calculated to remind voters of the charges. He has also harshly criticized Konnyu for opposing a law that would have banned discrimination against women and minority groups by any school or institution that receives federal funds.

Konnyu’s backers, on the other hand, have sought to paint Campbell as an elitist who is out of touch with the rank-and-file Republicans in the area.

Different Social Class

“Ernie’s support comes from the kind of people who used to be on ‘Real People,’ ” said Dave Muller, a Konnyu campaign consultant. “Tom Campbell’s supporters would be on ‘Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.’ ”

Konnyu went on the attack last summer soon after Campbell, prompted by the accusations of sexual harassment, began planning his campaign. Konnyu sent a political mailer to Republican voters in the district last September blaming “McCloskey and his pseudo-Republican cronies” for his troubles.

He also has lashed out at Campbell for suggesting that the only way to balance the federal budget is to match $23 billion in spending cuts with a $23-billion increase in taxes on cigarettes, alcohol and gasoline. Konnyu prefers just to cut spending and spare the defense budget, an approach that Campbell--an economist who studied with Milton Friedman--called folly.

Nonetheless, the chairs of the Republican central committees in the three counties--Santa Clara, San Mateo and Santa Cruz--spanned by the 12th District have signed letters attacking Campbell. The letters denounce the call for higher taxes and also accuse Campbell of not being loyal to Reagan.

Need for Loyalty

One of them says: “Please don’t misunderstand. We are very proud of our district’s tradition of electing strong, independent leaders. But doesn’t Campbell have anything good to say about Ronald Reagan?”

If it’s true that the district’s Republicans admire academic achievement, then Campbell is in a strong position. He took his bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the University of Chicago in the same four years, graduated three years later from Harvard Law School, and four years later completed his Ph.D. in economics at Chicago.

Campbell also was a clerk to Supreme Court Justice Byron White and became a White House Fellow in the last months of the Carter Administration and at the start of the Reagan era. He then held a number of positions in the Reagan Administration, including executive assistant to a deputy attorney general and director of a bureau under the Federal Trade Commission. In 1983 he became the youngest professor to be appointed at Stanford Law School.

Although the district usually elects Republicans, a brutal primary campaign could leave the reputation of whoever wins vulnerable to a Democratic challenge. Santa Mateo County Supervisor Anna Eshoo is the best-known of five Democrats running in the primary.