ELECTIONS: CONGRESS : Sierra Club Withholds 19th District Endorsement

The Sierra Club has decided against endorsing either Rep. Robert J. Lagomarsino (R-Ventura) or his Democratic challenger despite efforts by both candidates to win the blessing of the nation’s largest environmental group.

The decision by the local chapter of the Sierra Club came as a surprise to both campaigns, which have tried to woo voters concerned about the environment by trading on the Sierra Club’s name and 400,000 national members.

In a recent newsletter to his constituents, Lagomarsino prominently displayed a letter from the Sierra Club president thanking him for pushing renewal of the federal Clean Air Act. The taxpayer-financed newsletter angered some local Sierra Club members who believed it made the letter look like an endorsement.

Earlier, Democratic challenger Anita Perez Ferguson erroneously claimed a Sierra Club endorsement in campaign literature after some club members hinted that it was forthcoming. The Ferguson campaign quickly retracted the statement.

“This news today is a complete surprise,” said Sam Rodriguez, Ferguson’s campaign manager. “If this is accurate, we will be disappointed.”

But he said he had not been officially notified of the decision and was not giving up hope that the Sierra Club would endorse Ferguson, who has the backing of the League of Conservation Voters and other environmental groups.

John Doherty, Lagomarsino’s spokesman, said he had no comment on the club’s decision.

Although the Sierra Club has decided to stay out of the area’s congressional politics, the local chapter has recommended that the club endorse Ginny Connell, a Democrat challenging Assemblyman Tom McClintock (R-Thousand Oaks).

In a meeting last month, the executive board of the Los Padres chapter also decided to recommend the endorsement of Oxnard Councilwoman Dorothy Maron, a Democrat who is running against Oxnard Mayor Nao Takasugi, a Republican. The Los Padres chapter has more than 6,000 members in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties.

Maron and Connell will not receive official endorsement until the recommendations are ratified by Sierra Club officials in Sacramento.

“I’m very excited,” Connell said. “For me it is an affirmation that a group as prestigious as the Sierra Club sees my concern about environmental issues in line with theirs.”

She said the pending endorsement is an indication of McClintock’s poor voting record on the environment and of the Sierra Club’s desire to be involved in the effort to replace him in the Assembly.

McClintock was unavailable for comment Monday.

Maron said she was delighted to receive the stamp of approval from the executive board of the Los Padres chapter.

“I’m in favor of keeping as much open space as possible, putting it into the greenbelt and keeping it there,” she said. “The mayor is looking to build houses there.”

Takasugi said he was displeased that the Sierra Club chapter would endorse one of his five mayoral opponents without giving him the opportunity to address the group to outline his views.

“If you review the voting record of Mrs. Maron and me, we have voted identically or similarly on every environmental and building issue that has come before the City Council,” he said.

Beverly Full, political action chairwoman of the Sierra Club’s local chapter, said the club’s executive board recommended Maron because “we felt we needed somebody we could trust to handle all of the problems with the development of Ormond Beach and other issues.”

In the 19th Congressional District race, Full said the political action committee voted unanimously in August to endorse Ferguson, but that recommendation was overturned by the executive board in September.

She said Ferguson was short one vote for the two-thirds vote needed to win the board’s endorsement. Some chapter board members decided not to vote for Ferguson’s endorsement because she has never held elective office, Full said.

“We don’t have any concrete evidence of where she stands other than the organizations she belongs to,” Full said.

As for Lagomarsino, she said the board did not endorse him even though he filled out a lengthy questionnaire, had it hand-delivered to her house and telephoned her personally to lobby for the endorsement.

“He did all of the things you are supposed to do, except vote the right way,” Full said. The Sierra Club relied heavily on the League of Conservation Voters’ score card of environmental votes in Congress, which gave Lagomarsino a 50% grade in 1989, up from 38% the year before.

“We are happy his record has improved a lot,” she said. “But there are a number of issues that we are not happy with.”

The group also decided not to endorse Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley). “His record is even worse than Lagomarsino’s record,” she said. On 10 key environmental votes in 1989, Gallegly voted correctly 30% of the time, according to the league score card.

She said the executive board is not supporting Gallegly’s Democratic challenger, Richard Freiman of Agoura Hills, because of his slim chances of defeating a Republican incumbent in an overwhelmingly Republican district. The 21st Congressional District includes eastern Ventura County and the westernmost portions of the San Fernando Valley.