ELECTIONS 49TH ASSEMBLY DISTRICT : 3 Incumbents Clash in Roles as Endorsers

WEST SAN GABRIEL VALLEY —  When a quirk of reapportionment put the homes of three Democratic Assembly members in the new 49th District, it was apparent that a strong clash of political ambitions was in the making.

As it turned out, a clash is occurring, but not the one expected. None of the incumbents chose to run in the new district, but they are still battling as backers of two of the four Democratic candidates.

Sidestepping the 49th District, Assembly members Xavier Becerra (D-Monterey Park) and Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-Los Angeles) opted to run for Congress and Richard Polanco (D-Los Angeles) moved so he could run in a neighboring Assembly district.

But they each have their favorites in the 49th District election, in which the demographics appear certain to give the San Gabriel Valley a new Latino Democratic leader.

The district, which includes Alhambra, Monterey Park, Rosemead, San Gabriel and a large part of East Los Angeles, is 55% Latino in population and 44% in voter registration. All four Democratic candidates are Latino.

Both Republican candidates are Asian, as are about 28% of the residents and nearly 13% of the voters. But Democrats outnumber Republicans more than 2 to 1.

Becerra and Roybal-Allard, along with County Supervisor Gloria Molina, are backing attorney Richard Fajardo in the Democratic race. Polanco is supporting Diane Martinez, a Garvey school board member and daughter of Rep. Matthew G. Martinez (D-Monterey Park).

The other Democrats, Robert Gomez, a senior deputy county counsel, and Richard Amador, a business attorney, lack endorsements from high-profile politicians but are waging vigorous campaigns nonetheless.

The Democrats are staying away from debate on political issues, instead keying mainly on differences in background and style.

Diane Martinez, 39, is the only one of the four Democrats who was committed to running before Becerra, who currently represents most of the area, abandoned plans to run for reelection and filed for Congress instead.

Martinez, who also ran against Becerra in 1990, said she is applying lessons learned from that race. Two years ago, she linked her campaign to her father’s, using joint signs and mailers. This time she is running independently “so people will know who I am and what my message is. We’re two different people, two different generations.”

She said she spent her last campaign trying “to be the person I thought people wanted to see. This time I’m running as me.”

Martinez describes herself as an introspective, analytical person who reads newspapers avidly, tries to put the issues in personal terms and talks plainly to voters.

She said she started her political career five years ago because she was outraged by cutbacks in the gifted children’s program at her daughter’s school. Running as an “angry parent,” she won a seat on the Garvey school board in 1987 and gained a second term last year without opposition.

Now she is running for the Assembly as an angry taxpayer, charging that the state has wasted money, usurped local control and benefited the rich.

In terms of educational advancement, Martinez is the least accomplished of the Democratic candidates. Her opponents have law degrees; her education ended at East Los Angeles College when she left school to get married.

She worked for Pacific Telephone for 10 years and then became director of telecommunications for API Security, a security company, overseeing a budget of $250,000 a month. She was laid off in January after seven years on the job. Martinez said the layoff, part of a company retrenchment, was “a real slap of reality.”

She said that she worried that her job loss might damage her politically but that a consultant told her: “Don’t be embarrassed; there are a lot of people in that boat.”

Martinez said being the only female candidate against a field of three attorneys may work in her favor. She said voters tell her they do not like lawyers and will vote for women because “men have pretty much messed things up.”

Fajardo said running against lawyers might be politically advantageous, but “I tend to think of myself as a different kind of lawyer. The practice I have has not been the traditional ambulance-chasing, personal-injury lawyer out to make a lot of money. All the work I have done has been in public service.”

Fajardo, 40, grew up in East Los Angeles, earned a college degree in economics and worked as a budget analyst for the city of Oxnard before changing his career path. “I got tired of being an administrator and I was not moving into policy, so I decided to try a different approach through law,” he said.

After getting a law degree at UCLA, Fajardo went to work for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, first working on legislative issues in Washington, then serving as staff attorney in Los Angeles. He was MALDEF’s lead counsel in the case that found that the County Board of Supervisors had discriminated against Latinos in drawing supervisorial districts. The court-ordered redistricting led to Molina’s election.

The theme of his campaign is that he will go to Sacramento to fight for the community with the same vigor he has brought to his court battles for MALDEF and more recently as a private lawyer taking public interest cases.

Citing issues ranging from malathion spraying to the location of a waste incinerator, Fajardo said voters are upset because “the state bureaucracy and the state special interests have been imposing various projects and programs within the community either without consulting the community or sometimes in direct conflict with what the community wants.”

Fajardo said he expects to spend $100,000 on his campaign. Martinez said she expects to raise no more than half the $125,000 she raised two years ago because of the recession and the competition for political donations.

Gomez and Amador said they expect to be outspent and are touting the fact that their campaigns are not financed by any political faction as evidence of their independence.

“We need to elect independent people who don’t owe anything to anybody,” Amador said. “People are tired of machine politics.”

He said he is the only candidate stressing political reform. His platform calls for a $1,000 limit on campaign contributions and a law banning ex-legislators from working as lobbyists.

Amador, who worked with Fajardo as a legal volunteer on the county supervisorial redistricting case, said he regards his opponent as a friend. But, he said, Fajardo is an outsider with no political base in the San Gabriel Valley.

Fajardo was registered to vote in Highland Park, outside the district, until March 11, when he re-registered at an Alhambra address. Fajardo said that although he moved to Alhambra only recently, he grew up in the district and lived in it for many years.

Nevertheless, Amador said, he knows the district much better than Fajardo. Amador, 29, grew up in Monterey Park, where his mother served as city clerk for four years. His father served on the Alhambra school board for 12 years.

Amador is an attorney in private practice specializing in work for small businesses. He is vice chairman of a Los Angeles city pension fund with $3.6 billion in assets.

He said one fact is being overlooked: The district has nearly as many Anglo voters as Latino voters even though Anglos make up about 15% of the population. Factor in the Asian vote, Amador said, and “this is not a Latino seat; this is everything,” and the winner is likely to be the candidate who can appeal to all groups. Amador noted that he has the endorsement of Unity L.A., a multiracial group that promotes racial harmony.

Like Amador, Gomez is stressing his political independence and his ties to the community. His official biography says: “If you’re sick and tired of professional politicians, you’ll like Bob Gomez.”

Gomez said he is running because “I got tired of the same old people doing the same old thing. . . . I compared my own experience and qualifications and thought I could do a good job.”

At 56, Gomez has a long record of community activities, ranging from a role as a founding member of the East Los Angeles Jaycees to service on a host of community boards dealing with housing, education and other issues.

He served in the Army and started work as an urban planner with the county in 1960. He worked on the Willowbrook Model Neighborhood Program, directed the Maravilla Neighborhood Development Project and became deputy director of community development for the county. President Carter appointed him as deputy assistant director of the Department of Housing and Urban Development in 1980, but he left in 1981 in a disagreement with the policies of the Reagan Administration.

Since 1985, Gomez has been working on probate and real estate law as an attorney in the county counsel’s office.

Although the four Democrats are generally in agreement on major issues, they differ on the death penalty. Fajardo and Gomez oppose the death penalty; Martinez supports it and Amador said he supports it in the case of multiple murders.

All of them support abortion rights, an issue that divides the two Republican candidates, Sophie C. Wong, an Alhambra school board member, and Beth Fujishige, assistant to the city manager in Monterey Park.

Wong said she would restrict abortion to cases of rape, incest or danger to the mother’s life. Fujishige opposes restrictions on abortion, which she believes infringe on personal freedom and deprive women of adequate medical care.

Fujishige, 28, said she has a strong background in issues of importance to the district from her work with the city of Monterey Park for the last two years. In addition, she said, she has worked diligently as a Republican volunteer, which has enabled her to gain endorsements from groups representing the moderate and conservative wings of the party.

Wong, 54, was elected to the Alhambra school board in 1990 and has served on a long list of boards of community organizations. She and her husband operate American Realty in Alhambra and she is past chairman and a founder of Golden Security Thrift & Loan in Alhambra.

The ballot also includes a Libertarian, computer programmer Kim Goldsworthy, who is unopposed.

49TH ASSEMBLY CANDIDATES

The 49th Assembly District includes Alhambra, Monterey Park, Rosemead, San Gabriel, the El Sereno section of Los Angeles and the unincorporated areas of South San Gabriel and part of East Los Angeles. Here are brief biographies of the four Democrats and two Republicans (Fujishige and Wong) in the June 2 primary. Richard Amador Born: May 1, 1963 Residence: El Sereno Education: BA in political science, UCLA; JD, Boalt Hall at UC Berkeley. Career highlights: Law practice serving small business; vice chairman of Los Angeles city pension fund; honored by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund for volunteer legal work. Personal: Wife, Alicia, is an attorney. Richard P. Fajardo Born: Oct. 26, 1951 Residence: Alhambra Education: BA and MA in economics from UC Santa Barbara; JD, UCLA Career highlights: Budget analyst for City of Oxnard before entering law. As attorney for MALDEF, worked on legislative issues in Washington and later was lead attorney in a case that forced the redistricting of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. Currently in private practice. Personal: Wife, Carole Thomas, is a paralegal. Robert Gomez Born: May 21, 1935 Residence: Alhambra Education: AA, East Los Angeles College; BA in political science, MS in public administratrion at Cal State Los Angeles; JD, Loyola University Law School. Career highlights: Deputy director of community development for Los Angeles County in 1970s; deputy assistant secretary of Housing and Urban Development 1980-81. Senior deputy with the county counsel’s office since 1985. Personal: Wife, Margarita Vasquez, is a county legislative analyst. Three children, one granddaughter. Diane Martinez Born: Jan. 14, 1953 Residence: Monterey Park Education: Attended East Los Angeles College. Majored in speech, no degree. Career highlights: Worked for Pacific Telephone for 10 years; until January was director of telecommunications for a large security services company. Elected twice to Garvey school board; currently president. Personal: Single. A 14-year-old daughter. Beth Fujishige Born: Feb. 1, 1964 Residence: Alhambra Education: BA in political science and history, UCLA. Career highlights: Administrative assistant to the city manager in Monterey Park. Past president of Japanese American Republicans and former chairman of the Youth Commission in Anaheim. Personal: Single Sophie C. Wong Born: May 20, 1937 Residence: Monterey Park Education: Attended Los Angeles City College, majoring in accounting, no degree. Career highlights: President of a real estate brokerage and past chairman of Golden Security Thrift and Loan, both in Alhambra. Elected to Alhambra school board. Also serves on numerous other boards, including San Gabriel Valley Medical Center. Personal: Husband, Norman, is a registered civil engineer and businessman. Two children.