CALIFORNIA ELECTIONS : STATE SENATE : Voter Discontent, Remapping Cloud 3 Lawmakers’ Chances

SACRAMENTO —  For Bob, Henry and Dan, three powerful male incumbents who collectively have 70 years of experience in the Legislature, the usually trouble-free highway to reelection has detoured into a double danger zone.

First, in what is supposed to be a Year of the Anti-Incumbent, Sens. Robert G. Beverly (R-Redondo Beach), Henry J. Mello (D-Santa Cruz) and Daniel E. Boatwright (D-Concord) are running scared.

Second, each is seeking another four-year term in the state Senate within districts redrawn by the state Supreme Court last winter. Consequently, they are strangers to many voters despite their longevity in Sacramento.

The potent mix of confronting new territory when anti-incumbent fever is believed to be of epidemic proportions in California legislative races has propelled Beverly, Mello and Boatwright to the top of the vulnerable list.

Tacticians for the three veterans, who occupy positions of immense power in the Senate, cautiously forecast that the three will survive--barring a deluge of big campaign money by the opposition in the critical two weeks before the Nov. 3 election.

In another tight race, Republicans have chosen in what has been labeled the Year of the Woman to target Sen. Lucy Killea of San Diego, a Democrat-turned-independent, in an effort to recapture a GOP seat they lost to her two years ago.

Although the depth of voter preference for women or anger with incumbents cannot be known until Election Day, campaign tacticians say they foresee no substantial shift in power from majority Democrats to Republicans in the Senate. The major fight is being waged over control of the Assembly.

“We would be happy if we hold our own,” said Senate Democratic Leader David A. Roberti (D-Van Nuys), who got a dose of voter fury last spring when he narrowly won a costly special election in a new district.

Democrats outnumber Republicans 24 to 13 in the Senate, where 20 of 40 seats are at stake Nov. 3. There are two independents and a vacancy. Because of court-ordered reapportionment, Democrats are expected to lose at least two members, but hope to recover the losses next spring in a series of expected special elections.

Districts occupied by Democrats Rose Ann Vuich of Dinuba and Cecil N. Green of Norwalk were collapsed during redistricting and moved to territory more favorable to Republicans.

Although virtually every incumbent senator seeking reelection feels heat from voters and suffers the job security anxieties of reapportionment, the race between veteran Beverly and his upstart challenger, Democrat Brian Finander, has shaped up as a classic demonstration of these two forces at work.

“Frankly, I think it’s a measure of the anti-incumbency thing more than anything else,” Beverly said of Finander’s insurgent gains against him.

Beverly, a moderate Republican who was elected to the Assembly in 1967 and the Senate in 1976, is a popular and accommodating member of the Senate who serves on the powerful Rules Committee. An insider, he has not faced a tough race in years.

But Beverly proved to be surprisingly vulnerable at the hands of a challenger in the GOP primary. That weakness, coupled with a realigned district, half of which he has not represented, made him an inviting target to Finander. In addition, the new district contains a big bloc of Democrats, who outnumber Republicans 46% to 42%.

Both sides say they have public opinion samplings showing Beverly with shallow support at a time when politically ailing President Bush is at the top of the Republican ticket and defense cuts are taking a heavy employment toll in the district.

“I’m not going to say this race will be a cakewalk, but it is not Sherman’s march to the sea either,” said longtime Beverly assistant Tom Long.

Opposing strategists say the key to the outcome for Beverly, Boatwright and Mello may be whether an avalanche of money is poured against them in the closing days.

So far, in keeping with an unwritten bipartisan Senate “nonaggression” pact, campaign funds from Roberti have not been sent to Democrat Finander. Likewise, it appears that Senate GOP Leader Ken Maddy has not spent cash directly against Mello and Boatwright.

For decades, senators of both parties, with some exceptions, have refused to spend their campaign funds against an opposition incumbent. Roberti declines to rule out violating the pact, but said: “It is imperative for us to defend Boatwright and Mello and then see what our options are.”

Other sources of funds are not bound by the Senate’s pact, including the official Democratic Party. Party Chairman Phil Angelides said Finander, seeking his first public office, has established himself as a credible candidate and may be in line for extra campaign help.

“In the next week to 10 days, depending upon how fund raising goes, we will be taking a good, hard look at that race,” Angelides said. “If we have the resources, it’s possible we can tip the balance.”

However, a chief Republican campaign strategist said he believes Beverly will survive because “Bob got his wake-up call in the primary, is working hard and will do whatever he has to do to win.”

In the balancing-act politics of the California Senate, it also might not be in the best interests of Democrats to oust Beverly, who is often a Democratic ally, sources said. If Beverly were to fall, moderates might lose their narrow control of the Senate GOP caucus to conservatives.

Further, if the nonaggression pact were violated by one side, the other side would retaliate in what one Democratic senator described as the costly “lobbing of the ICBMs back and forth.”

In San Diego, Killea, one of the Senate’s two independents, is facing a well-financed challenge by former Sen. Jim Ellis, a conservative Republican who retired in 1988. He has campaigned as an experienced hand in Sacramento.

Killea’s reapportioned district is 44% Republican to 39% Democratic, but no Democrat is listed on the Senate ballot. The district also contains 13.2% independents, who mathematically could reelect Killea if Democrats united behind her.

Ellis and Killea have campaigned hard, although as an independent she does not have the access to contributions she had as a Democrat. Nor is Killea protected by the Democrat-Republican nonaggression agreement.

“I think it is a tossup,” said one high-level GOP strategist. “Lucy is a phenomenally well-liked individual.”

In the north, Boatwright, a member of the Legislature since 1973 and chairman of the Senate committee that regulates everything from physicians to funeral directors, is a GOP target. In a substantially reshaped district, he is contested by Gilbert R. Marguth, a one-term Republican assemblyman in the early 1980s.

“Ellis is our No. 1 priority and Marguth is No. 2,” the GOP strategist said. “Dan (Boatwright) is as vulnerable as any incumbent this year.” On the other side, a Democratic analyst said that “we feel comfortable about Boatwright right now, but he has to stay on top of it.”

In a realigned Central Coast and inland district, Mello, a relentless fund-raiser, also is a GOP target. Even though he rates high on the Republican “vulnerable” index after being wounded in the June primary, campaign analysts on both sides said they sense that he probably will win a fourth Senate term.