McClintock Seizes On County’s Fiscal Woes

Talk about bad timing.

Just as Supervisor Judy Mikels began to focus on higher office, Ventura County’s new chief administrator resigned, saying he had found overwhelming problems in county government that the Board of Supervisors lacked the political will to fix.

For Mikels, that huge dose of bad news came as she was girding for a sprint to the March 7 primary election, and already fighting an uphill battle against Assemblyman Tom McClintock to replace state Sen. Cathie Wright (R-Simi Valley).

“Obviously, it gives my opponent some political fodder,” Mikels said. “It has been difficult since people are saying, ‘Are things really that bad?’ instead of talking about my campaign.”

McClintock, who was pointedly ignoring Mikels a few months ago, has seized this opportunity.

“Obviously, it’s a major scandal,” he said last week, referring to the county’s $5-million budget deficit and its Medicare billing fiasco that will cost at least $23 million to resolve.

“I can’t imagine a stronger contrast between my record on financial issues,” said McClintock, the Republican candidate for state controller in 1994, “and the supervisors’ complete absence of budget oversight or spending control.”

Consider that the opening shot in the toughest battle on the local primary ballot: a Republican face-off between McClintock, 43, a conservative anti-tax crusader since first elected to the Assembly in 1982; and Mikels, 54, a moderate former homemaker, small-business owner and veteran local politician.

But it won’t be the last.

Mikels blasted McClintock last week as a far-right ideologue out of step with the politics of his district and out of touch with its needs.

She considers him a carpetbagger and a hypocrite, since the self-proclaimed taxpayer advocate usually lives with his family in a Sacramento suburb--not the one-bedroom Northridge apartment he claims as a legal residence--then collects $25,000 a year in taxpayer subsidies for room and board back in his San Fernando Valley district.

“I believe in representative democracy, but you can’t represent your district if you don’t live there,” Mikels said. “And I would say it is pretty hypocritical to say cut government spending and cut government waste, then to collect this money. It may not be illegal, but it’s hypocritical to espouse one policy and then not to live by it.”

Both Mikels and McClintock say the other’s criticisms are misleading.

Mikels stresses that she voted against the failed mental health and social services merger that indirectly prompted a Medicare billing fraud investigation. The probe resulted in penalties that have plunged the county budget into the red.

And she says she’s a strong leader in the county’s budget reform efforts.

McClintock Has Home Away From Home

McClintock, who grew up in Thousand Oaks and owns a rental house in his 38th Assembly District, says he lives in Sacramento most of the time because state government is based there. The arrangement has stabilized his family life.

“My wife and I want our family together as much as possible,” he said. “I go back to the district for the weekend. And the per diem [payment] is provided to every other member of the Legislature as reimbursement for the expense of maintaining two residences.”

Legislative officials said McClintock is violating no Assembly rule in accepting per diem payments even if he lives primarily in nearby Elk Grove, about 20 minutes from the Capitol.

Mikels and McClintock represent the conservative-moderate split among Republicans nationwide, and they give Republican voters a clear choice in a district their party hasn’t lost since the early 1970s.

Democratic candidate Daniel Gonzalez, a Simi Valley lawyer, is unopposed in the primary.

The 19th Senate District--which includes most of Ventura County and parts of the San Fernando and Santa Clarita valleys--is 42.5% Republican and 39.5% Democrat. Nearly two-thirds of its 389,000 registered voters live in Ventura County.

So far, McClintock appears to have the edge.

Drawing from an array of business and conservative donors statewide, including several free-spending Indian tribes, McClintock had $257,000 in cash reserve on Dec. 31, compared with Mikels’ $64,000. His largest contribution is a $100,000 loan from Edward Atsinger III, a Camarillo religious radio broadcast mogul.

Declarations filed last week show that McClintock extended his fund-raising lead during the last three months of 1999, a period when Mikels had hoped to host four campaign parties but held just two.

“We just ran into problems,” she said. “People had family in town for the holidays, and other Christmas parties.”

Mikels’ largest contribution last year--a $50,000 loan--came from Simi Valley insurance broker Reginall Richardson, the husband of the candidate’s aide and campaign treasurer, Jacqueline Richardson.

Mikels was hindered, too, by the abrupt resignation of chief administrator David Baker the day after Thanksgiving. As the Board of Supervisors scrambled to hire a replacement and to respond to Baker’s parting shots--he said the county was a financial and structural mess--Mikels lost valuable campaign time.

“The campaign just can’t be my first focus right now,” Mikels said. “My primary job is working to get the county on the right track. To get through this and come out with a better organization on the other side.”

McClintock also has a head start in name recognition in the sprawling 19th District, which comprises the 37th and 38th Assembly districts. He held the 37th Assembly seat from 1982 to 1992 while living in Thousand Oaks. And he has been a Northridge-based assemblyman in the 38th District since 1996.

“Nobody has that level of experience in the 19th District,” he said.

Mikels concedes the advantage. She is hardly known in Los Angeles County. But she says she is working hard to overcome that problem by attending a variety of public get-togethers. And she said she will make inroads there because of her moderate politics.

Democrats, in fact, outnumber Republicans by 5,000 registered voters in the Los Angeles County portion of the 19th District.

Democrat Gonzalez initially decided not to run for the seat because he figured a Republican would win the race, and he wanted moderate Democrats to cross over during the primary to help Mikels defeat McClintock. Only after she failed to raise much money did he jump in. He said he is running now so voters of both parties will have a solid moderate alternative to McClintock in the November general election.

“I think McClintock’s going to beat her because he’s got the Christian right’s money, which is a big bank account,” Gonzalez said. “Judy doesn’t have the same access, and he’ll outspend her 2 to 1 or 3 to 1.

“I think her best chance,” Gonzalez said, “is to attack McClintock’s dismal record on education funding and his failure to support gun control, even after the shootings at the Jewish children’s center in Granada Hills. She’s got to be out there pounding the streets and pounding his record. But I don’t see a lot of activity from her.”

Mikels said she is doing all she can. Early sunsets keep her from knocking on doors during the evenings. So she is concentrating on weekend canvassing.

“I still believe it’s doable,” she said. “When you think of name recognition in Ventura County, I’m as current and as local as my opponent. So the issue is Los Angeles County. And I’m going to be out there Saturdays and Sundays and evenings as available with a whole bunch of knocking and talking.”

What Mikels is telling voters is that she is the anti-McClintock.

“There’s a very big difference between the two of us,” she said. “I don’t believe my opponent has the hands-on, every-day experience in business I have. I am not interested in my own political ideology. I am a moderate . . . and I’m much more connected to the people. I take care of the basics: potholes and safety.”

Each Candidate Cites Key Endorsements

Mikels said she has received the endorsements of former Assemblyman Nao Takasugi, Ventura County Dist. Atty. Michael Bradbury, Sheriff Bob Brooks, all five members of the Simi Valley City Council and Los Angeles Councilman Hal Bernson. Sen. Wright, an old political enemy of McClintock, is also backing Mikels, but has not formally endorsed her.

“McClintock wants to grab headlines on these tax issues,” Wright said. “But when you try to get him in some discussion about Ventura County, he doesn’t want to be bothered.”

The rap on McClintock for years has been that his effectiveness has been marginalized because of his extreme anti-tax positions. He would sometimes cast the sole dissenting vote on a bill if it resulted in a tax increase. That would anger leaders in his own party.

But McClintock cites a record that he said shows he can work with both Democrats and Republicans, if the cause is just.

He notes that the Legislature approved his car tax initiative, resulting in a 35% cut in motorists’ annual license fees in the last two years.

He cites his leadership in the San Fernando Valley’s efforts to secede from Los Angeles. He wrote a 1997 bill that allows Valley voters to set up their own city if they prove it could sustain itself. Then he joined Democratic Assembly leader Robert Hertzberg of Sherman Oaks in promoting that effort.

He is also a member of the Republican Assembly leadership as policy director for the 32-member Republican Caucus.

McClintock said his candidacy is backed by most Republicans in the Legislature, including all top party leaders in the Senate and the Assembly minority leader.

“I think Tom is an independent Republican,” said Sen. Jim Brulte (R-Rancho Cucamonga), chairman of the Republican Caucus in the upper house. “He’s clearly one of the most knowledgeable members of the Legislature on state tax and budget issues. I would expect Tom to pick up in the Senate right where he leaves off in the Assembly--as a passionate advocate for smaller government and lower taxes.”

Assembly Republican leader Scott Baugh of Huntington Beach said McClintock is the party guru who drafted two of the three main policies Republicans plan to push this year--a further reduction in the vehicle license fees and a plan to rebuild state freeways.

“If it wasn’t for Tom McClintock we wouldn’t be talking about these things,” Baugh said.

McClintock is also endorsed by the state’s two largest taxpayers associations, Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich and Santa Clarita Mayor Joanne Darcy.

But some Assembly Democrats bristle at the mention of McClintock.

“Tom McClintock is absolutely a phony,” said Richard Floyd (D-Wilmington). “He stands up and berates us all whether it’s about spending a dime on schools or spending a quarter on roads or taking care of libraries. And he could be saving the taxpayers a whole lot of money by forgoing this per diem. To me, residence is where your family is and where your kids go to school.”

Mikels Points to ‘All the Right Votes’

Few doubt McClintock’s popularity with voters. He has never lost a legislative race, although he was defeated in 1992 for Congress and in the 1994 state controller’s race.

He was recruited in 1996 by several rich, conservative Republicans to run in the 38th Assembly District, which includes half of Thousand Oaks, Simi Valley and Fillmore.

He won the Republican primary easily, despite charges that as a Sacramento area resident he was a carpetbagger.

“I said then, what I’m saying now,” he said. “My roots in this district go back to 1965 when I was 9 years old. My wife and I graduated from Thousand Oaks High. Both our children were born at Los Robles hospital. I grew up and spent nearly my whole life there.”

Mikels, he said, should be the politician on the defensive.

“I’m a taxpayer watchdog. That’s where I’ve built my reputation,” he said. “And this Ventura County scandal provides a very strong contrast to that. Judy Mikels voted for the budgets that put them into this mess. And she was the chairman of the oversight committee responsible for the mental health department during the time the audit found massive financial irregularities.”

Mikels said she can’t be held responsible for mental health billing practices dating back to 1990, since she did not take office until 1995. Then she voted against the disastrous merger in 1998.

“I can point to all the right votes,” she said. “I can point to being fiscally conservative. I can say, yes we have a problem, but we’ve stepped up and are addressing it. I can say there is a positive way out, and that the same things we’ve learned can be applied on the state level.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

GOP Race in 19th State Senate District

Judy Mikels

Age: 54

Residence: Simi Valley

Occupation: Ventura County supervisor, 5th District, since 1995.

Education: Studied nursing for one year at Contra Costa College in Northern California.

Background: Homemaker and wife of Air Force husband, living in 16 locations, 1965-82. Operated her own picture frame business in Simi Valley, 1982-2000. Simi Valley planning commissioner, 1986-90; Simi Valley city councilwoman, 1990-95; former chairwoman of the Southern California Assn. of Governments and California Council of Governments.

Issues: She wants an increase in state education spending per pupil and more local flexibility in how to spend that money and in classroom curriculum. She wants to increase the state water supply, perhaps with more reservoirs or desalination plants. She criticizes Tom McClintock, who lives near Sacramento, for not living in his Assembly district and for collecting an extra $25,000 a year meant to reimburse lawmakers for residing in the capital during the legislative session.

Personal: Married for 35 years to John Mikels, an aerospace employee and retired Air Force lieutenant colonel. Mother of two adult sons.

*

Tom McClintock

Age: 43

Residence: Northridge

Occupation: Assemblyman, 38th District, since 1996.

Education: Bachelor’s degree in political science, UCLA, 1978.

Background: Thousand Oaks News-Chronicle columnist, 1976-80. Aide to state Sen. Ed Davis, 1980-1982; elected to the Assembly at age 26 and represented portions of Ventura County from 1982 to 1992. Worked for taxpayers’ advocacy group and policy think tank in Sacramento, 1992-96. Ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 1992 and state controller in 1994. Won current Assembly seat in 1996 and represents Simi Valley, Fillmore and parts of the San Fernando and Santa Clarita valleys.

Issues: He wants to cut taxes, dramatically reduce the size of government and streamline the bureaucracy. He stresses his background as a taxpayer advocate, his role in the San Fernando Valley secession movement and his success in gaining a 35% reduction in vehicle license fees. He wants to do away with the diamond lane on freeways to reduce congestion. He criticizes Judy Mikels for Ventura County’s budget and mental health billing problems.

Personal: Married for 12 years to Lori McClintock, a church secretary. Two children, ages 7 and 9.