Not Half the Conservatives They Used to Be

Like the nation as a whole, Ventura County has developed a split personality.

This county, always reliably conservative overall, showed its two political faces Tuesday.

It split down the middle when selecting a president, favoring Democrat Al Gore by 510 votes, or 0.2%, before 41,000 late-arriving absentee and damaged ballots are counted over the next few days.

It sent four Republicans and two Democrats to the Legislature and Congress, electing every incumbent on the ballot.

It trounced the Republican-backed student voucher initiative and supported new taxes by allowing school bonds to be approved by only 55% of voters, not two-thirds.

And always a bastion of support for law enforcement, it went the other way this time, preferring a statewide initiative that requires drug treatment, not jail, for convicted first-time drug users.

“We’ve become a county that can swing either way,” said Bruce Bradley, chief of county elections. “And the split is between the [Republican] east county and the [Democratic] west.”

After favoring Republicans Nixon, Ford and Reagan, county voters supported Clinton twice narrowly and now Gore, at least until election officials finish counting conservative-leaning absentee ballots Monday.

“It’s not the same county any more,” said Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley), easily elected to his eighth term. “There’s a difference between the kind of Republican you have now as compared to 10 years ago: It’s moved a little bit closer to the center.

“It hasn’t become liberal East Coast Republican or Silicon Valley Republican or Beverly Hills Republican,” he said. “But they’re moderate conservatives, not the hard conservatives a lot of people have made them out to be.”

As Ventura County was showing its centrist stripes, it also maintained its slow-growth tinge.

The county’s vaunted anti-sprawl Save Open Space and Agricultural Resources movement got a split decision as Santa Paula adopted a growth-control measure, but Fillmore rejected two such initiatives. Seven of 10 local cities--and voters countywide--have now imposed growth boundaries that can’t be expanded without a vote of the people.

At the same time, SOAR showed it has legs in local politics as its leaders secured seats on city councils in Moorpark and Thousand Oaks and the co-author of the countywide SOAR measure, Steve Bennett, won a seat on the county Board of Supervisors.

“The culture of Ventura County has changed,” Bennett said. “SOAR is now a mainstream part of the culture. Stopping urban sprawl and protecting the quality of our lives cuts across the traditional liberal-conservative split.”

And, in a dramatic statement, voters rejected 2 to 1 Community Memorial Hospital’s $2.3-million Measure O campaign, an initiative that played off voter distrust of county leaders in an effort to shift $260 million in public money to private hospitals.

County Democratic Chairman Hank Lacayo said he sees a lesson in the costly Measure O loss as compared with the expensive win by environmental candidates Ed Masry and Linda Parks in Thousand Oaks.

“I’m a bit confused,” mused a smiling Lacayo. “Measure O spends a lot of money and goes down. Masry and Parks spend a lot of money and win. Is it that voters can tell the difference between good and evil? I think so.”

Indeed, both Republicans and Democrats were counting their blessings Wednesday.

And they were all looking to the future, particularly at how new districts drawn every decade to reflect population changes will affect them. Since Democrats control the Legislature, they will redraw lines for state and congressional districts during the next year.

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Republican Gallegly fought off his strongest challenge since 1992, winning by 12.5 percentage points over Ventura attorney Michael Case, who spent about $725,000. Gallegly said he spent even less and banked $600,000 for future campaigns after polls showed him well ahead.

In 1991, redistricting cut conservative Thousand Oaks out of the conservative incumbent’s 23rd Congressional District, replacing it with liberal Oxnard. Democrats thought he was vulnerable. But no opponent has come within 12 points of defeating him over the last 10 years.

“I’m optimistic that, based on all the potential scenarios, this will only become a district that is more favorable to my political strengths,” Gallegly said. And he is anxious to begin work in a Republican-controlled Congress, assisted by a Republican president.

“But when you consider the [slim] margins in both houses,” he said, “it’s going to take a tremendous amount of effort in a bipartisan way to make things happen.”

On Wednesday, Case was thinking about the possibility of a second run at Gallegly, and what an extra $200,000 or $300,000 might have meant in getting his campaign on cable television--an expense that the unknown newcomer could not afford.

“What I don’t really know is did we get our message out and voters rejected it, or were we unable to get our message to them? That’s my frustration.”

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Another veteran Republican, Assemblyman Tom McClintock (R-Northridge) finished a cruise into the state Senate by defeating Simi Valley lawyer Dan Gonzalez, a Democrat, 57% to 43%.

Like Gallegly, McClintock canceled a planned ad blitz over the last three weeks after polls showed he didn’t need it. That allowed him to pay back $237,000 in loans and come out of the campaign without a debt.

First elected a Ventura County assemblyman in 1982, McClintock has completed his 10th general election with an eye on the future.

“I have done a lot of thinking about reapportionment, and I haven’t come up with a way they can get at me,” McClintock said. “Of course, they’re much more clever than I am.”

Long a legislative maverick, McClintock is also part of the 15-Republican minority in the 40-member state Senate.

He said his focus will be on presenting to lawmakers and the public options to Democratic plans, such as his successful 1990s campaign that led to a two-thirds reduction in the annual vehicle license tax.

He said he intends to propose a series of initiatives to restore the state’s infrastructure for water storage, electricity and highway construction.

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The easy win by Assemblywoman Hannah-Beth Jackson (D-Santa Barbara) over Republican Robin Sullivan--a 21-point spread in Ventura County and 29 points in Santa Barbara County--may serve as a springboard into the state Senate for the one-term incumbent, a rising Democratic star.

She is the leading contender to replace Sen. Jack O’Connell (D-San Luis Obispo) when he leaves because of term limits in 2002.

“I realize that is something I’m going to get asked about a lot,” Jackson said. “And I’ll have to give it careful thought. But it’s too early. I like what I’m doing now.”

Her priorities when she returns to Sacramento in January include completing unfinished business in education, water pollution and gun control.

She said she wants more state funding for middle and high schools to boost scores on basic skills tests. She will push to license handgun users. And she said she hopes to help improve or replace antiquated septic tank systems in areas such as El Rio.

She raised $1 million to defeat Sullivan but said she pulled back $200,000 when the GOP threat to spend $1 million to defeat her never materialized.

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The first task for Assemblyman Tony Strickland (R-Moorpark) after he eked out a 2.6% win over Somis teacher Roz McGrath was to be briefed on rules he will follow today in a Sacramento session to see who will lead Assembly Republicans next term. His party faces an uphill fight to force concessions from the Democrats, who hold a 50-30 majority in the chamber.

“Tony is one of five or six contenders,” said Jamie Fisfis, political director of the Assembly Republican Caucus. “Leadership changes are usually full of all kinds of interesting twists and turns, but there’s no evidence that this will be a bitter leadership battle. There are only 30 of us, so we need a unified caucus.”

Strickland, the Assembly’s youngest member, was a Republican whip in his first term.

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While both Republicans and Democrats celebrated victories Tuesday, elections boss Bradley was tallying up another disappointing election turnout.

Based on the issuance of a record number of absentee ballots, Bradley predicted an 80% showing. But even after 38,600 absentees are counted and perhaps half of the 5,500 damaged ballots are verified and counted, only 71% of registered voters will have cast ballots, he said. That’s about 273,000 voters, short of the record 276,000 that voted when Ross Perot roused the local electorate in 1992.

“For all the frantic activity of people trying to vote and asking for absentee ballots, they just didn’t vote,” Bradley said. “We thought the higher number of absentees meant more people would vote, but we didn’t entice any new voters.”