Both Parties Trying to Sway the Independents

The South Bay’s beachy, suburban and increasingly prosperous 36th Congressional District has long been textbook swing voting territory. It’s the kind of place where Democratic and Republican candidates have about an equal chance--so long as they reflect the coastal district’s centrist political views.

It is little wonder, then, that both major parties vigorously battle for the Venice-to-San Pedro seat every two years. This time, however, the stakes and the volume are higher than ever. The race between Rep. Steven T. Kuykendall (R-Rancho Palos Verdes) and the seat’s previous occupant, Democrat Jane Harman of Rolling Hills, is expected to be one of the closest, most carefully watched House races in the nation.

Needing a net gain of just seven seats to retake the majority they lost in 1994, House Democratic leaders recruited Harman and are pushing hard for her and in a handful of key contested districts around the country.

The district’s voter registration is nearly evenly split between Republicans and Democrats (41% and 39%, respectively), and 20% of voters are aligned with neither major party. Voters there have shown themselves to be fiscally conservative but liberal on other issues: in favor of abortion rights, pro-gun control and pro-environment.

So the independents are crucial.

Analysts do not expect many voters in either major party to go for the opposite candidate, as they have in this district in past elections.

“Steve and Jane are battling for the same small group of [unaffiliated] voters,” said political analyst Allan Hoffenblum, publisher of the nonpartisan California Target Book. “They each have to motivate their base to turn out, and they have to persuade independents--who don’t care which party controls the House--to vote for them.”

The district includes some of the area’s best-known beaches, made famous by the Beach Boys’ surf rock music and the television series “Baywatch.” Once heavily dependent on aerospace and defense, the district has added jobs in technology and entertainment, a diversification for which Harman claims partial credit.

The district, which is 78% white, includes the affluent, environmentally conscious suburban cities of the Palos Verdes Peninsula--home to both Kuykendall and Harman--and the increasingly upscale communities of Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach and Redondo Beach. The district dips inland to take in middle-class Torrance--its largest city--as well as Lawndale and Lomita.

The biggest local issue in the campaign is the highly controversial proposed expansion of Los Angeles International Airport.

Harman and Kuykendall both say they want other airports in the region to take some of the projected increase in passengers and cargo. At their first candidates forum in Torrance last month, Harman said she would work to hold up Federal Aviation Administration funding until the agency responded to community concerns about existing airport noise problems. Kuykendall said he wants further study of the complicated issue before he offers specific solutions.

The two candidates expect to have raised roughly $2 million apiece by election day.

Harman has yet to dip into her considerable personal wealth, as she did when she first won the then-newly drawn, open seat in 1992. Then, Harman spent nearly $2.3 million, including $1.5 million of her own, using a good chunk on broadcast television ads. When she was reelected in 1994 and 1996, she spent $1.3 million and $1.6 million, respectively, with little or none coming from her or her husband, auto stereo manufacturer Sidney Harman.

She gave up the seat in 1998 in an unsuccessful bid for governor. Kuykendall, then a state assemblyman, went to Congress that year after narrowly defeating Democrat Janice Hahn.

Each party in recent weeks has sent some of its brightest political stars into the district to help out, another indication of the race’s importance nationally.

Harman has made campaign appearances with vice presidential candidate and Connecticut Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman and several Clinton administration Cabinet members--Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala, Commerce Secretary Norman Y. Mineta and Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt.

Kuykendall got help from House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) and Arizona Sen. John McCain, whose quest for the Republican presidential nomination drew independents and middle-of-the-road Republicans. New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman and former Transportation Secretary Elizabeth Hanford Dole campaigned here in Kuykendall’s place when he remained in Washington for the final weeks of the congressional session.

But party affiliation seems to matter little to district voters, who picked Bill Clinton over Bob Dole for president in 1996, 47% to 41%. But in 1998, Democratic incumbent Sen. Barbara Boxer barely carried the district against Republican Matt Fong, 49% to 48%.

In the March open primary, Kuykendall, who campaigned energetically, finished about 2 1/2 points ahead of Harman, who concentrated on fund-raising. He cites that outcome, and the fact that Harman failed to carry the district when she ran for her party’s nomination for governor, as evidence that voters are likely to send him back to Washington.

But Harman’s campaign believes her stands on such key issues as tax cuts, health care reform, education and Social Security more closely match voters’ views and will help her carry the day.

Harman opposes Republican efforts, which Kuykendall supports, to eliminate the income tax “marriage penalty” and the estate tax, calling instead for those funds to go toward such goals as paying down the national debt and adding a full prescription drug coverage benefit to Medicare.

Kuykendall and Harman also disagree about a patients’ “bill of rights,” dubbed Norwood-Dingell after its congressional authors. Harman said she would have voted for the bill, backed by medical, seniors and consumer groups. Kuykendall voted against it and in favor of alternative measures, saying Norwood-Dingell would allow workers to sue employers over a bad health insurance plan and would discourage companies from offering health insurance.

Harman, who uses “Our Views, Our Values” as her campaign slogan, hammers away at those issues as she stumps. She also cites a promise from Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) to restore her seniority in key committee assignments if the Democrats regain control of the House.

“We need people with experience and clout who can work on a bipartisan basis,” Harman told a women’s group of the Manhattan Beach Chamber of Commerce.

Kuykendall is stressing his 25-year roots in the district and his positions on the Rancho Palos Verdes City Council and in the state Assembly.

In cable television ads the Kuykendall campaign began running last week, several local officials talk about his service and accessibility and imply that Harman is an outsider who wants the seat as a springboard to another office.

Kuykendall, 53, an affable Marine Corps Vietnam veteran and former banker, has kept up a steady stream of weekend appearances at chamber of commerce mixers and other civic functions ever since his 1998 election to Congress. He is married and the father of a grown son and daughter, with another son still in high school.

Emphasizing Ties to Home Turf

He says he expected Democrats would target his seat this year, although he was surprised when House leaders persuaded Harman to jump into the race as the filing deadline loomed last year.

“A big distinction between us is that this has been my neighborhood for a long time, and I have a history of being able to do things for it,” Kuykendall said as he prepared for appearances at a lobster festival in Redondo Beach, a street fair in El Segundo and a pancake breakfast in Hermosa Beach.

Harman planned a lot of campaigning, including attending the same pancake breakfast as Kuykendall, precinct walks and more get-togethers in supporters’ homes throughout the district.

Born in New York and raised on Los Angeles’ Westside, Harman, 55, became an attorney and worked for then-Sen. John Tunney and the Carter administration before going into private practice in Washington. She moved to Rolling Hills in 1991 to run for Congress but still maintains a home in the Washington area. She has two adult and two school-age children.

John Konopka of the Reform Party, Libertarian Daniel Sherman and Matt Ornati of the Natural Law Party also are on the ballot.

As the election draws near, both parties are expected to step up the amounts of money and other aid they already are lavishing on the 36th District, including $1.3 million in broadcast television time the GOP has purchased to help Kuykendall and Rep. James E. Rogan (R-Glendale), who, in the Los Angeles area’s other top contest, is facing a strong challenge from state Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank).