Race for Assembly Reprises Rift Between Latino Leaders

In a race shadowed by the political ambitions of their backers, Cindy Montanez, the young mayor of San Fernando, has rocketed past her rival in campaign fund-raising for an open state Assembly seat in the northeast San Fernando Valley.

But money doesn’t necessarily spell victory in this poor, mostly Latino area of stucco bungalows, where campaigns are more often won by volunteers hammering signs into lawns than by consultants bombarding mailboxes with slick fliers.

Montanez and her Democratic primary opponent, Yolanda Fuentes, another young, politically savvy Latina, march door to door almost every evening seeking votes.

Whatever their similarities--and there are many--their showdown in the 39th Assembly District offers a reprise of a long-standing schism in Valley politics: the rift between Assemblyman Tony Cardenas and state Sen. Richard Alarcon.

Once close allies, the Sylmar Democrats parted ways over the 1999 battle for Alarcon’s old Los Angeles City Council seat, now held by council President Alex Padilla. Alarcon spurned Padilla as too inexperienced.

It practically takes a flow chart to keep the tangled allegiances straight. Now, with Alarcon backing the 28-year-old Montanez (who once worked in his office) and Cardenas supporting the 27-year-old Fuentes (his district director)--not to mention Padilla throwing his weight behind Fuentes (a childhood friend)--the race promises to reverberate beyond the 39th District.

“There isn’t a dime for the difference between them on the issues,” said Harvey Englander, a Democratic political consultant. “So it’s really a matter of building a power base rather than governance.”

The working-class district runs from Sylmar to Sun Valley, including Pacoima, Lake View Terrace and the city of San Fernando. Now an undisputed bastion of Latino political might, it elected its first Latino state lawmaker just six years ago: Cardenas.

In the race to succeed him, Montanez has raised more than four times as much cash and compiled a much longer list of endorsements than Fuentes. But the Fuentes camp insists that it can close the gap, noting that Padilla recently held a fund-raiser for her.

“Cindy may have won the insider battle, but you’ve got to win the election in the street,” said Rick Taylor, a political strategist who expects to sign on with the Fuentes campaign.

As of Jan. 19, Montanez had raised $214,629 and lent her campaign $9,000, according to the most recent campaign finance statements. Fuentes had collected $49,870 and lent herself $35,000. Montanez reported having $162,066 on hand, more than twice as much as Fuentes.

Montanez, who grew up in a one-bedroom San Fernando house she shared with her parents and five siblings, has always been a go-getter. She’s been bouncing out of bed at 5 a.m. since she was a child (when the entire family used to go jogging), and she was a competitive swimmer in high school.

During her first year at UCLA, Montanez joined a two-week hunger strike in support of the Chicano studies program. She later left school to be an intern with Alarcon, and has been working and trying to finish her studies ever since.

In 1999, at 25, she was elected to the San Fernando City Council. Last year her colleagues chose her as mayor.

“There’s never been a question in my head that my calling in life is to serve this community,” Montanez said.

In nearby Pacoima, Yolanda Fuentes, the youngest of four girls, was more of a musician than an athlete. She played the flute and later took up the saxophone to join her high school marching band.

Fuentes wanted to be a teacher, and at 18 she found a job at an elementary school supervising meal programs and working as a teacher’s assistant. She went to Mission College and then transferred to Cal State Northridge, graduating in 1997.

But her plans veered toward politics when Padilla, then an aide to Cardenas, suggested that Fuentes join their team. Three months later, Fuentes was managing Cardenas’ 1998 reelection campaign. She now works with constituents in his Valley district.

“I’m an advocate for the people,” Fuentes said. “I really understand the struggle of working families.”

In a district where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by 3 to 1, winning the March 5 primary is tantamount to winning the seat.

On paper, the candidates’ platforms are strikingly similar.

Montanez said her top priority is public safety, promising in her campaign literature to “tighten security at airports and other vulnerable public places.” She has also vowed to fight for more school funding and to bolster neighborhoods with affordable housing and clean industries.

For Fuentes, education comes first. She has emphasized her work on state legislation that created before- and after-school programs and parent centers on campuses. Fuentes--who survived a carjacking in August by leaping out of a moving vehicle--has also promised to improve public safety and ensure affordable prescription drugs for seniors.

Even their respective supporters describe the women in parallel terms.

“She’s very community-based, and she has a passion for helping others,” Padilla said of Fuentes. “She’s about as dedicated as anybody I’ve ever worked with,” Cardenas agreed.

Alarcon, for his part, called Montanez “intelligent beyond her years,” adding: “The other thing that was most noticeable was her incredible passion for helping people.”

Both women say they are independent, devoted only to what’s best for constituents.

This much is clear: An articulate, committed young woman, the latest in a crop of home-grown leaders from the northeast Valley, will soon be on her way to Sacramento.